Harry S Truman National Historic Site ⓘ

The oral history project at Harry S Truman NHS began in 1983. When the National Park Service began tours of the home in 1984, little was known about the Truman family's private life and activities in the community. Early oral history interviews focused on the personal information critical to properly interpret, furnish, and preserve the home in a manner that accurately reflected the occupation of the Truman family.

For more than 30 years the program has preserved important information about the Truman family's home life and community ties in Independence and Grandview, Missouri. One Hundred thirty taped interviews have been conducted, totaling over 200 hours. The completed interviews allow the park to document the stories of family, friends and neighbors associated with Harry Truman and his family during their residence at 219 North Delaware in Independence and on the Truman farm in Grandview. Oral history informants included neighbors, secret service agents, medical personnel, shopkeepers, relatives, friends, household staff and other Truman contemporaries. The broad range of people interviewed helps paint a more complete picture of the Truman family's life.

Click on the alphabetical links below to browse the oral histories. Park staff and volunteers are working on finalizing recent interviews and these oral histories will be posted as they become available.

To search the oral histories by the informants' relationship with the Truman family, visit Oral History Informants by Association .

Twenty-two-year-old Harry Truman gave up his $100 a month bank salary to go work on the family farm in 1906. The farmhouse, with no plumbing or electricity, stood in stark contrast to the bright lights of Kansas City. On the farm, Harry had little privacy, sharing the seven-room house with his grandmother, parents, sister and brother.

Harry slept in a room above the dining area with brother Vivian and the hired hands. The bedroom was like an oven in the summer and an icebox in the winter. "It was an awful task to arise this morning in that ten-degree room," he wrote in 1914.

Harry's day began when his father called from the foot of the stairs. Before the smell of frying bacon filled the house, Harry was up feeding livestock and milking cows. Then, he came in to help Mamma and Mary Jane cook. According to one farm hand, Harry could "stir up as good a batch of biscuits as any woman."

After breakfast, Harry usually put in a long day of physically demanding work. In the evenings, the family gathered in the sitting room to read and talk. In the parlor, Harry, Mary Jane, or Mamma played the piano, while John added his mellow voice to sing-a-longs.

During Harry's eleven years on the farm, he worked hard, planned for the future, and confronted each challenge with calm determination. His demanding father expected Harry to do his best - whether it was planting straight corn rows or stacking hay. After his father's death in 1914, Harry assumed responsibility for the farm's success or failure.

To learn more about the Truman Farm Home, click on the links below to read the site bulletin and take a photo tour of the home's interior.

Over 57,000 artifacts from the Truman Home, Truman Farm Home, and related buildings are associated with the Trumans and their extended family. Proper management and storage of these artifacts is an essential part of the cultural resources program. The artifacts are significant resources for presenting Harry Truman's private life through their display in the homes and in our Visitor Center.

Approximately three-quarters of the artifacts in the collection are stored and maintained at an off-site storage facility. Most of the stored artifacts were removed for preservation purposes from the basement, second floor and attic of the Truman Home, and from the carriage house/garage. The remainder are on display in the Truman Home and Farm Home. Furnishings on the first floor of the Truman Home remain where they were when the NPS acquired the home in 1983.

NEW! The National Park Service has an online tool for sharing park collections called the Web Catalog. Click the link and see more Truman artifacts up close, as well as explore collections from other parks within the National Park Service.

Harry Truman had strong opinions about his clothing. Having once owned a haberdashery in Kansas City, he knew something about menswear and dressing the part. Friends he made in the business later became his personal tailors. One tailor remarked, “He was wonderfully dressed, but he didn’t go in for high-fashion clothes, just plain clothes.”

When Truman became president, he favored double-breasted suits with large, peaked lapels. During the 1960s, his suits followed the trend for slim, single-breasted styles. Fashion writers criticized President Truman for not being up-to-date on the current trends. British tailors were especially critical of Truman’s dress to which he responded that it was none of their business.

Kansas City tailor, Stephen Brod, whom Truman favored during the presidency, made many of his suits. Other tailors included his longtime friend Ted Marks, and Sol Stolowy of Kansas City Custom Garment Company.

This visual tour of the suits in the Harry S Truman NHS collection provides a chronological view of President Truman’s suits, sports jackets and tuxedos. Over 50 years of Harry Truman’s personal style is revealed, from his 1919 wedding suit to one of his last tailored suits in 1972.

Read more about Harry Truman's personal style in the Gentleman's Gazette articles: Harry S. Truman - President & Haberdasher The Shoe Collection of Harry S Truman

Music was an essential part of Harry Truman's life from the time he was a young boy. He learned to play the piano at age seven and took lessons from Mrs. E.C. White, a well-respected instructor in Kansas City. Mrs. White once took Harry to see the famous pianist Ignace Jan Paderewski at the Shubert Theatre in Kansas City. After the concert, Paderewski gave Harry a short lesson backstage, an event that left a lasting impression on young Harry. At age 15 he gave up his piano studies, deciding he must "go to work and earn a living."

As a young man, Truman attended many concerts and musicals in Kansas City and often took Bess on dates to the city. In 1912 he wrote to Bess, "How would you like to see the Orpheum road show in the afternoon and then go to dinner somewhere and then go to the Shubert? We could end up the season in one big splash…"

There are some people...who think maybe the country would have been better off if I had gone ahead and become a professional musician. I can't say that I agree with them. –Harry Truman

Throughout his life, Harry Truman played music, listened to music and discussed music with his family and friends. In 1951, President Truman reflected, "I am still very much interested in music and what it does for people. My daughter has some interest in music… My mother was very fond of music, and my father used to sing in the church choir. So I come by my love of music honestly."

Truman was not fond of what he called "modern noise," preferring the traditional classical music of his youth. He collected many records over the years and kept them in his study next to his Magnavox phonograph. Speaking of his favorite composers he said, "[Now] we can get them all on records, of course, and I have several of those...great pianists of the past playing those wonderful things of Mendelssohn and Beethoven, Mozart and Bach and Chopin."

Music, Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Mendelssohn… Chopin waltzes…Beautiful harmonies that make you love them. It is not noise. It is music. –Harry Truman

The Trumans amassed a collection of over 680 records—some purchased by the family, others received as gifts. Much of the collection reflects the types of music the family enjoyed, including classical music and Broadway scores. Gifts were received from famous musicians and average citizens who shared Harry Truman's love of music and the piano.

Adamastor, Re Dell' Onde Profonde, Brindisi: O Vin, Discaccia La. Recorded 1911, Re-Issued 1947

America the Beautiful / Silent Night. "Margaret Truman on 'Carnegie Hall’, American Broadcasting Co. Dec.20, 1949"

Antlers, The: Bill Schindler (Baritone), Hap Augsbury (Bass), Jay Morton (Tenor), Barney Brooks (Lead)

Harry Truman loved his cars. From his first car, a 1911 Stafford, to his last one, a 1972 Chrysler Newport, Harry took great pride in driving and maintaining his vehicles. He had his cars washed every few days, the upholstry vaccumed, and he never allowed smoking in his cars.

Parked in the garage behind the Truman Home at 219 N. Delaware, Harry Truman's last car, a light green 1972 Chrysler Newport, was purchased only six months before he passed. The car would be used by Bess until she passed in 1982. Truman traded in a 1969 Chrysler and purchased the '72 model in nearby Odessa, Missouri (always looking for the best deal). Supposedly, Harry picked the exterior color, while Bess picked the interior. With less than 19,000 miles on the odometer, the 4-door, 8-cylinder coupe is almost like new.

For the license plate number, Mr. Truman asked the state license bureau for 5745, the date of VE day in Europe, May 7th, 1945, just one day before his birthday on May 8th. The plate number has been permanently retired. The car was inherited by Margaret Truman Daniel upon the passing of her mother. Mrs. Daniel donated the car to the National Park Service which still maintains the vehicle today. The car is visible to visitors to the Truman home during the summer season.

After serving nearly eight years as President, Truman went home in 1953. For Harry and Bess, the love of his life, home meant 219 North Delaware Street in Independence, where they had lived together since their marriage in 1919. Mr. Truman lived more like a retired mayor than a former President.

Upon leaving the White House, he had no Secret Service protection, often drove his own car, and sometimes helped with the dishes. Ordinary citizens lined the front gate each morning hoping for an autograph, a handshake, or just a tip of his hat. Mr. Truman obliged them. “I realize they’ve come to see the striped mule of Missouri, and I don’t want them to be disappointed.”

Travelers to Independence can still experience Truman’s town and follow in his footsteps on a neighborhood walking tour, smell the concord grapes ripening on his back porch, and even read the oral histories of his friends and family.

219 North Delaware is the heart of Harry S Truman National Historic Site. The National Park Service also cares for four other Truman related homes that, along with the Delaware Street neighborhood, help tell the story of this “People’s President.” Places To Go

"I hope to be remembered as the people's President," said Harry S Truman to a national television audience in 1955. Speaking from his home he continued, "I'd say fifteen million people are…represented by the lobbyists in the city of Washington. The other 150 million have only one man who is elected at large to represent them, that is the President of the United States. When he goes back on them, they are in a bad way."

While in office, President Truman seemed fixated with the idea of fairness for all. He ordered the desegregation of the military, for example, and called his domestic program the Fair Deal. As the recognized leader of the free world, Truman wielded tremendous power, but he kept his perspective. "I always took the view that the Presidency is a gift of the people who elect the President for a limited time," he wrote.

The park preserves and maintains a variety of historical vegetation on the grounds including a wide variety of trees, shrubs, perennials, bulbs, and vines.

Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum) Location: northwest front yard, southwest yard Slow to moderate growth, stout branches, leaves turn shades of red in the fall.

Flowering quince (Chaenomeles speciosa) Location: northeast yard Red flowers are produced in the early spring; fruit is produced in the late summer and fall and look like yellow-green apples about 2 inches in diameter.

Vanhoutte/Bumalda spirea (Spirea x bumalda) Location: around Truman Home, southeast and northwest lawns Exhibit an open, rounded, natural look, weeping of branches. Bloom in late spring with white clusters so numerous as to wreath the branches.

Common lilac (Syringa valgaris) Location: Around Truman Home, fence line, next to Wallace Homes Fragrant lavender, cone-shaped clusters of flowers on the tips of branches in April and May.

Sweet mock orange (Philadelphus coronarius) Location: northwest of Truman Home, next to back porch Fragrant white flowers, 1 to 2 inches across with a scent of orange blossoms; blooms in late spring.

Common Peony (Paeonia officinalis) Location: northeast yard, both sides of driveway Peonies produce well-grown clumps 3 to 4 feet tall with large white/pink to lavender flowers in the spring.

Daffodil (Narcissus) Location: northeast yard, next to driveway Spring- flowering plants, hardy to cold and heat, produce cup-shaped center flower, white or yellow in color.