45: THE BUCK STOPPED IN INDEPENDENCE

The Avenger was packed and we were headed westward at 8:00am on Saturday July 23, 2016. It was an exciting day for me as I would be spending most of that Saturday visiting with Harry S Truman, our 33rd President.

We rolled into Truman’s hometown of Independence, Missouri around 9:45am and we parked the car down the street from the historic Truman Courthouse. We thought it would be wise, since we had a lot of Truman sites to visit in Independence, that we should make our first stop at the Visitor’s Center. The first and only artifact of interest that I saw at the Visitor’s Center was the suit jacket worn by Harry Truman when he married Bess Wallace on June 28, 1919. I wanted to pose as close to the jacket as I could, even though it was difficult as the suit coat was on display in a glass showcase.

After my photographer grabbed a small map of Independence, he carried me about a block to Independence Square where we saw a large, two-story brick building that was once known as the Jackson County Courthouse. Today it’s called the Truman Courthouse as Harry Truman was a judge in the courthouse on and off from 1922 to 1934. Once he was elected to the United States Senate in 1935, Truman had an office there for most of his first term. After I posed for a few photos with the courthouse as a backdrop, I was carried inside to visit Truman’s court room; only to be disappointed as the room wasn’t open on Saturday.

Once we were finished at the Truman Courthouse, it was time to head to the home of our 33rd President; which was about five blocks away. To save time and energy, we decided to take the Avenger rather than walk; which was okay with me as the thermometer was hitting mid-90’s at 11:00am. I’m always worried about my hefty photographer when it comes to physical activity.

The two-and-one-half-story home of Bess and Harry Truman, which was built between 1867 to 1885, looked impressive as we walked up the main sidewalk for a tour. The 33rd President lived in the home with his wife Bess from the time they were married in 1919 until his death on December 26, 1972. I was looking forward to posing for photos inside the historic home, but that idea was quickly thwarted when the NPS ranger told us that photographer was prohibited inside the house. Although my cameraman looked for an opportunity to “accidentally” snap a candid photo of me inside the house, that idea was thwarted by his wife who kept saying “don’t you dare”. In my mind, what was the worst thing that could happen – he’d get yelled at by the ranger? I knew that he nearly tried several times to nab an image, but unfortunately the ranger never let us out of his sight. We needed Vicki to fake a seizure as a distraction, but we weren’t about to suggest that!

When our tour of the home’s interior was finished, we walked outside to capture our images of the beautiful exterior. That photoshoot went really well; until my photographer wandered off the beaten path to an area off to the side of the home. A ranger came out of nowhere and yelled at my cameraman; at which time Tom pushed back: “What am I hurting by being over here? I just needed one photo from this angle. It’s not like I’m wearing baseball spikes on your grass.” We captured the intended photo, but Vicki wasn’t thrilled that he got chastised by the ranger. “Are you happy now? You always seem to find a way to push the limits.” My photographer finished the short debate with: “I wasn’t hurting anything by standing over there. That ranger told us that outdoor photographer was okay and I needed a picture from that spot. That guy needs to go back to Jellystone Park to keep Yogi from snitching pic-I-nic baskets.”

Our next site was located directly across Delaware Street from the Truman House. That site was the Noland House and was the home of Harry Truman’s favorite aunt and his cousins Nellie and Ethel Noland who he would visit on weekends when he was away from work at the family farm in Grandview. In 1910, Harry was at the Noland House and was asked to return a borrowed cake plate from across the street at the Wallace’s. At that moment when he knocked on the Wallace’s door, Harry reconnected with childhood friend Bess Wallace. The rest, as they say, is history.

I was carried across the street and was photographed with the exterior of the two-story Noland House. Inside the home, photography was allowed on our self-guided tour, but there wasn’t much that had historical significance to photograph. I ended up posing for one picture on the stairway that led to the room where Harry stayed when he was at the Noland home. Even though the interior of the house didn’t blow me away, the view from their front porch really took me back in time. As I stood on the porch and gazed at the large white house across the street, I envisioned Harry Truman as he looked at that same house and dreamed of the love of his life.

Other than being yelled at by the NPS ranger and not allowed to take interior photos, our visit to the Truman home site was amazing. It gave the three of us a new perspective of Harry Truman the husband and father; and as I stood near the piano in the house, it was almost as though I could hear him as he tickled the ivories. Unfortunately, Truman did not play Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ or ‘Rocket Man’ by Elton John on the keyboards. Instead, his favorite piece was Mozart’s ‘A Major Sonata‘; which likely would have made my resin-filled body crack wide open; again.

From the place where Truman spent many years living, it was time to visit his Presidential Library and see where he was in death. We arrived at the Harry S Truman Library and Museum at 12:15pm and once my photographer paid for admission, he immediately carried me out to the final resting place of Harry S Truman and his wife Bess. The identical pair of light granite markers were situated in the Library’s courtyard; a site that was chosen by the President himself. I was lucky as there weren’t many other tourists in the courtyard, which gave me the perfect opportunity to stand on Truman’s grave. As my photographer carefully set me on the flat granite grave marker, he did his best to avoid trampling the surrounding flowers; although a few of the flowers may have died for the cause.

Once we returned to the lobby of the museum, it didn’t take long for my photographer to get yelled at for the second time in about an hour. As he captured an image of Truman’s famous desk plate that said, “The Buck Stops Here”, the camera’s flash went off. Seconds later, three security personnel came out of the woodwork and converged on my photographer; they read him the ‘riot act’ as soon as they realized it was him who snapped the flash photo. Their verbal assault didn’t affect Tom much, but it seemed that it made his wife angry: “I am so embarrassed that you did that. You knew better than to take a flash picture.” He replied with: “What makes you believe that? I didn’t see any “No Flash Photography” signs posted.” My poor cameraman couldn’t catch a break in Independence. For the remainder of our stay at the Truman Library, he was very careful to obey all of the rules; which wasn’t too much fun for me.

Our visit to the Harry S Truman Library and Museum was finished at 1:40pm. I thought the museum had a few cool displays; but as usual, I expected more. The highlight of the visit for me was when I stood on Truman’s grave. In just three years, I’ve been to 18 Presidential gravesites.

Back in the Avenger, which was scorching hot from the mid-day sun, we retraced our path back towards Truman’s home. A few blocks from there, on Waldo Avenue, we found a two-story house where Harry had lived from the age of 11 to 17 years old. The Truman boyhood home was a private residence, which kept me from getting too close to the historic house.

After I had posed for a few photos, I noticed a small sign in the grass that was near a large tree. The sign stated that the tree was a tulip poplar and was a direct offshoot from a tree planted by George Washington at Mount Vernon in 1785. I thought that was cool, but I wondered if the home’s owner ever accidentally ran the sign over with his or her lawn mower.

It was almost 2:00pm and time for me to go to church, even though it was Saturday. This wasn’t just any church, mind you, it was the Trinity Episcopal Church where Bess and Harry Truman were married on June 28, 1919. The historic place of worship was located only three blocks north of the Truman Courthouse where we had been earlier in the day. It was very convenient that all of the Truman sites were situated in a close proximity to each other.

We wanted to visit one more Truman site before lunch. The 1827 log courthouse was situated one block south of the Truman Courthouse, which made me start to wonder why my photographer didn’t plan our day better to maximize our time.

That small courthouse was built in 1827 and for 40 years it was the only courthouse between Independence and the Pacific Ocean. The significance for me was the fact that Harry Truman held court here in the 1930’s; likely before the Jackson County Courthouse was built. I was carried inside the log courthouse, but we didn’t find anything of historical interest for me to stand on.

At 2:15pm, my photographer’s stomach was growling – and not just for fun or Presidential artifacts. We walked back towards the Truman Courthouse where we found a hot dog diner called Up Dog; Tom couldn’t get inside that building fast enough. From the glimpse of his chili dog that I saw, which was aptly named “Detroit Dog”, that diner was just what the doctor had ordered. While I watched my photographer gorge himself on the dog, I had a great view of the Truman Courthouse that was situated directly across the street. I wondered to myself if Ol’ Harry Truman ever walked across the street for a chili dog.

Following our lunch, my photographer decided it was time to make the 19-mile drive south to Grandview, Missouri, which was where the Truman Farm was located. Once we arrived in Grandview at a few minutes past 3:00pm, Vicki drove the Avenger down the long driveway to the farmhouse. Although we were lucky because there were no other tourists on the property, it was also unfortunate that there was no one inside the house. We had heard at the Visitor’s Center that the farmhouse was not open for tours, but I knew that my photographer would’ve talked his way inside the house had someone been there.

Twenty-two-year-old Harry Truman began working at his grandmother’s farm in 1906 and he spent the next 11 years at work there.  When Truman’s father died in 1914, Harry assumed full responsibility for the farm’s success or failure. I was carried around the property as I tried to pose with different views of the farmhouse. The house was built in 1894 by the future President’s grandmother Harriet Louisa Gregg and was the center of the 600-acre working farm.  I found it interesting when I stood on their well’s hand pump as Harry’s mother once said he got his “common sense” from the farm’s water.

We spent about 20 minutes walking around what was left of the 600-acre farmland before we headed back to Independence.  It was almost 4:00pm when we returned to Truman’s hometown and we still had two small Presidential sites to visit before we found a place to call home for the night.

Our first stop was at a Presidential site called Independence Station; better known by Presidential historians as “The Truman Depot”.  That train station served as the final stop on Truman’s 1948 ‘Whistle-Stop’ campaign tour.  A little over four years later, in January of 1953, roughly 8,500 admirers came to the station to welcome Truman home after he and Bess left the White House.  During our brief visit at Independence Station, I not only posed on the platform, but I also was carried across the tracks for another cool angle.  At one point, as I stood on the station’s window sill, it was as though I could hear Truman as he said to the throngs of people gathered there: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask why the buck stops here.”

From the train station, we headed for our final Truman site of the day; a site that was located once again across the street from the Truman Courthouse on Independence Square.  In 1898, 14-year-old Harry Truman went to work for Jim Clinton at his drug store where he performed a variety of tasks in the morning before he went to school.  Young Harry would sweep the floors; he also cleaned the store shelves and prescription bottles.  Before Mr. Clinton arrived at the store, Truman secretly sold swigs of whiskey to good church members at ten cents an ounce in an area that was out of public view. Today, Clinton’s Drug Store was known as Clinton’s Soda Fountain and it was the site where Harry Truman held his first job. 

When I was carried into the historic building, it was as though I was transported back in time.  Maybe it wasn’t the 1890’s, like when Truman worked there, but the atmosphere made it feel as though I was in the 1950’s.  After my photographer captured a few images of me inside the building, he and Vicki took time to enjoy a handmade chocolate malt.  It looked good, but since I was watching my ‘girlish figure’, I didn’t indulge in the malted milkshake. 

As we walked around the interior of the soda shop, Vicki noticed a map of the United States affixed to a back wall.  That map also featured thousands of colorful stickpins imbedded into the individual states – each represented a city where visitors to the soda shop had called their home.  A worker had asked Vicki to insert a pin into the spot on the map where we lived; she quickly found a yellow-headed pin and stuck it into the map just below Port Huron, Michigan.

Before we left Clinton’s Soda Fountain, Vicki went to work on her phone to find a motel; we had hoped to spend the night in the Independence area.  But for the first time since I had been traveling with those two, everything was sold out.  There was nothing in the Kansas City area, unless we wanted to sleep in another Cockroach Inn; but I had already been there and done that.  My photographer suggested that we drive west on I-70, get into Kansas and away from downtown Kansas City.  Tom thought maybe we would find a decent place to stay near the Kansas Speedway, but once we arrived at the racetrack, we didn’t have any luck finding a place there either.

My photographer’s goal was to stay somewhat close to Kansas City as there were some other sites that he had wanted to visit on Sunday in Missouri and Kansas.  Finally, as we sat in the Avenger near the Kansas Speedway, Vicki found a place for us to stay.  It was the Ramada hotel in Topeka, Kansas that was located about 50 miles to the west and it took us 45 minutes to get there.  Since we were nearly 70 miles from Kansas City, Missouri, that motel wasn’t in the most ideal location, but under the circumstances, there was nothing Tom or Vicki could do.  The two of them were exhausted from their day of crisscrossing Independence while they visited Truman sites, and they needed to get some sleep.  As I stood alongside the television set in our room, I thought about my photographer when he got yelled at by security – twice.  His expression was priceless, almost as priceless as his wife’s!