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Discover Mid-America — September 2006

A look at Harry Truman’s
farm days

Each day in Grandview, MO, just south of Kansas City, thousands of drivers on Blue Ridge Boulevard pass a modest driveway leading to an old farmhouse. Most are unaware that they’re in President Truman’s old neighborhood. Shopping centers and businesses occupy most of a 600-acre farm that helped shape the character of an American president.

Harry’s maternal grandparents, Solomon and Harriet Young, purchased the farm in 1867 and built a large house on the site. Their daughter, Martha, became the bride of John Truman in 1881. Nine years later, the couple moved to Independence where their younger children could attend school.

In 1894, fire destroyed the original home and a new one was built on the earlier home’s foundations. The house and remaining property is now a National Historic Site

In 1906, when Harry was 22, financial setbacks caused the family to leave Independence and return to the Grandview farm, with Harry pressed into service as a farmer. He learned farming quickly, writing later that he “did everything there was to do on a 600-acre farm with my father and my brother.”

When my wife and I toured the farm home recently, we paused in an upstairs bedroom that Harry shared with his brother and, occasionally, field hands. Betty Dawson, our guide, remarked, “Harry got used to getting up at 5:30 every morning, lighting fires in the stoves on cold days to warm the big house. Then he fed the animals and did other chores before breakfast.”

Dawson added, “The habit of rising early and working hard stayed with him all his life.”

In The Autobiography of Harry S Truman, Robert H. Ferrell quotes Harry. “It was my job to help my father and brother feed the livestock, sometimes milk a couple of cows, then help my mother get breakfast.” He also described plowing with horses. “About five acres could be broken up in a day — not an eight-hour one but in, say, ten or twelve hours.”

Later, Truman describes working with hogs in a fenced pen east of the house. “I have been to the lot and put about a hundred rings in half as many hogs’ noses. You really haven’t any idea what a soul-stirring job it is, especially on a day when the mud is knee-deep and about the consistency of cake dough.”

Harry’s father died in 1914, and the responsibility for the farm fell on Harry’s shoulders. He left the farm in 1917 to serve his country as an artillery officer in World War I. Harry’s mother and sister ran the farm in his absence.

Returning from the war, Truman married Bess Wallace, whom he had been courting for nine years, and moved to Independence to live with her family.

“When Harry made it clear he wouldn’t be returning to the farm,” Dawson said, “His mother put her foot down. Although she was a strong woman, the responsibilities for running a 600-acre farm were too much.”

An auction was held; livestock and farm implements were sold. Developers would later buy most of the farm, a few acres at a time — all but the house and 4.3 acres.

The farmhouse went through a series of owners and fell into disrepair. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, the home was rescued two years later by a foundation made up of local citizens. A local carpenter, George Fogelsong, who said he “owed a personal favor to Harry Truman,” did much of the restoration work at no charge.

Samples of the original wallpaper were later found, and duplicated. Furnishings and photographs of the period were acquired from members of the Truman family and others.

The property was purchased by Jackson County in 1983 and became a National Historic Landmark two years later. In 1994, the county deeded the property to the National Park Service, and the Truman Farm Home was opened to the public.

Dawson began working at the farm as a Park Guide shortly after that. She works with another park guide, Karen Stover.

“Oh, I could tell you stories,” Dawson said. “One day Gilbert Truman brought us a double-barreled shotgun owned by Martha Truman, Harry’s mother. It was longer than she was tall. Apparently, she’d used it to chase away varmints and predators on the farm.”

Where was it today?

“There were security problems and the Park Service didn’t want it publicly displayed,” she said.

The Harry S Truman Farm, located at 12301 Blue Ridge Blvd., is open from early May until Labor Day on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Guided tours are on the half-hour, beginning at 9:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. The $4 admission includes a visit to the Truman Home in Independence.

The farmhouse closes after Labor Day, but visitors can visit the grounds at no charge. For more information call 816-254-2720 or go to www.nps.gov/hstr.

Ken Weyand can be reached at kweyand1@kc.rr.com

> Traveling with Ken Archive — past columns