Mrs. Truman stunned by news of presidency
Roosevelt successor phones wife at 5-room apartment
WASHINGTON (UP) – Harry S. Truman himself informed his wife of the fateful event which made him President of the United States.
First Lady keeps ‘Midwest humor’ despite fame
WASHINGTON (SHS) – “In spite of all that has come to us, thank God I still have my Middle West sense of humor.”
It would be difficult to say whether that is a characteristic sentiment of new first lady, Mrs. Harry Truman. Yet it is the one remark which friends remember having heard her make time and again since January 20 when her husband became vice president.
Mrs. Truman has not been a whooper-upper for Harry Truman, but a steady, appreciated and aided the ambitions of her husband. She never worries about herself. But she does jeep a weather eye on the man who yesterday was sworn in as president.
She’s of medium height, more than medium waistline, nicely dressed. Her greying hair is soberly parted, waved and curled. She’s rural America come to Washington.
Mrs. Truman received a telephone call from her husband late yesterday while she was in their unassuming five-room Connecticut Avenue apartment which they have occupied for the last four years.
Mrs. Truman, stunned, immediately called a friend, Mrs. Oscar J. Ricketts, manager of the apartment house, and asked her to come up.
Mrs. Ricketts said she found the new first lady in tears, overcome and stunned.
Leave by back door
A few minutes later, Mrs. Truman, with her 20-year-old-daughter, Mary Margaret, left the apartment house by the back door in a White House limousine which took them to their future home.
There they witnessed the simple ceremony which made Harry S. Truman the new president. The new president, his wife and daughter returned to their apartment at 7:30 p.m.
They entered by a back door as Secret Service men held back a small crowd of curious neighbors gathered around the front entrance of the apartment house.
Apartment guarded
A guard of about a dozen Secret Service men were stationed about the apartment house. They permitted no one to disturb the family and did not permit the delivery of any telegrams. All phone calls were refused.
Mrs. Truman, trim, gray-haired, and Mary Margaret, slender, with long blond hair, wore simple brown suits.
“We’ll miss them,” Mrs. Ricketts observed pensively. “They just don’t come any nicer or any finer. I never saw a family with more I never saw a family with more affection for each other. It’s rather outstanding.”
Mrs. Ricketts was unable to recall any remarks that Mrs. Truman made before she departed for the White House.
Busy answering phone
“I was too busy answering the telephone and everything was so strange,” she said. “I just can’t remember.”
Margaret, she said, displayed extreme emotion. Tears welled in her eyes.
Soon after the news reached them, Mrs. Truman’s next-door neighbor and friend, Mrs. Leonard Davis, wife of Maj. Gen. Davis who is now serving in Europe, arrived at the Truman apartment.
Mrs. Ricketts recalled that Mrs. Truman affectionately calls her husband “Boss."
Formerly taught school
The new first lady, a one-time schoolteacher of Independence, Missouri, first skyrocketed to national prominence at last July’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago when her husband was selected as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fourth-term running mate.
Meeting reporters in numbers for the first time in her life, she admitted frankly that she was thrilled by it all – and just as frankly admitted that she would be glad when the excitement was over and she could get back to her home in Independence.
The Trumans have no servants and Mrs. Truman does all the housework herself. She also prepares the family’s two meals a day, except on those rare occasions when the Trumans’ presence is required at social functions.
Helped her husband
In the years when her husband was chairman of the well-known Senate War Investigating Committee, she had an almost full-time job helping him with details of his investigation work. Most of her work was done at home but, on occasion, she worked in his office at the Capitol.
The everyday touch which the new first lady has in abundance was demonstrated the day Mr. Roosevelt was sworn in for his fourth term and Mr. Truman took the oath as vice president.
Her one complaint after a grueling day of standing for hours shaking hands with the White House guests was that her feet hurt.
Given a tip
Her predecessor gave her a tip that day for which she probably will be eternally grateful.
“If you will relax your knees, you will not become so tired from standing for long periods,” Mrs. Roosevelt is said to have told her. “I have learned to do it since I came to live her.”