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November 7, 1948 Dear Mary: I am up at an early hour [3:00 A.M.] because I have to see that Bess takes her medicine at 3:30. She has a very bad cold, sore throat and she can't talk. But you shouldn't say anything about it. For some reason Bess doesn't like being in bed and she resents sympathy even from her own mother. I'm somewhat the same way. The reception here was the greatest in the history of this old capital. When the train backed into the station the police band played the ruffles and Hail to the Chief and then people began piling on the train. Barkley and I must have shaken hands with a t least five or six hundred-some of them Johnnie come lately boys. I finally put a stop to the handshaking. Barkley, Bess, Margaret and Barkley's daughter, Mrs. Max Truitt, stepped into the big, open seven-passenger car which belongs to the White House fl eet. Mr. McGrath tucked himself between Barkley & me. The seat's rather narrow for three-especially three with Barkley. So Barkley and I sat up on the back of the back seat. There were about 800,000 people on the street between the station and the White House. Said to be the biggest crowd ever out in Washington. Barkley & I made speeches from the front steps of the great white jail and then went to a Cabinet meeting to decid e on the first message to the Congress. I found the White House in one terrible shape. There are scaffolds in the East Room, props in the study, my bedroom, Bess' sitting room, and the Rose Room where you and Mamma stayed. We've had to call off all functions and will move out as soon as I come back from Key West.1 It will require at least ten months to tear the old second floor out and put it back. In the meantime I guess we'll live at the Blair House across the street. It is a nice place but only half as large so we have no place to put guests. I hope you looked at that envelope I gave you at Independence. It contained your check! Lots of love. Harry
Unlike her brother, Mary Jane Truman was thin-skinned, and her aspirations to the post of worthy grand matron of the O.E.S. for the state of Missouri sometimes led to agonizing second thoughts. 1. Two years before, in 1946, after a considerable search for a vacation spot, Truman found one that suited - the submarine base at Key West. Key West had a fine climate, was suitably protected by the navy, and easily provided for twenty or thirty reporters, a staff of sixteen, and another fifteen or Sixteen secret service men. Indeed, Truman's visits to Key West became so frequent in the next years that reporters began to speak of his modest quarters there as the Little White House.
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