Dear Harry: July 17, 1923
Transcript
Welcome to the Dear Bess/ Dear Harry podcast for July 17, 2023, brought to you by Harry S Truman National Historic Site, a unit of the National Park Service.
We have a treat for you today…a Dear Harry letter. They’re rare.
Why are they rare? Well, as Margaret Truman told the story in her 1950s autobiography, called Souvenir, one day former president Harry S Truman came home one day from his office in Kansas City (this was before the Truman Library was finished) and he found his wife, Bess, burning some papers in a fireplace in their home. After asking her what she was doing, she replied, and he, in turn implored his wife to “think of history.” She told her husband, “I have.” To this day, we really don’t know all of what Mrs. Truman burned in her fireplace. But we know that she burned most of her letters to her husband from when they were courting, between, likely, 1910 and 1919. Many years later, when Mrs. Margaret Truman Daniel published her wonderful Bess W. Truman, she quoted some letters that gave readers hints that she, indeed, had at least some letters that her mother wrote to her father. The earliest known letter from Bess Wallace to Harry Truman is from early 1919. We thank Margaret Truman and her sons for sharing these letters with us, and with history.
This letter is postmarked July 17, 1923, and includes persons important to the Trumans’ story. Truman himself was at Fort Leavenworth training. (Major Harry Truman was in his fourth year serving in the Army Reserves.) Mrs. Truman makes reference to Ted Marks, a friend of the family, who served as Harry Truman’s best man at their wedding June 28, 1919. She also makes reference to Eddie Jacobson, who Truman had befriended while training to serve in the Great War, and had opened a haberdashery in Kansas City. Mr. Jacobson played an instrumental role in the Truman administration’s decision in recognizing Israel in 1948. All these relationships were so important, you see.
Here's the letter.
Tuesday - noon Dear Old Sweetness: My! But I was glad to get that letter this morning. And it sure was a nice one - about the nicest I ever had. I'm glad you are so beautifully settled and are getting such excellent food. That was some breakfast! You'll have to be pretty strenuous to keep that front down. You certainly had a grand dinner at Tonganoxie. I wished all evening I had gone on with you. You weren't a bit "home sicker" than I was, I can tell you that. Thank goodness two nights are gone. Eddie called up this a.m. He was at Ted's and they wanted to go up to see you, and he wanted to know what you said about coming up and I told him to go on any day after six, so you may see them on Friday. I'd give my head to go -maybe he will ask me yet. The Swifts got off to Colorado early yesterday morning. He started that old car right on the dot of five o'clock - and I lay there in bed and watched them get ready. I wouldn't have missed seeing Mrs. Swift in knickers for a hundred dollars. Called Dr. Berry this morning - (the pictures came yesterday.) He said there were two he believed should come out - one back one and one front - (just on the side). He couldn't tell just how bad they were but that they might be secreting poison. I'm going up tomorrow and maybe have the big one and wisdom one out. There's no use putting it off. My temp. hasn't run over 99 for the last four or five days. Ho! Natalie and I spent all of yesterday morning in K.C. The sweater sale made a hit. We only bought three - one for her, one for Miss Rose and one for Mother. How did the map-reading class come out? Well, it's awfully darned lonesome but I know you are going to get lots of good out of the trip - and I'm glad too that you are taking it by yourself for I am sure you needed to get away from everything and everybody. Believe me I'll be up there if I can get there for you don't want to see me any worse than I want to you. I'm going to town to mail this so you will get it tomorrow.
Loads of love, Devotedly, Bess
A wonderful rarity for you today, a Dear Harry letter. Not many letters from Bess Wallace Truman survive, so it's a blessing to be able to share them with you when we can. She wrote this letter to her husband 100 years ago today.
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/24192609