Buried: Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Missouri
Thirty-third President - 1945-1953
Born: May 8, 1884, in Lamar, Missouri
Died: 7:50 a.m. on December 26, 1972, in Kansas City, Missouri
Age at death: 88
Cause of death: Cardiovascular failure
Final Words: Unknown
Admission to Harry S. Truman Library: $8.00
Harry Truman was having cocktails in the Capitol with House Speaker Sam Rayburn when FDR died and he became president on April 12, 1945. He later said, “I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me.”
Eleanor Roosevelt met Truman at the White House to relay the news of her husband’s death. When he asked if there was anything he could do, she responded, “No, Harry. Is there anything we can do for you? You’re the one in trouble now.” He had been vice president less than three months.
During “Give ’Em Hell Harry’s” administration the atomic bomb was used against Japan, World War II ended, the Korean War began, and the United Nations was established. Truman also oversaw big changes at home—his home—during his presidency. The interior of the White House needed to be rebuilt after a piano leg fell through a crumbling floor. For four years, the Truman family lived across the street at Blair House.
Truman’s wife Bess, his childhood sweetheart, found one advantage to being displaced: fewer social obligations. She disliked life as first lady and was thrilled when her husband decided not to seek a second full term.
In 1953, the couple returned to their home at 219 North Delaware in Independence, Missouri. Truman supervised the creation of his presidential library, which opened in 1957. He worked on his memoirs in an office there and loved to give tours to visitors surprised to see the former president on site.
By 1964, Truman was increasingly frail. After a fall in his home, the eighty-year-old former president never fully regained his strength. In early December 1972, Truman left his home for the last time and was admitted to Kansas City’s Research Hospital. He was seriously ill with lung congestion and bronchitis. His condition improved briefly, but on December 14, Harry Truman lost consciousness. Most of his major organs were shutting down. By Christmas Eve, Truman was near death. His heart stopped at 7:50 a.m. on December 26, 1972. He was eighty-eight years old.
The government’s plans for Truman’s funeral were extensive. Arrangements by the Military District of Washington called for a five-day state affair, with his body being flown to Washington to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda. The army even prepared “Black Jack,” the riderless horse used in John Kennedy’s funeral, for a flight to Missouri for the burial. However, Citizen Truman had himself vetoed the notion of lying in state. He and his wife opted instead for a simple private ceremony in Independence.
Still the streets were lined with soldiers on the day Truman took his final trip to his library. President and Mrs. Nixon laid a wreath of carnations on the casket. Lyndon Johnson, who was also there, would himself live just three more weeks.
An estimated seventy-five thousand people paid their respects before Truman was buried in the library’s courtyard. As he’d told his staff, he wanted to be “out there, so I can get up and walk into my office if I want to.” There was a simple graveside service with no hymns and no eulogy. He was laid to rest in the bitter cold to the sounds of taps. His beloved Bess was buried alongside him when she died in 1982 at age ninety-seven. She is America’s longest-living first lady.
Touring the Tomb at the Harry S. Truman Library
The Harry S. Truman Library and Museum is open daily, except Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. It is open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Saturday, with extended hours until 9:00 p.m. on Thursdays from May through September. Sunday hours are from noon to 5:00 p.m.
Admission is $8.00 for adults, $7.00 for senior citizens, and $3.00 for children ages six to fifteen. Children under six are admitted free.
From Kansas City International Airport: Travel east/south on I-435 approximately thirty-two miles to the Winner Road exit. Winner Road becomes U.S. Highway 24. Travel east three miles to the library, which is on the north side of U.S. Highway 24.
From the north: Take I-35 to I-435 South to Winner Road/U.S. Highway 24 East. The library is on the north side of U.S. Highway 24.
From the east: Take I-70 to Noland Road north (about 5 miles) to U.S. Highway 24 West (about one mile). Look for the Harry S. Truman Library sign at the intersection of Noland Road and U.S. Highway 24.
From the south: Take I-35 to I-435 North to Winner Road/U.S. Highway 24 East. The library is on the north side of U.S. Highway 24.
From the west: Take I-70 to I-435 North, to Winner Road/U.S. Highway 24 East. The library is on the north side of U.S. Highway 24.
To reach the gravesite from the Library and Museum’s east entrance, go to the courtyard. President Truman’s grave is located in the center.
For additional information
Harry S. Truman Library
500 West U.S. Highway 24
Independence, MO 64050-1798
Phone: (800) 833-1225/(816) 268-8200
Fax: (816) 268-8295
www.trumanlibrary.org
“…funerals invite reconciliation.”
—Richard Norton Smith
A man defines himself in many ways, not least of all through his loyalties. In January 1945, less than a week after being sworn in as Franklin Roosevelt’s vice president, Harry Truman learned of the death of Tom Pendergast, the Kansas City politico who had sponsored Truman’s early career and who had later gone to prison on charges of income tax evasion. Courageously, Truman decided to attend “the Big Boss’s” funeral. It was a lifelong habit. In his magisterial Truman, David McCullough quotes an Independence minister who was taken aback one bleak winter day to find himself presiding over a committal service at which the sole mourner was the thirty-third President of the United States. Having said the benediction, the pastor turned to Truman.
“Mr. President, why are you here?” he asked. “It’s cold and bitter. Did you know this gentleman?”
“Pastor,” replied Truman, “I never forget a friend.”
Truman’s home at 219 North Delaware Street, a few blocks from his library
Old men spend an inordinate amount of time burying each other. At the same time, funerals invite reconciliation. For example, it took the burial of John F. Kennedy to bring Truman together with his successor, Dwight Eisenhower, after a period of estrangement that dated back to the 1952 campaign. Truman never forgave Eisenhower for failing to come to the defense of General George Marshall when the former secretary of state was attacked by Joe McCarthy. For his part, Eisenhower resented Truman’s strident attacks in the closing days of the campaign (in later years, he acidly dismissed New York’s patrician governor, Averell Harriman, as “a Park Avenue Truman”).
Yet when Marshall died in the fall of 1959, the two men sat side by side in the Fort Myer chapel where Marshall was memorialized. Two years later they attended the funeral of Speaker Sam Rayburn. Joined by President Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon Johnson, they were on hand in the rose garden at Hyde Park as Eleanor Roosevelt was laid to rest in November 1962. But it was the Kennedy funeral, during which they rode together to and from the services at Arlington, that drained the poison from their relationship. After the services, Truman and Eisenhower spent an hour reminiscing at Blair House, being careful to avoid past controversies.
—RNS