Dear Bess: April 18, 1914
Transcript
Welcome to the Dear Bess/ Dear Harry podcast for April 18, 2023, brought to you by Harry S Truman National Historic Site, a unit of the National Park Service.
Today’s Dear Bess letter was written on April 18, 1914. We encourage you to click on the link and look at the digital original, specifically for the letterhead…J.A. Truman & Son, Farmers, Kansas City Home Phone Hickman 6. We really don’t have that many papers that survive with that letterhead. As you’ll hear, Mr. Truman must have just received it, and was obviously proud of it. Some fun tidbits in this letter. Instead of describing them, how about we just share the letter with you.
As always, we thank you for listening. This is our 40th year of being a National Park unit. We are eternally grateful to our visitors and all who make everything possible.
Dear Bess:
I am going to send you that letter I promised. It is not the delayed one but an entirely new brand. Also it is on a new brand of stationery. I kinda like the looks of this, so I thought I'd use it. Our disappeared man was on deck this morning madder than a Mexican pirate. Claimed he'd been down with his daughter all these days. He seemed to think it an impossibility for us to make connection with Belton. Papa let him go to work. The man we hired is a good one too, so I guess we'll have two for a month. Then the best one gets to stay. I am hoping they'll manage to get along all right.
I caught that car all right and got down in town at five minutes to one. That was a record trip. I had to go to E.B.T.'s this morning and part with the price of a pair of white silk gloves. I sure made a nice picture buying gloves elbow length. I must be a great little feminine shopper by this time. It is rather embarrassing sometimes to have a fresh clerk ask me if my wife is a large or small woman. I always say it's for my mother but I'm never believed.
Bess, I'm going to beg you for a phottgraft again. I wish you'd have yer pitur took in that hat, even if it is only a stamp. This is the couple of dozenth time I've asked for one, but I'm still hoping to get it just the same. I've been wanting you to have one taken in that hat if it's only one and that one for me. Please do. I'm going to get cheated out of a letter this week but the picture will do for a substitute. That's almost the same request I made in the other letter and that's all I didn't tell you last night. I know I'll get there Sunday evening and Monday evening now with two men.
Sincerely, Harry
Some fascinating tidbits in this Dear Bess letter, written on some spiffy new stationary!
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/157639063?objectPanel=transcription