President harry truman like to refer to his wife as the boss. Family was their number one priority. Destroyed many of her letters and spend a good part of her white house years home in missouri. Truman served as true first lady on her own terms. Cspans continuing series first ladies, influence and image. Tonight, story the 33rd president of the United States, this truman. Here to tell us more about her, we are pleased to welcome back to our set the white house historian, his latest book called the imperial season. And the history professor and author of a biography of harry truman called the coming of the cold war. Thank you for being here. Where we left off last week was the death of Franklin Roosevelt. April 12th 1945. The call comes into harry truman. Where is he . He gets the message that he is needed. He is having a drink with his cronies as he often was known to do. A lot of politics was accomplished by relaxing and having somewhat more cordial atmosphere. He received a phone call and said he just knew and the story goes that he ran to get to his car and get to the white house. He was sworn into hours later. At the white house itself. Mrs. Roosevelt was at a luncheon. They went and got her and did not tell her anything. It was not a surprise to anyone in the white house at all. And you roosevelt was going. No one expected it so quickly. I think it was an issue of when. Because he looked horrible. He had spoken to the Congress Sitting down, and he was ashen. His inaugural address for the fourth term had to be given from the white house. He was stood up on the north porch. South portico, i must say. The audience was out front. It was not really a surprise to anyone. I dont know why was a surprise to truman. In the cabinet room at the white house, harry truman is joined by his family. Took the oath of office. How surprised was the nation . Do they know who harry truman was . No. They knew he was the Vice President and he was named. He had gotten some acclaim for his truman committee. He was in an mired senator within washington. The general public was, who is harry truman . Even his own mother was nervous for him. What about bess truman . She was with him. In the apartment, i dont know. Roosevelt he did not admire truman, he approved him for via Vice President and thought it was a good idea. As nicole says, it was in washington. He was not a household word out. Roosevelt had been in for 13 years. He was a fixture. The very idea of his declining, most people did not understand that he could not walk. He had kept that very well hidden. The trumans are now the first couple as you said, that the roosevelts had been in the white house for 13 years. That is the longest stretch every president has ever been in the white house. How did the transition happen . The furniture was taken out of the roosevelt also because of his condition. Mrs. Roosevelts nature as you saw on the last show. They like to have everything around them all the time. They were table people. They had tables in front of things. All his things were in easy reach. There were thousands of things. Pictures, all sorts of things. Imagine with the trumans faced when they went in there with the squares on the wall where the pictures had been, and the carpets taken up, and the floors would jiggle. The transition was, they had a little apartment in town, and they took the piano from it. Thats all they moved. They go immediately to the white house . The trumans thought they could stay in their apartment until they moved into the white house. They offered mrs. Roosevelt as much time as she needed. She did about two weeks, i think. By then, the trumans realized that security with, they could not stay in the apartment. They were living and blair house. I love the story that as Eleanor Roosevelt watch them pack up the last of the belongings, she went across the street to the blair house to say goodbye to the trumans and she warned bess, watch out for the rats. She and her female friends had seen a rat run across the terrace recently. That was the trumans introduction to their new home. So she was thrust into the job. She was thrust into the job as first lady. Did you have any guidance from the outgoing first lady . Her first problem was that Eleanor Roosevelt had probably meaning well, set up a press conference for bess. Bess truman went to the assured do what she wanted. She put a lot of thought into it and at the last minute she decided that was not something she was going to do. She never did hold a press conference. She sent edith helm. She was the white house social secretary. Went there with mrs. Which rolled wilsons second was the second, . Correct and stayed through all through the roosevelts all through everything. She was admiral helms wife. She commuted in limousine families burglary day. She knew everything. She knew where the bodies were buried. She knew everything and she handle the press conference. The other thing we should establish earlier on is that the trumans got their support from one another. They were a partnership 100 . The best of harry and daughter margaret. The ushers worked in the white house, describe them as the closest knit family they had seen in years. Can you talk a little bit about what you know about how they enter into how they relate it and supported one another . It reminded me a lot of the carters. They were together a lot and they liked littlest into the music. They liked to read things and to discuss things. They just enjoyed being together. Margaret and the president were musical. They liked to listen to records and stuff like that, the same way the carter stud. It was very much the same thing like just intimate, personal, how they lived. Were going to go back in time and tell you a bit of the biography of this woman who came to service the first lady. Before we do that, let me tell you how you could be involved in the program. If youve been watching our series you know a lot of the things that makes the special and interesting or your comments. Theres three ways you could do that. When us by phone. We will put the phone numbers on the screen. You can dial and throughout the program with your question or comment. You can also tweet us at first ladies, and we have a conversation already underway at the cspan facebook page. You will see a photograph of the trumans and you can post a question there and we will try to work in as many as we can. Thank you for your participation and ask some good questions. We have two good guests at the table. One thing you should know is that their house, which is independents missouri, how far is that away from the major city . Ten miles from kansas city. A national site. It is run by the National Parks service. It has been closed to cameras for more than 30 years as a policy. Were looking at it as a picture on the screen. But the park was willing to open it up for the cspan series, also with encouragement that the trumans grandson Clifton Truman daniel, throughout this program, we will see inside, the tour is given by mr. Daniel. It helps us understand the people that his grandparents were. Lets begin with a tour of the home in independents. We are on the bat back porch of my grandparents home and independents missouri. This is a way we came in. This is the way family came in through the house. Through the kitchen door. We came into the kitchen, and the first place i always headed to was back here to the pantry. I dont see the ten, but there was always the ten in here on one of the shelves. A nice round ten filled with brownies. I would always make sure that that ten was in here before i went anywhere else in the house. Once i make sure that the brownies were in the ten, and next stop had to be my grandfathers steady because whenever you came into the house, he would not meet us at the airport as he got older, but once you came into the house it had to stop here and say hi to grandpa. This is where you found him most of the time, as he was getting older and i was getting older. I wanted to talk to grandpa, that is where i looked because he was always reading. My grandmother and my mother sat in those chairs. Often read in here with them. Apparently, my grandmother and mother i was used to start fights, and my grandfather would read down to the end of the page, mark his place with his finger and look up, and try to decide whether or not the fight was escalated to the point that he needed to get out of the room. If you decided everything was okay, he would go to the next page and read down and check again. Sometimes he left, sometimes he state. This is the formal dining room. This is where we ate. This is where we ate the evening meal every day. They had breakfast and the kitchen and a sandwich for lunch, but this is where we ate all formal dinner meals, was in this dining room. My grandmother sat at that end of the table is where she sat. If we go through here, we are in the center of the house in the foyer. You will notice that the biggest portrait in the house is that of my late mother, Margaret Truman daniel. She was their only child and only conceived after my grandmother suffered to miscarriages. My grandmother was 39 when she was born. She was very precious to my grandparents. They were very close to the family unit. My grandfather kind of spoiled her. My grandmother was more of the disciplinarian. But the three of them were very very tight as a family. Because she was an only child. If we go through this way, we are in the living room. This chair was where my grandmother later in her life this is where she did her reading. After my grandfather passed away, this is often where my grandmother sat. She would read murder mysteries. She loved murder mysteries. She had stacks of them on either side of the chair. She would have an in stack of her books that she had not read yet and an out stack that she would just read and put down. She would donate them or put them on the shelf. This is where she spent a lot of her time. She gave a lot of those cast off murder mysteries to my mother who did the same thing. But stacks on either side of her chair. Mom eventually became a mystery writer. You see the house in independence missouri. That was the house that the tremendous lived in throughout their married life. Lets go back even farther. How did they meet . They met when they were about five years old in sunday school. Im not sure whether harry always spoke about the girl with the beautiful blue eyes and long golden curls. He claims he fell in love with her that they. As far as we know, he never did look at another woman. It was a lifelong love affair for the trumans. They had a very different background. Can you tell us a bit about the family that Elizabeth Wallace came from, bess while this came from and with the early truman life was like. They owned a store in town and manufactured flower the queen queen of the pantry flower. They were considered a little more upscale than the true mens who formed peoples land. Some of the land they farmed was besss a mother. There was a difference. That different surface throughout their lives. Let me read to this letter. He had written while he was president. June 29 1949. They are living in the house. He is writing to bess us. 30 years i hoped to make you a happy wife and mother. Did i . I dont know. All i can say is i have tried. There is no one in the world anyway, who can look down on you or your daughter. There is no one in the world who can look down on you or your daughter. That means much to me, but i have never cared for social position or rank for myself except to see that those dear to me were not made to suffer for my shortcomings. This is the president of the United States still feeling that way. It comes through his letters to her. Almost an apology of he never felt good enough . I think part of that, keep in mind, even when he writes this letter, her mother is still living with them. That is her mothers house that they moved into. They never had their own marital then her mother lives in the white house a lot of the time. So its her mother did not the approve. And never really thought well of her soninlaw even when he became president. Apparently not. But he never said and negative word. Upon her death, he wrote a lovely piece in his memoirs saying i dont understand motherinlaw jokes because i had such a great one. She died in the white house. She did. He sent a note to the chief usher and said mother wallace has died. Make arrangements for us to return. We will return to end dependeds and learn a little more through their eyes of how the story of the story of how harry and bess met. Independence is 26 miles away from where he lived in 1910. He often stayed across the street at the nolan house which is where his aunt and two cousins lived. One afternoon, he was over there with his cousins with the family. And his aunt brought in a cake plate that my great grandmother had given her a cake and mrs. Nolin had cleaned the cake plate and was asking if anyone would take it back over. My grip my grandfather moved with something my grandmother described as moving with the speed of light. He grabbed the cake plate, ran over here and rang the bell of the front door hoping that my grandmother would opened the door. She did and she invited him in and that is the beginning of their formal courtship in ytytye and my grandfather was six. They were baptist. My grandfathers family were baptist but the First Presbyterian church down the street here had a very good sunday school and that is where my great grandmother truman was most interested in. So she to grandpa over their one day to talk to the reverend and as she was talking, sunday school is in session, and as my great grandmother was talking to the reverend, my grandfather noticed this little girl sitting in sunday school class with what he described as beautiful blue eyes and long golden girls. He sort of fell in love with her right then and there. As far as i know, as far as anyone knows, he never looked at another woman. There is the story of a courtship through the grandson that is the progeny. Then midwestern architecture. Isnt it great . The other thing that is interesting is that the court ship last in many years. Yes. He had businesses, he went off to war, how long did it take before they got married . He first kind of unofficially proposed in 1913 after their courtship starts in 1910. And she did not write him a little back but you can tell from his second letter to her when he says if i bought a ring would you wear it on your left hand . No answer, she agrees to stay friends with him, they keep hoarding and they get close to a formal engagement and then world war i intervenes. What was Harry Trumans role in world war i . How much danger was he . In great danger. He was in combat at the front leading his men. And writing to bests all the time and carry her picture all the time. It meant everything to him his military service. When you see how he ran the presidency, he was a no nonsense organized man while roosevelt was not. He got things in shape and stayed in the reserves. He enjoyed the company of men. It was not that he sought out the company of women, but he was in the masons. He was a mason while he was president. He went to masonic events. He then retained this interest in the military and military people. It had a profound effect on his life. It is time to begin bringing in our colors. We will begin with gary who is in independence missouri. So you are living in the trumps hometown . How has that inform your opinion of . Them very highly of truman. I live a few doors down from him so Everything Everywhere we look we see truman. The more and more at the years go by, i think the public would like to see someone like truman back in the white house. We really appreciate him as well here. Do you have a question for our guests . I do. I know bess had a very low profile being a first lady but i was wondering how the press responded to her especially on the heels of eleanor being very visible and open in her communication style. And did harry have any desire for her to be in the public more . Well first of all, i will take the first part of your question, about how the press responded. At first they were sort of clambering to get more information and were very aggressive calling her secretaries and wondering where she was going and what she was going to wear. Its not that best would not speak to people, she would invite women journalists for things like tea or luncheons but insist on it all being off the record. They did get to know bess truman a little bit. She was not doing this out of spite but she was a private person. How were there early years . When he came back for military service. The private sector. He runs a store in kansas city for a while. Amends Clothing Store with his good friend eddie jacobson. And he was forever referred to as the haberdasher. Correct. That is where he gets into some debt which he insisted on paying off. He eventually does. He is still involved in the family farm. He is trying to do all of these things to make himself more. And he does become interested in public life at that time. They were living at a couple in the house with mrs. Wallace. Not just misses wallace but her brothers and their wives as well. What happened to mr. Wallace . Mr. Wallace committed suicide when bests was 18. In those days it was a huge scandal. Great stigma on the family. It shattered her mother. This explains why bess wants to keep her family like private. She saw how it shattered her mother. She wants to shield her mother and brothers from having the press dig through their Family History and bring that up again. It was a terrible thing for everyone. No one ever understood why he did it. She left right after the funeral with the children for colorado and lived there for a year. Then she came back and moved into the house with her mother and children. Steven is up next and louisville. Hi steven. How are you doing this . Evening good thank you. I was thinking of a few comments but i know you were talking about the suicide of bess father in 1903. It made me think of the reasons why her partnership with harry truman, like the gentleman was talking about before, it seemed like they had more of an equal partnership which was surely unusual in that day. I think the reason why was because she had realized that her parents marriage had something lacking. I think we kind of recalled that margo truman was saying that she went back and forth with bess over the years and that was why they had such a close partnership. I dont know if you guys discussed this or not but i know the trumans were the first to ever host the first integrated inauguration inaugural ball in 1949. I was just curious we were talking about womens rights for instance, what bess thought about feminism because i know in the early eighties someone sent her an article on