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A group of tourists just starting their tour of the Truman house. I would go on a tour later in the ...
A group of tourists just starting their tour of the Truman house. I would go on a tour later in the day but photography wouldn't be allowed so I'll summarise it now. This home originally belonged to the grandparents of the woman who would become Bess Truman, Harry's wife. They were quite a wealthy family. Harry first met Bess when they were both young children living a few streets away. Harry was from a poorer family. After school, he first got a job in a bank but then had to leave the city and work on his family's farm nearby, which eventually went bankrupt. He tried to invest in mining and oil but those ventures also lost money. Then he became an Army captain during the First World War, where he proved to be a successful and respected leader. After the war, he married Bess and moved in here with her and her brothers, mother and grandparents. Eventually, this would become Bess and Harry's home. Harry opened a haberdashery business but that failed too so he ended up in local politics, where he tried to combat the corruption which was present. Eventually he became a senator, then Vice President and then became president when Franklin Roosevelt died during the Second World War. After leaving the presidency, Harry and Bess continued to live here until his death in 1972 and hers in 1982.

Only the downstairs of the house is open to the public. It has been preserved at it was in 1982. Most of the rooms look like the comfortable home of a resonably wealthy family from the early 20th Century, with a few later additions such as a 1970s television set. The first room that we visited though was the kitchen, which is very basic and cheaply decorated. Apparently the rickety little table in there was where Harry and Bess would eat when they were alone, which seems a bit funny when you see the beautiful dining table that was in the next room. Harry didn't much enjoy opulence. From the house, you can just about see his last car in the garage, which was a very basic model. I once saw a table which showed that, adjusted for inflation, he was poorer at the end of his life than any other president.


UTC Time: 15:59, Thursday 24 August 2017
Local Time: 10:59, Thursday 24 August 2017
Estimate of longitude: 94° 25' 25.54" W = -94.423760°
Estimate of latitude: 39° 5' 38.29" N = 39.093970°
Possible error on position estimate: 200 metres