Bess Truman Read Free Page B

expecting something solemn and high-toned. Cousin Harry had been taking piano lessons for years and was playing Bach, Beethoven, Liszt, and other European masters. He reeled off a swarm of arpeggios and then played a series of lilting notes that they instantly recognized. “It’s Bessie’s ice cream whistle!” Ethel exclaimed.
    Unfortunately, Bess Wallace had no interest in Harry Truman, nor the least idea that he was in love with her. He was never part of the Delaware Street crowd. Never was he invited to a ball at the Swope mansion. Nor did he participate in those moonlit hayrides. The Trumans were far beneath the social world inhabited by the Wallaces and the Gates, the Waggoners and the Swopes. They were country folk and newcomers. John Anderson Truman’s profession, horse trading, was considered less than genteel by most people. Also, his income was erratic. During high school, Harry had to work at odd jobs to improve the family’s finances.
    One story, told by Mary Paxton, sums up the gap between Harry Truman and Bess Wallace better than paragraphs of explanation. On one of those moonlit, spooning expeditions, the Delaware Street crowd was riding around Jackson Square, singing merrily. As they paused for breath between songs, someone said: “Oh look, there’s Harry Truman.”
    Harry was sweeping out Clinton’s Drug Store, his last chore for the day. “What a shame he has to work so much,” Bess Wallace said. The words were casual, an observation with little emotional content.
    There was another reason, probably as important as social standing, why Bess Wallace found Harry Truman uninteresting. His bad eyes made him a hopeless athlete. His crueler schoolmates called him “Four Eyes” and also ridiculed him for taking piano lessons. A young man needed more than average athletic ability to win Bess Wallace’s attention in those days. Bill Bostian, the postmaster’s son, adored her and took up tennis to promote his standing. Alas, when they played doubles, he had a habit of yelling, “I’ll get it Bessie,” and then not getting it. Bill’s status plummeted.
    Throughout these grammar and high-school years, another man was the central figure in Bess’ happiness: her father. She adored him as only an only daughter can. (How well I know that.) In her grade-school days, David Willock Wallace was always romping with her and the other children in the neighborhood. Every Fourth of July, he personally set up and fired off a magnificent display of fireworks for Delaware Street. At patriotic parades on the Fourth and other days, he frequently was asked to be grand marshal, and he would lead the strutting show on a great black horse. It is not hard to imagine what effect this must have had on a girl whose imagination had been fed on southern ideals of masculine chivalry. David Wallace was Bess’ Bayard, the knight without stain or reproach. As she grew older, her awareness of his comparative poverty added a heart-wrenching pity to her love.
    Behind his facade of good cheer, David Wallace was an unhappy man. A fifth child, David Frederick, born in 1900, added to his financial problems. He made a stab at starting an importing business in Kansas City, a natural connection to his customs job, but it went nowhere and probably left him even deeper in debt. Like most local politicians, he spent a great deal of time in the Independence courthouse. The hours of his customs job were not demanding. Next door to the courthouse was a political saloon, where he spent even more time. As his debts increased, so did his drinking.
    For Bess and her two older brothers, Frank and George, this time must have been the beginning of their troubles. They knew about their father’s drinking, and so did the neighbors - often he was carried home by friends and deposited on the front porch. Complicating the problem was Madge Gates Wallace’s refusal to recognize it. She never reproached her husband for one of these lapses. That would not have