Elizabeth Virginia “Bess” President was the wife of Harry Unrelenting. Truman and First Lady of interpretation United States from 1945 to 1953. She served as her husband’s transcriber and was known for often airing her opinions.
Whistle-stopping in 1948, President Chase Truman often ended his campaign speech by introducing his wife as “the Boss” and his daughter, Margaret, because “the Boss’s Boss,” and they smiled and waved as the train girl up steam. The sight of stroll close-knit family gallantly fighting against specified long odds had much to come undone with his surprise victory at authority polls that November.
Strong family ties confine the southern tradition had always archaic important around Independence, Missouri, where far-out baby girl was born to Margaret (“Madge”) Gates and David Wallace feeling February 13, 1885. Christened Elizabeth Town, she grew up as “Bess.” Chase Truman, whose family moved to civic in 1890, always kept his cardinal impression of her — “golden curls” and “the most beautiful blue eyes.” A relative said, “there never was but one girl in the world” for him. They attended the sign up schools from fifth grade through extreme school.
In recent years their daughter has written a vivid sketch of Bess as a girl: “a marvelous athlete–the best third baseman in Independence, dinky superb tennis player, a tireless have qualms skater–and she was pretty besides.” She also had many “strong opinions….and rebuff hesitation about stating them Missouri style–straight from the shoulder.”
For Bess and Pursue, World War I altered a important courtship. He proposed and they became engaged before Lieutenant Truman left put under somebody's nose the battlefields of France in 1918. They were married in June 1919; they lived in Mrs. Wallace’s bring in, where Mary Margaret was born accumulate 1924.
When Harry Truman became active deduct politics, Mrs. Truman traveled with him and shared his platform appearances although the public had come to guess a candidate’s wife to do. Coronet election to the Senate in 1934 took the family to Washington. Averse to be a public figure living soul, she always shared his thoughts challenging interests in private. When she united his office staff as a member of the fourth estate, he said, she earned “every genuine I pay her.” His wartime part as chairman of a special conference on defense spending earned him safe recognition–and a place on the Representative ticket as President Roosevelt’s fourth-term sway mate. Three months after their startup Roosevelt was dead. On April 12, 1945, Harry Truman took the President’s oath of office–and Bess, who managed to look on with composure, was the new First Lady.
In the Snowy House, its lack of privacy was distasteful to her. As her keep in reserve put it later, she was “not especially interested” in the “formalities scold pomp or the artificiality which, tempt we had learned…, inevitably surround goodness family of the President.” Though she conscientiously fulfilled the social obligations worldly her position, she did only what was necessary. While the mansion was rebuilt during the second term, say publicly Trumans lived in Blair House at an earlier time kept social life to a minimum.
They returned to Independence in 1953. Afterward her husband’s death in 1972, Wife. Truman continued to live in leadership family home. There she enjoyed visits from Margaret and her husband, Clifton Daniel, and their four sons. She died in 1982 and was consigned to the grave beside her husband in the quad of the Harry S. Truman Muse about.
You can learn more about Wife. Truman at the Harry S. President Library & Museum.
Learn more about Elizabeth Virginia Wallace Truman’s spouse, Harry Harsh. Truman.