Oral History Interview with
Mary Ethel Noland
First cousin of Harry S. Truman
Independence, Missouri
September 9, 1965
James R. Fuchs
[Notices and Restrictions | Interview
Transcript | Additional Noland Oral History
Transcripts]
NOTICE
This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for the Harry
S. Truman Library. A draft of this transcript was edited by the interviewee
but only minor emendations were made; therefore, the reader should remember
that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written
word.
Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview.
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for purposes of research. It may not be published in full except by permission
of the Harry S. Truman Library.
Opened 1966
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri
[Top of the Page | Notices
and Restrictions | Interview Transcript
| Additional Noland Oral History Transcripts]
Oral History Interview with
Mary Ethel Noland
Independence, Missouri
September 9, 1965
James R. Fuchs
[77]
FUCHS: Miss Noland, I believe when we finished our discussion the last
time, we were down to the point of Mr. Truman’s graduation from high school
in 1901. There are, however, a couple of things I want to ask you about
which precede that in chronology. I noticed Mr. Truman mentioned in his
Memoirs, "A pigtail baseball game." Does that mean anything
to you? What is a pigtail baseball game?
NOLAND: I don’t know.
FUCHS: Also, he mentions a family named the McCarrolls? Who were they?
NOLAND: Well, just neighbors with a houseful of boys, four or five boys.
They were no relation.
[78] There was quite a group of boys that lived out
there around Waldo where they lived, and, oh, they played there at Truman’s
a great deal. I remember the names of a lot of them.
FUCHS: Who were some of them that you recall?
NOLAND: Well, one of them was Bernard Pittman. That was the Pittman house,
where the Trumans lived but the Pittmans had moved a block or so away
to another place after they sold the house to the Trumans. And then there
was Paul Bryant, another one, and, of course, Vivian and Harry, and the
two Houchens boys that lived south of them a block. Their lots cornered
each other. There was an alley between them. Everybody had a horse then
and the Houchens family had one, the Trumans had one, everybody had a
horse. So, there was a lot of room to play--lots were big then--you didn’t
have just a [79]
fifty foot lot ordinarily, and if you did, then it ran way
back so that you had room for the children to play. And these boys used
to play a great deal. Harry never did enter into the baseball because
he wore glasses and he couldn’t see the ball without the glasses, and
of course, he couldn’t run the risk of breaking those glasses by being
struck with the ball. So he was umpire and would just do things of that
type, but never played baseball with them. Harry never seemed to get into
the mischief that the other boys did and I think there was a good deal
of mischief going around. Oh, harmless enough, but mischief. One day,
one of the neighbors on the street back of them was very much incensed
because these boys had thrown at her chickens and had been a nuisance,
generally. So she hurried over to the Truman home and said, "Your older boy was
[80]
in on it this time, Now, don’t say he wasn’t, because this time he was."
So, Harry’s mother said, "Well, just wait and we’ll see, we’ll find
out. If he was, why, we’re not going to excuse him, but we won’t blame
him unless he’s guilty."
So she called all the boys in and asked each one if Harry had any hand
at throwing at the neighbors’ chickens. Well, they all said, "no."
They all admitted they did, Vivian and all the rest, but they all
said that Harry had nothing to do with it. So that exonerated Harry. The
neighbor went home a little crestfallen, and, I hope, convinced that he
didn’t. But he was more of a peacemaker. He was full of fun, but he never
seemed to get into the scrapes that the other boys did, but with all of
that they loved him. You know, sometimes a boy like that is none
[81] too popular.
FUCHS: What about the Truman lot. What do you recall of that, the story
about various stock that he kept there?
NOLAND: Yes. Down at the other place, the Blitz house that we talked
about before, he had a good deal more ground down there, enough to have
some livestock--oh, not herds or anything of that kind, but just a few.
And he had room for this fine garden. He was a great gardener. I remember
one thing that he raised that was very rare and that was the yellow tomato,
a tomato that was yellow after it was ripe. And he called it the peach
tomato. Oh, beautiful and fine flavored and he liked to do those things,
but that lot went way down the street there on Crysler. I’ve forgotten
how far. But out here he had just a few head of cattle
[82] that he might be
trading on the side or something like that; but no great number of cattle.
FUCHS: In other words, he might just have had a cow or some piece of
livestock that he was temporarily keeping there, in transit almost.
NOLAND: That’s the idea exactly.
FUCHS: He did keep a horse there all the time?
NOLAND: Yes, he had a horse. It was a white horse, and sometimes when
Harry was going to a party, he would take some of the cousins, or one
of the cousins, whoever was invited, or several of them if they were invited,
and drive the white horse to the party.
FUCHS: This horse was always driven attached to a buggy rather than ridden?
NOLAND: That’s right. And sometimes the boys rode
[83] it.
FUCHS: Oh, they did ride it. Was that just for pleasure or would they
ride it to go someplace in particular?
NOLAND: Oh, just for pleasure. That was past the day of going to parties
horseback. Now, I noticed that this recent book about the women of the
White House--have you seen that?
FUCHS: No, I haven’t; I know of it.
NOLAND: Well, there’s just about a dozen that this lady has written about
and Mrs. Truman is one of them and it was rather hard to see why she picked
the ones that she did pick. It said that he used to ride horseback from
Grandview to see Bess. Nothing could have been farther from the facts
than that because it was past the day when people rode horses
[84] to get anywhere.
That would be a good long ride--fifteen miles. So, usually before he had
a car he came on the Frisco, which came to Sheffield and then he could
get on the streetcar and come on in to Independence. It was a very easy
way to get here. It went through Grandview. So that was the main way to
get back and forth out there at that time.
FUCHS: This is a little bit ahead of the story, but when would he have
started coming from Grandview to Independence to see Bess?
NOLAND: That depends on when he returned the cakeplate. I don’t know
that year. I can’t determine when it was. It was before 1915.
FUCHS: Of course, he didn’t return to the farm until 1906 from Kansas
City, and he was at the farm at that time, when he returned the cakeplate.
[85] NOLAND: Yes, he was.
FUCHS: So, it’s definitely between 1906 and 1915.
NOLAND: Yes, or 14 even. And I would say that it was even earlier than
1914, because when Uncle John died Bess went with us to the funeral. The
funeral service was conducted at the home in Grandview and then he was
buried in Forest Hill Cemetery. And she went on the train as I was telling
you, on the streetcar to Sheffield and then we took the Frisco and went
on that to Grandview.
FUCHS: I believe he died November 3, 1914.
NOLAND: 1914. So you see it would have been somewhat earlier than that.
FUCHS: When did he get his car? It seems to me that--it sticks in my
mind that it was a 1912 Stafford, but I don’t know if he got it new.
[86]
NOLAND: He didn’t, I don’t think. He got a used car but if it was 1912--if
you say it was--I would say that was about right.
FUCHS: If it was a 1912 Stafford, it seems like he might have gotten
it in late ‘12 or ‘13. Would that have been correct? Did he have the car
at the time of the cakeplate incident, do you recall?
NOLAND: I just couldn’t be definite. But before he got the car he was
going there, because he would stay here all night if he had a date over
there, because it was a long trip to go out there, and there probably
wasn’t a night train at that time. And he could stay here very easily,
which he did, sometimes two or three times a week. That was before he
got the Stafford, so he was going there before 1912 or
[87] ‘13, whenever he
got the car. So the cakeplate incident must have been, maybe as early as 1910.
FUCHS: Yes, because he wouldn’t have been coming up here regularly before
that incident, would he?
NOLAND: No, he wouldn’t have been going over there at all. And while
he was in and out of here a good deal, and just, oh, whenever he wanted
to be, still he wouldn’t be coming regularly as you say.
FUCHS: Well, then when he was here on that occasion, upon which he took
the cakeplate back, it was just a visit, a social visit, it wasn’t for
studying. Some writers have telescoped the years.
NOLAND: They do, they don’t know what to make of
[88] that long gap in there.
They can’t understand it. But life was more or less full and he wasn’t
ready. Well, his life had been late blooming all along, hasn’t it? And
he was deliberate about it. He didn’t marry until he was 35. He didn’t
get into politics early, he didn’t do anything early.
FUCHS: Well, I can’t think of any good reason why he should have been
in a hurry, right now.
NOLAND: He couldn’t then. It was a more deliberate time than it is now.
FUCHS: Everyone has to go at his own pace, I think.
NOLAND: I think so, I think so. That is why it is pitiable to see a child
prodigy. They’re pushed into something. They’re remarkable,
[89] like little
Shirley Temple. Oh, how interesting they are, but when they’re grown up
they’re no more remarkable than a million others, and they’ve lived their
lives. It’s rather pathetic.
FUCHS: Yes. Well, when Mr. Truman--Harry--graduated, do you recall what
he did that summer of 1901?
NOLAND: Now, whether it was 1901 or later I’m not sure, but he was timekeeper
for the Smith Construction Company down on the river somewhere. Now whether
that was immediately after his graduation I’m not sure.
FUCHS: Well, that was a point that I was trying to clear up because his
biographer, Daniels, says that he didn’t work that first summer, but he
did take a trip to Murphysboro, but it was the following year he worked
for the construction
[90] company; whereas Mr. Truman recalls it a little bit
differently in his Memoirs, which is understandable, of course.
NOLAND: Well, you may be right. His Aunt Ada, Mrs. Van Clooster, lived
in Murphysboro and I know he did take a trip. In fact he kept up with
all the relatives and it was amazing how he liked to do that on both sides,
his mother’s side and his father’s side. He went to Texas once or twice
and visited all the relatives down there, numerous cousins, whom I had
never seen and barely know their names; but he knew them all very well
and they all thought the world of Harry. He was sort of a liaison member
of the family that kept up the connection that kept us all interested
in each other, and more or less friendly.
FUCHS: Do you remember him going to Texas at an
[91] earlier day when he was quite young?
NOLAND: Yes, they went down there, the whole family did, though I don’t
know at what age, but they visited my Uncle William and his family. Uncle
Will had married a second time. I never saw either wife, but they knew
them and they were on the friendliest terms. That would be Ralph Truman’
s father and stepmother.
FUCHS: You would say that he went to Texas prior to his graduation from
high school?
NOLAND: Yes, I would say so.
FUCHS: Are there any incidents in connection with his service as a timekeeper
with this construction company that stand out in your memory?
NOLAND: Well, he used to entertain us with stories of the people he dealt
with down there, a little strange to him maybe, because he had been very
[92]
carefully brought up and rather shielded, as you can see. But he was at
home with the roughnecks that worked down there and he used to tell and
laugh about how they would come back to work on Monday after a big spree.
And they would drink anything. And he said he couldn’t keep red ink because
they’d drink up all of his red ink when they were sobering up.
FUCHS: Then, I believe, he had another job at the Kansas City Star.
Do you recall that? It was for a very brief period.
NOLAND: No, I can’t recall that.
FUCHS: Do you recall their living on Liberty Street just before they
moved to Kansas City, which was about 1903.
NOLAND: Yes, the house is still there.
[93] FUCHS: The house is still there?
NOLAND: Yes, it is. On Liberty Street. I remember being there. I could
point out the house now.
FUCHS: Then about 1903 he moved to Kansas City and took a job in a bank--his
family moved there--and that was on Park Avenue.
NOLAND: Yes, it was, a very nice neighborhood then. I remember some of
the neighbors around there and one of them was the Broadus family, and
a family by the name of Coomber across the street. There was a daughter
in that family named Mabel Coomber and she and Mary Jane were great friends
as long as she lived. She died fairly young. But it was a very comfortable
home, as I remember it. Of course it has long since gotten to be the less
desirable part of the city.
[94]
FUCHS: Then, I believe, Mr. Truman went to live with the Colgan family?
NOLAND: That was his father’s sister, Emily Truman Colgan, and there
were four children in the family--all grown by that time and some of them
the age of Harry, in fact, all of them were near his age. And in addition
to those four young people in the family (my uncle, Rochester Campbell
Colgan, had died by that time). They had built a new house on East 29th
Street, a very roomy house, so they had more room than they needed even
for that large family--so they had these two young fellows living there,
one by the name of Condon, and the other was named Green, Edwin Green,
and Harry, besides, lived there. And they had the most hilarious time--those
young people, and of course, sometimes we would be there too, my sister and I,
[95]
and we would have a big time. They loved to give parties and they
loved practical jokes, and they would play the most outlandish jokes on
each other. One I remember was that one day they had a picnic down on
the river and Fred Colgan and the Green boy said what fun it would be
to put a message in a bottle, and see if they ever heard from it; so they
did. They wrote their names and their addresses and corked up the bottle
and set it afloat. Well, it was not lost on the rest of the group that
they had begun that adventure, and of course the boys almost forgot it;
but these others concocted the scheme of imagining two girls had found
this bottle and wrote to the boys. They said they had found the bottle
down in the river near Mississippi, and they would be glad to correspond.
Well, the correspondence went on and on and the boys had fine, great big
[96]
pictures taken, portraits, and mailed them to Mississippi; and some way
the pranksters got in touch with somebody down there who would mail the
things back to them, and then the girls sent them pictures. I don’t know
where they got them, and the correspondence just went on and on until
the boys took it quite seriously. They were really quite in love with
these two imaginary girls. They just were determined to go down there
to see the girls. And it went so far that finally my aunt said, "You’ve
just got to tell them that there’s nothing to it. It’s a myth. There never
were any such girls." And very reluctantly they did. And the boys
didn’t take it well at all, and it put kind of a damper on the warm friendship
that had existed between the Colgan young people and these young fellows.
[97] FUCHS: Was Harry in on it?
NOLAND: Yes, Harry was in on it, and enjoyed it! That was the biggest
joke that they ever did play and the longest lasting; but there were others
from time to time and they dearly loved it and the more pranks they could
play the more fun they had. So it was a lot of innocent harmless fun that
went on there--things that you’d never forget.
FUCHS: I believe Mr. Truman moved into a boarding house from the Colgan’s?
NOLAND: Yes, he did.
FUCHS: Do you have any knowledge of why he moved instead of remaining
at the Colgans?
NOLAND: No, I don’t know why he did excepting probably it was nearer
the bank, this place was,
[98] nearer than East 29th. But this was a very fine
person who ran that boarding house and Harry made some very close friends
there, I remember one of them he brought up to see us, a young lady--I
don’t recall her name now, but he liked her very much. She was older than
he, but a very pleasant person. She afterwards married, and there was
a great friendship among those people that lived there. It was a very
high class boarding house and the people that lived there were very nice
people.
FUCHS: Was that a Mrs. Trow--do you remember? Do you recall it being
known as Mrs. Trow’s Boarding House?
NOLAND: It could have been, I don’t remember.
FUCHS: Do you recall--did he ever bring Arthur Eisenhower here? I believe
he was supposed to
[99] have stayed at the same boarding house.
NOLAND: I didn’t know that. Harry used to bring some young men out that
worked at the bank to see us. One of them was named Henderson. They came
very often and then he had a dear friend that was one of the boys in this
group on Waldo that I forgot to mention awhile ago whose name was James
Wright. Harry visited the Wrights all the rest of their lives. He and
the Wrights were such good friends. He and James Wright used to come out
often, and that was before the days of bridge, contract or any other kind
of bridge, and we played high five a great deal when the boys came. And
then sometimes we would go to the theatre and then we would go to the--oh,
have a picnic or something like that--like young people do. Now for a
while Harry ushered at the Shubert Theatre on Saturdays,
[100] at the matinee.
FUCHS: That was while he was working at the bank?
NOLAND: I don’t remember whether it was during that time or not, but
I would say it was.
FUCHS: It was after he was out of high school and it was before he returned
to the farm.
NOLAND: Yes, it was, and before he returned to the farm. It may have
been while they were living on Park. But he dearly loved the drama and
he became very much interested in the plays that they had, and fine things
they were; and he would say, "I’ve got tickets for Saturday afternoon
to see Mrs. Patrick Campbell," or somebody of that type. "Let’s
go." Well, go we would. And it was a very fine thing for young people
to be exposed to such high type
[101] drama, things like Sir Herbert Beerbohm
Tree, and many other Shakespearean actors.
FUCHS: That’s interesting. Do you recall when his leg was broken on the farm?
NOLAND: Yes, that was after he went to Grandview to live and there was
a calf hitched to a rope and the calf wound around him and threw him and
broke his leg, as I remember it. It was quite a serious break. He was
laid up for quite a while. His leg was in a cast.
FUCHS: I had a date of 1913 for that I wondered--do you know if he was
going with Bess at that time? In other words, was his leg broken prior
to the cakeplate incident or after?
NOLAND: I would say after, but I couldn’t be sure on that, not having
thought of it for a
[102] long time.
FUCHS: I just thought that maybe she had been over solicitous over his
condition and that would ring a bell with you.
NOLAND: No, of course she would have been sympathetic and all that, but
she was never demonstrative, you know that.
FUCHS: Well, had there really been since graduation up to that time that
he returned the cakeplate, had there really been much communication between them?
NOLAND: If there had been any, I don’t know of it.
FUCHS: So the cakeplate incident really did start that.
NOLAND: Yes, that’s one legend that’s true. You know, there are so many
of them that are just
[103] absolutely plucked out of thin air, but that is
true, that cakeplate incident. Mrs. Wallace was very neighborly and she
loved to send things. Oh, we did back and forth, you know. She would send
over a nice desert or something, just to share it and here was a plate,
Well, we hadn’t taken it back and I said, "Why don’t you take that
plate home, it’s been around here a few days."
"Well," he said, "I certainly will."
And Bess came to the door, and of course nothing could have made a bigger
occasion than that, to see her again and talk to her.
There’s one myth that I would like to nail. And that is that Mrs. Wallace
didn’t approve of that match. Had you ever heard that?
FUCHS: Yes, I’m aware of that,
NOLAND: Oh, it couldn’t be more erroneous. It just
[104] couldn’t be. She liked
him; she always liked him, and she favored the match from the very start.
In fact, we weren’t sure whether she liked him better than Bess did or
not. But she approved of him, because she knew that he had qualities that
any girl could bank on in the long run.
FUCHS: You really don’t think that he bought the car then to make a bigger
impression on the family, more than he did for the transportation, which
is one...
NOLAND: No, it was a matter of transportation. Because making an impression
never seemed to dawn on him very much. He wasn’t a person to put up a
good front, you might say. He was a person--"If you like me now,
you like me, and here I am, and this is the way I am. You either take
me this way or you don’t."
[105] In fact, the whole family was that way.
His mother was that way. She never tried to impress people; which is a
sort of a sincerity and genuineness that--I think we need more of.
FUCHS: We certainly do. One writer made the point that perhaps, as I
recall it, the acquisition of an automobile had helped swing Mrs. Wallace
around to his side.
NOLAND: Not at all. He didn’t need to do that, but he did need to get
back and forth from Grandview.
FUCHS: Well, had Bess, as you call her, had she over the years since
graduation had a number of beaus?
NOLAND: Yes, she had. She was a very popular girl because she was a good
comrade, and some of them liked her just because they loved to be with her
[106]
and skate or play tennis, or ride or do whatever things she enjoyed.
She did enjoy all of those things, But others of them were very much in
love with her. I don’t know that she favored any of them particularly,
but they were glad to go there on any terms that she would let them come,
because she was a person that everybody liked to be with. There’s an old
picture that I have of a watermelon feast down there in the backyard;
and we’re all into watermelon up to our ears; and some of these young
fellows are there, and all the Wallaces and my sister and I are in it.
Well, at the time he became President, Life magazine, got hold
of that picture, and they wanted permission to put it an the cover of
the next issue that they were publishing, and would I give them permission
to do it. I said, "Definitely not! Don’t you dare put that on there."
[107]
It was harmless, but then, you know, she was the wife of the President,
and here she was eating that watermelon, and laughing and looking very
attractive, but I knew she would not like it. I want you to see that.
FUCHS: Yes, I’d like very much to. The Library doesn’t have a copy of that?
NOLAND: They surely don’t, because they didn’t get it from me.
FUCHS: We ought to have a copy, just for historical purposes.
NOLAND: I think you should; before you come again, I will look up some
pictures that I think you should have.
FUCHS: We would like to copy any pictures that are related to Mr. Truman.
[108]
NOLAND: That’s just an interesting, small episode, but then, I thought,
"I don’t want that to come from me."
FUCHS: Well, that’s a different situation there, but as far as history...
NOLAND: But so far as history is concerned. And all of it was just good,
harmless fun. I don’t think young people ever had more just good rollicking
fun than we had. It was just good fun.
FUCHS: Those were good days.
Do you recall--to go back again a little bit--his working--Mr. Truman,
of course--in a drugstore?
NOLAND: Yes.
FUCHS: Could you pin it down a little far us?
[109]
NOLAND: The time was before he graduated from high school. It was just a part-time job.
FUCHS: It was while he was in high school?
NOLAND: Yes, it was at the Clinton Drugstore. He was just a boy then
and that was up on the northeast corner of the square. I think Goldman's
is in there now, maybe--Helzberg's--some of those jewelry stores.
FUCHS: Do you recall Mr. Truman--Harry--going to Spaulding Business College
in Kansas City?
NOLAND: I'm sure he did, but when, I just wouldn't know.
FUCHS: Well, then, Truman' s family left Kansas City and went back to
the farm, is that correct?
NOLAND: Yes.
[110]
FUCHS: And Mr. Truman, shortly afterwards, followed. Was there any particular
reason that you would...
NOLAND: Well, they needed him on the farm. It was quite a large farm
and there was room there for all three of them, and there was not only
the Solomon Young land that had come to Harry's mother--that did eventually...the
grandmother was still living then, I believe, wasn't-she...
FUCHS: Yes...
NOLAND: She died in 1909.
FUCHS: Well, she would still have been living because as I understand
it, John Anderson Truman left Kansas City and for a brief time took a
farm south of Clinton.
NOLAND: Yes.
[111]
FUCHS: Then he went back up a short time to--this was about 1905--the
Young farm and then Mr. Truman, Harry, in 1906 went back to the Young farm.
NOLAND: Well, I'm glad you have that because I don't have that date.
FUCHS: So she would have lived another three years.
NOLAND: Yes, she died in 1909.
FUCHS: But you think it was just a matter that they felt that they needed
him on the farm and he felt that he would prefer the farm life to working
in the bank.
NOLAND: Yes.
FUCHS: Do you have any recollection of his business ventures between
the time he returned to the
[112] farm and went to the Army in 1917?
NOLAND: No, it was just general farming, and of course stock raising was...
FUCHS: Well, what I had reference to was he also engaged in an oil venture with...
NOLAND: Oh, yes, he did. He was with an oil company for a while--a very brief time.
FUCHS: He stayed on the farm and devoted time to both interests, is that correct?
NOLAND: Yes, he did. In fact, he sort of commuted back and forth to Kansas
City a great deal and he was in this oil company--I don't think very long,
but he was with them for a while.
FUCHS: Do you remember Harry and his father, going to--this was about,
I believe, 1908--going to an Indian land sale in Montana?
[113] NOLAND: I don’t recall.
FUCHS: Do you have any incidents to relate about his entry into the service?
NOLAND: Well, he joined Battery B a number of years before the war came
up. And he enjoyed that military experience very much. I have a picture
or two of him in uniform that he had during the time that he was a member
of Battery B. So that when his service came up, he was very eager to go;
he didn’t have to be drafted. He liked military life. I have a number
of letters from him while he was in training and I looked for them this
morning, but didn’t find them. I’ll try to find them--but they are full
of fun and brimming with enthusiasm about the whole thing. And, of course,
when he went over by that time, he and Bess were engaged.
[114] FUCHS: They were formally engaged before he went?
NOLAND: Yes, they were.
FUCHS: Did he give her a ring?
NOLAND: Yes.
FUCHS: Before he went overseas?
NOLAND: Yes.
FUCHS: Was that prior to the declaration of war? Was it before he knew
he was going to service?
NOLAND: They had become engaged before the war came up.
FUCHS: In other words, they probably would have been married shortly?
NOLAND: They would if the war had not come up.
FUCHS: What do you recall of his return and the
[115] wedding?
NOLAND: Well, I remember when he came back, what a day it was. We all
went into the city and saw them parading through the streets, you know,
all the old Battery. We knew practically all of them. Many of them were
old friends and schoolmates of his and mine. Then we went to Convention
Hall and we had a great reception there. It was a very joyful, hilarious
time. Then, in 1919, on the 28th of June, they were married at Trinity
Episcopal Church. It was a rather hot day and I remember that Ted Marks,
the best man, had made Harry’s suit--Ted Marks being a tailor, and a member
of Harry's battery.
FUCHS: This was a business suit?
NOLAND: Yes, it was. A sort of gray mixture. I
[116] remember when Harry came
out from the vestry room as bridegrooms do, and stood waiting for the
bride, how eager and expectant he looked watching for her to come in,
and finally here came the wedding march and she was coming in. There were
two bridesmaids, Helen Wallace, and Louise Wells, a cousin on Bess’s mother’s
side. They had decorated the church in garden flowers. Now, being such
a hot day, the garden flowers had drooped a little bit before the wedding,
but nevertheless, it was a beautiful wedding. Bess didn’t wear a veil.
She had on a very becoming picture hat, and looked very pretty indeed,
and he looked fine and handsome in the tailor made suit, and they were
on their way soon, on the wedding journey. They went to Michigan for one
place, among several different places, and saw one of the Colgan girls who had
[117]
married a Mr. Romine, by that time. So, they stopped to see the
Romines. And when they came back from the wedding trip, Harry was determined
to live on the Truman farm because he thought he would always be a farmer,
but they thought--well, they would stay here for a while before they went
to live at the farm. Mrs. Wallace would be more or less alone if Bess
went away. Time went on and time went on, and they never went to the farm
to live. I remember two women that I overheard talking about Bess when
she came back to Kansas City after they went to the White House, and one
of them said, "Well, she doesn’t look like she spent her life on
a farm, does she?"
And I would like to have said, "Well, she didn’t." She never
did live on the farm! But it just turned out that this seemed to be the
best thing to do--to stay here. And
[118] then, he began to get into politics,
after that. And politics just seemed a natural to him. He is a good politician.
There he struck his gait.
FUCHS: He got out of the service in early May and was married in late
June, so there was approximately two months there. Did he live on the
farm then?
NOLAND: Yes, he did. He lived on the farm.
FUCHS: Then, after they came back from the honeymoon, did they immediately
live in this home here or was there another apartment or home in between?
NOLAND: No, they lived right here at 219 N. Delaware. Bess thought they
should stay until her mother got used to the idea. Bess was very devoted
to her mother. Oh, very! And, of course, Mrs.
[119] Wallace was a wonderful
mother, a very devoted mother. So, mother never got quite settled enough
for Bess to leave. And they liked it that way, and Harry liked it that
way. He was devoted to Mrs. Wallace, too; and she to him, which belies
the tale that she didn’t like him. She wouldn’t have wanted that arrangement
I think, or he wouldn’t. But they were always very congenial, that is,
Mrs. Wallace and Harry.
FUCHS: Well, of course, part of this was, because some writers have assumed
that there was a great difference in the, well, you might say, fortunes
of the Wallaces as against the Trumans, and that they felt some class
distinction.
NOLAND: Well, they imagined a greater difference than there was; because
while the Trumans, as we said, were very unassuming and never tried
[120] to
impress people, there was always a feeling of security there. There was
never any feeling of being bankrupt or poverty stricken. And I think people
have misunderstood that, and Harry’s mother had been brought up to have
plenty. The land her father owned was the foundation of their present
financial security. There never was any question of money with the Solomon
Young family, nor with the Trumans either one, though the Youngs were
far better off financially than the Trumans were. But neither family were
poverty stricken people, and while the Trumans were not showy people in
any way, there was a feeling of security, financial well-being that those
writers have never sensed at all; and I’m glad if you bring that out too,
because that is the truth.
[121]
FUCHS: Then, in late 1919, he went into business in Kansas City:
NOLAND: Yes, he did. He and Eddie Jacobson, as everybody knows, had the
furnishing shop. It was a time when the boys coming back found it hard
to adjust. There wasn’t anything to do. There were so many of them all
at once, and the economy couldn’t absorb that many young men, as is the
case after any war, as it was after the Civil War. As we said the other
day, after my father came back from four years in the Confederate Army,
all he could do was to do the freighting across the plains and many took
that. So here Harry was, in the same situation and so they started up
a little business there. I think maybe Eddie Jacobson, under different
circumstances, could have made a fair go of it. He did afterwards, but Harry
[122]
didn’t know much about merchandising and they just didn’t make a
go, and so--he was glad to get out of it, I think, though he made one
friendship there that lasted as long as Eddie Jacobson lived.
FUCHS: You don’t think that Harry really had his heart and soul in the
business. Of course, the story generally is that the conditions of the
times contributed to their bankruptcy.
NOLAND: Yes, I think he would have enjoyed it if it hadn’t been for the
condition of the times, but they just couldn’t make the grade until they
got established well enough to make a living at it. But anyway, this political
bee sort of, got in his bonnet.
FUCHS: Yes, I want to go into that, but--I was wondering, what was the
situation on the farm
[123] when he returned from the service?
NOLAND: They had gotten used to being without him by that time, and Uncle
John and Vivian were managing very well. Vivian married in 1911...
FUCHS: Well, John wouldn't have been living then, so who would have been...
NOLAND: That's right...
FUCHS: Who would have been running the farm really?
NOLAND: Let me think. Who would have been...well, Uncle John would have
been dead in 1914. Am I right on '14 or '15?
FUCHS: Yes, you're right, '14.
NOLAND: Harry was married in 1919, he came home in ‘19--the war was over
in '18. Well, I would say that I'm not sure who ran the farm
[124] right in
there, but I would say Vivian did. Vivian went down into Bates County
for a while and lived down there for a short time. I remember that Bess
and Harry and Nellie and I, and Mary Jane, went down to visit them in Bates County.
FUCHS: When was Vivian married?
NOLAND: It was 1911.
FUCHS: He would have been married then and raising a family.
NOLAND: Yes.
FUCHS: Was he living, in 1919, on the old homesite?
NOLAND: He built a house on the homeland but I don’t remember what year
it was; but he was living near there. At one time he was living on a farm
called the Strode farm. I remember
[125] visiting Vivian and Louella there,
and that was early in their married life; but just what the management
was there on the farm I don't know.
FUCHS: When Mr. John Anderson Truman died he was a road overseer, I understand?
NOLAND: Yes.
FUCHS: Do you recall when Harry was appointed to the same position?
NOLAND: No, I don't remember the time. I know that he was.
FUCHS: He was also made postmaster of Grandview and served a few months.
NOLAND: Yes, he did.
FUCHS: I was wondering if he was road overseer and
[126] then postmaster concurrently, or subsequently?
NOLAND: I don’t know that. I know that both things are true, but that’s
all I know.
FUCHS: Was there any consensus of feeling among the relatives when he
talked about going into business? Did people feel that that was the sort
of thing for him?
NOLAND: Well, he had to get into something and that seemed to be a very
good idea because he did make friends; and if he could just swing the
thing financially that it would be a very good thing, because we didn’t
feel that he would spend his life on the farm. All this about plowing
a straight row and all of that--he was a farmer, but Harry sort of had
an eye on urban affairs, I would say.
FUCHS: Would you say in fairness that Vivian was
[127] probably a better farmer than Harry?
NOLAND: Vivian was a much better farmer than Harry, because city life
never appealed to Vivian for one minute.
FUCHS: You would say then that Vivian probably plowed as straight a row
as Harry?
NOLAND: I would say he did, and many more of them.
FUCHS: Did you ever go to the store in Kansas City--the haberdashery?
NOLAND: Yes, it was a very nice store.
FUCHS: What is your recollection of the place--any incidents that occurred
there that might be of interest?
NOLAND: I just remember that it was arranged as a
[128] store should look.
I think possibly Mr. Jacobson was a good window trimmer and good at setting
forth the stock that they had, and they kept a good quality of things.
I remember buying some neckties there for some of the men in the family,
and some handkerchiefs--all of fine quality and in good taste.
FUCHS: What were your thoughts when the haberdashery failed in 1922?
NOLAND: Well, we, of course, were sorry that he didn’t make a go of it,
but we couldn’t feel that that was Harry’s life work any more than farming
had been, and I think we just took it without too much concern, because
we all felt that he hadn’t gotten into the thing that would bring out
the best that was in him.
FUCHS: And I guess that he had already indicated that he was going to
go in for politics.
[129]
NOLAND: Yes, I remember when it was first mentioned. I don’t know whether
he knew it or not, but the first I heard of it was in a drugstore up town
here. Of course, I was not present, but you know a drugstore has always
been a place where there’s lots of political talk; and they were looking
around for a candidate for judge of the Eastern District of Jackson County,
and Harry was well-known here and throughout the county more or less and
had many friends in Kansas City. The store was the Yantis-Fritts Drugstore--and
somebody said, "Why not Harry Truman?"
Well, it took. Lots of the boys that had been in his company lived here
and some of them were in the group.
FUCHS: You don’t know who?
NOLAND: I don’t know who the first one was that
[130] said...
FUCHS: Do you know anyone that was in the group, specifically in the
drugstore at that time?
NOLAND: Yes, Mr. Yantis was, and Mr. Yantis was an old friend of our
family and he was the one that told us. He said, "You know, Harry
Truman was mentioned the other day in the drugstore, as a possible, a
very likely candidate for eastern judge," Well, of course, we were
glad to hear that.
In one of these letters that I told you about that he wrote to my sister
and to me, he said, "I’m coming home pretty soon and I’m going to
run for Congress." It was a big joke, he thought, and we did. But
whether he meant it entirely as a joke I’m not sure. But here was an opening,
and we were very much pleased and we told Mr. Yantis, "Well, that’s wonderful.
[131]
We’re very happy to hear that he was mentioned." With
that it went on and on and the Pendergast machine thought it was likely.
They always liked to pick winners, and they endorsed him. And, indeed,
if he hadn’t been endorsed by the machine he couldn’t have run. He was
very grateful to them for endorsing him. More grateful, I: think, than
he should have been, for the simple reason that they thought he could
win or else they never would have endorsed him. They didn’t endorse any
lame ducks, you know that. And with that, of course, he was nominated
and he won that election. Another one he didn’t win but another one he
did; and it was just back and forth that way until finally the question
of who was to run for the Senate came up. And so when he was mentioned
for the Senate, many people
[132] thought it was too big a jump from a county
judge at that time he was presiding judge, to the Senate. He had a very
strong opponent, by the name of Tuck Milligan, a man who many people thought
was better fitted to be a Senator, because he was more experienced in
such things and he had very strong backing in Bennett Champ Clark. He
was the younger Clark, not the older Champ Clark that ran at the time
that Wilson got the nomination, remember? But anyway, Clark, was a big
name in politics, Democrats to the very root of the Clark family, and
influential, and he was backing Milligan. They were a little condescending
to Harry because of his inexperience. I remember in one of Mr. Milligan’s
speeches he spoke of Harry Truman as being very naive. And he said, "Bless
his good little heart, he thinks so-and-so..." Well, of course, that
just stung Harry to the
[133] quick to have him so condescending and intimating
that .he was a, good little nobody in-particular. But Harry ran; you know
how he could run.
FUCHS: Do you recall anything that he said at the time?
NOLAND: No. You know, growing up, and when he was younger, he was not
noted for profanity at all, nor for extreme speech. How he ever developed
that I don’t know, because he was very mild mannered as a growing boy,
and as a young fellow full of fun, and not a namby-pamby fellow at all,
but mild in his speech; and if he came back at them it was not in kind,
I’m sure. So they ran and they ran and, in the meantime, we were going
up north on our vacation and we had to leave the morning of the election,
we were going to drive, and we didn’t know how it
[134] had turned out. We were
up early and gone long before dawn, and we didn’t know how the primary
came out, until we got .to Minnesota.
Well, Mr. Milligan was kind of set back on his heels and so was Bennett
Clark. But Harry and Bennett Clark became the best of friends, and I think
he and Milligan too.
FUCHS: Well, now, in’ 34 Ralph Truman was working for, in fact he was
campaign manager for Milligan.
NOLAND: He was working for Milligan, but I suppose Milligan must have
got his promise before Harry got into the race. I don’t know how that
ever happened, but Harry is a forgiving soul and he thought that was quite
all right.
Well, you know politics. It can make bitter enemies, but Harry was always
a person
[135]
to say, "Oh, it was politics, after all, that’s the way you do it."
Now, when General Eisenhower was elected he couldn’t look at it that
way. He never could forgive Harry for saying that military men never made
good Presidents, which he did say. He still says it.
FUCHS: It’s pretty much through history.
NOLAND: Yes.
FUCHS: Well, now, there is one story, of course, that Jimmy Pendergast,
who was a nephew of Tom and son of Mike, and had been in the service with
Mr. Truman, was the one who suggested Mr. Truman and brought him forward
in 1922?
NOLAND: I’m, glad to be able to say this. In fact, I don’t know that
Harry Truman ever knew that this thing first started in that drugstore.
[136]
I’ll have to talk that over with him, but he was absurdly grateful to
the Pendergasts, enough to defy the Senate, and talk for Pendergast on
the floor of the Senate, which was carrying loyalty very far, but he does.
He carries loyalty very far, I think. I think one of his strong attributes
is his intense loyalty to whatever he thinks is worthwhile.
FUCHS: Yes. Now, what do you recall of the election in 1924 which is
the only one he ever lost; in other words, when Judge Rummel defeated
him for eastern judge. Is there anything that stands out about that?
NOLAND: Nothing that stands out excepting we were terribly sorry that
he lost out, but some way we never took these defeats too seriously; he
always seemed to bounce back, and we just thought, "Well, he’ll come
back." He did.
[137]
FUCHS: Yes, he did. Have you recollections of that interim then,‘25 and
‘26 before he ran in 1926 for presiding judge, as far as his activities?
NOLAND: No, I can’t think That’s rather a vacuum to me.
FUCHS: He was supposed to have worked for the Kansas City Auto Club selling
memberships, and he also got involved in the Community Savings and Loan
Association with, among others, Spencer Salisbury.
NOLAND: Yes.
FUCHS: You don’t have any recollections much of that?
NOLAND: I don’t have, He and Spencer had been in the Army together and
had gone through the
[138] Argonne Forest together, but I think Mr. Daniels,
Jonathan Daniels; sized Spencer Salisbury up the best of anybody I’ve
ever read anything about. He didn’t get it from us--he did get a number
of things from us--he was here--but he said Spencer Salisbury was a "gentleman
by birth, and a scamp by choice," or words to that effect.
FUCHS: You don’t recall anything Mr. Truman ever had to say about his
relationship with Spencer and their subsequent falling out, which is common
knowledge, of course?
NOLAND: Yes, common knowledge. No, I don’t think there is anything. I
don’t remember his ever saying anything about him, one way or the other,
but I know they did fall out, and took their separate ways,
FUCHS: What is your recollection of the 1926 campaign,
[139] which was the
first time he ran for the presiding judgeship, for a four-year term?
NOLAND: I don’t have any recollection of that, I don’t think there was
any doubt he’d win. I think it was a foregone conclusion that year. I
don’t remember anything.
FUCHS: You remember everyone generally approving of his program for roads?
NOLAND: Oh, yes, it was a very popular movement, and everyone was very
much pleased at the way he spent the money. I think maybe there was about
fifteen million dollars to be spent, wasn’t there--do you remember the
figures?
FUCHS: Something like that.
NOLAND: But, they said every nickel of it went on the roads. There was
no question of a pork barrel
[140] and we really got a fine system of roads
out of that, of course, roads have become very fine everywhere now, but
at that time they said that there were just two or three counties in the
whole United States that had as good or better roads. One of them was
Cook County, Illinois, where Chicago is, and maybe Westchester County
up there around New York, places like that. Mighty few. But we really
had a fine system of roads for that day; and it made him very popular,
which was a big help to him in running for the Senate.
FUCHS: In 1930 he ran again for presiding judge. Do you remember anything
about that?
NOLAND: No. There doesn’t seem to have been any question of his elections.
FUCHS: Do you recall just when he started going to
[141] Reserve camp?
NOLAND: No.
FUCHS: Do you remember anything about the Ku Klux Klan charges--his being
a member of the Ku Klux Klan in 1922? Of course, Spencer Salisbury is
the one who said that he knows he was a member.
NOLAND: Well, at that time, I knew there was a Ku Klux Klan but didn’t
know he was supposed to have belonged to it. But so many people did--it
was very popular. Some people now--you’d be surprised to know that they
did belong. I wouldn’t think it was anything unusual any more than joining
the Lions or the Rotary Club or anything like that. There were no activities
of the kind of cross-burning, or raiding in sheets among these people
that I
[142]
know did belong; so it wasn't a subversive thing as we think of it now.
FUCHS: What about the Harpie Club? Do you know anything of the Harpie Club?
NOLAND: No.
FUCHS: It's mostly a poker playing club and I believe it still exists,
you know, Dexter Perry and some of those gentlemen are members of it,
and Mr. Truman belonged to it.
NOLAND: Polly Compton?
FUCHS: Yes.
NOLAND: I knew there was such a thing but I didn’t know what they called it.
FUCHS: How did Bess, to your knowledge, react to his entry into politics?
[143]
NOLAND: Well, I think she was pleased with it, she liked it. It seemed
to be a thing that he understood, and a thing that he did well; especially
after that road building program, he showed that he could manage public
affairs in the interest of the public and that he had some insight into
those things. I think she was happy because she was, glad to see him get
into a thing that he seemed fitted for. And we all felt very much the same way.
FUCHS: Do you recall anything of his being proposed for Governor along
about ‘29-‘30, prior to his running for a second term as presiding judge?
NOLAND: No, I didn’t know about that, but he was rated high in politics,
and I shouldn’t be surprised if he was mentioned as a prospective
[144] Governor.
FUCHS: Were you conscious that he was widely known, or was not widely
know about the state, in other words, outside of Independence and Jackson County?
NOLAND: I think among the Masons. The Masonic Lodge was one enthusiasm
that he has had that’s been a life-long one, and the Masonic Lodge had
made him very well known. He had been Grand Master of the state some time
or other; I don’t know the date on that?
FUCHS: I believe that was when he was Senator.
NOLAND: Was it? Well, he had been high in Masonry; and of course your
friends in Masonry are loyal friends, and he was known in Masonic circles,
around the state, so that I think
[145] that was quite a help to him in becoming well known.
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