WHILE COPING WITH these literally world-shaking problems, Dad had to bear the burden of two more personal worries, one very serious, and the other definitely unserious, to almost everybody but him, Mother, and me. On February 14, 1947, Mamma Truman broke her hip. On March 15, I launched my career as a singer. The two events are intertwined, and that is why I shall try to tell both stories simultaneously.

Dad constantly worried and fretted about his daughter, the would-be singer, in New York. When he wasn’t doing that, he lamented my absence at the White House. “Margie will probably go up to New York sometime next week to continue her voice lessons and we’ll be lonesome again,” he wrote to his mother and sister on January 17, 1947. “But she wants to do it and she wants to do it without exploiting the White House. And I’ll have to agree to it I suppose, although I’d rather she’d stay at home. But I don’t want her to be a Washington socialite and she doesn’t want to be.”

Those were among the truest words Dad has ever written. Actually, he was pleased I wanted to have a career. It was largely the complications of being the President’s daughter that disturbed him. On January 30, he wrote more philosophically to his mother and sister:

Margaret went to New York yesterday and it leaves a blank place here. But I guess the parting time has to come to everybody and if she wants to be a warbler and has the talent and will do the hard work necessary to accomplish her purpose, I don’t suppose I should kick.

Most everyone who has heard her sing seems to think she has the voice. All she needs is training and practice.

He urged me to get plenty of both. “I hope your work is getting results,” he wrote on February 6:

It takes work, work and more work to get satisfactory results as your pop can testify. Don’t go off the deep end on contracts until you know for sure what you are getting - and what you have to offer.

I am only interested in your welfare and happy future and I stand ready to do anything to contribute to that end. But remember that good name and honor are worth more than all the gold and jewels ever mined. Remember what old Shakespeare said, “Who steals my purse steals trash, but who filches my good name takes that which enriches not himself and makes me poor indeed.” A good name and good advice is all your dad can give you.

I am counting the days until you come home.

When Mamma Truman fell in her bedroom and broke her hip, Dad immediately rushed his personal physician, Dr. Wallace Graham, to her side, and the following day flew to Grandview himself in the Sacred Cow. But Mamma Truman was by no means at death’s door, as he feared. She was as alert and spunky as ever. General Vaughan, who was with Dad, made the mistake of scolding her: “You’re giving us more trouble than all the Republicans,” he said.

“I have no time for any smart remarks from you,” she snapped. “I saw that picture of you last week - wasting time putting wreaths on the Lincoln Memorial.”

Dad was so encouraged by this and other evidence of his mother’s strength that he returned to Washington the following day. I came down to celebrate my twenty-third birthday with him on February 17, and he took me to see Pinafore. At the end of the show, thanks to some careful planning on the part of the White House, the whole cast burst into “Happy Birthday.” Dad beamed. To be able to spring these nice surprises on people was one of the few compensations he received for his ordeal in the White House.

Back to New York I went, to my labors in the musical salt mines. I was starting to feel very discouraged about my future. The world of concert music seemed as impenetrable as ever. Then, on February 26, I got my first break. Carl Krueger, conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, invited me to sing over a nationwide radio hookup on Sunday, March 9. I accepted and went to work at a frantic pace, practicing in Town Hall and Carnegie Hall to accustom my voice to large areas.

On March 2, two days before I was to leave for Detroit, I came down with my favorite disease - a sore throat. I decided to ignore it. The following day I wrote in my diary, “I am going on that train tomorrow if it kills me or I have double pneumonia.” By the time I checked into the Book-Cadillac Hotel in Detroit, after a seemingly endless ride in an unheated train, my throat was practically closed. Dr. Krueger, if he had been more interested in me and less in the publicity I could generate, would have sent me home. My top tones had vanished. But he assured me my voice was fine. The next day, I had to spend hours posing with Dr. Krueger for photographers and sit through an interminable dinner at the Detroit Club. I began to have very strange sensations in my chest. The following morning I could hardly breathe.

Dad was in Mexico during these three harrowing days - I had turned down his pleas to make the trip with him to accept Dr. Krueger’s invitation - but Mother was in the White House, and someone - perhaps my voice coach, Mrs. Strickier - told her about my alarming decline. A few hours later, I was confronted by Dr. Graham, who took my pulse and temperature and told me I was not going to sing on Sunday. “You have bronchial pneumonia,” he informed me.

I tried to protest, but by now I could barely talk. I felt miserable, both physically and mentally. I was sure everyone would say I had panicked and collapsed before my big test. That night Dad arrived back from Mexico, and the Sacred Cow landed in Detroit the following morning to take the patient back to the White House.

There I spent four days inhaling Benzoin and imbibing penicillin. On the fourth day, I rose, and on the fifth announced my determination to return to Detroit. Everyone begged me to stay in bed another week, but my Truman contrariness was at high tide, and on Saturday, March 15, I arrived in Detroit accompanied by Dr. Graham and Reathel Odum, Mother’s secretary.

On March 13, in the same letter that he told me about the announcement of the Truman Doctrine, Dad included a pep talk for me:

Now in addition to that terrible (and it is terrible) decision, your good old 94-year-old grandmother of the 1860 generation was unlucky and broke her leg - you, the “apple of my eye” - my sweet baby also had bad luck with your first appearance. Well, daughter, the dice roll - sometimes they are for you - sometimes they are not. I earnestly believe they were for you this time. I am just as sure as I can be that Sunday night at 8 p.m. another great soprano will go on the air. So don’t worry about anything - just go on and sing as you sang that “Home, Sweet Home” record for your Dad - and nothing can stop you - even the handicap of being the Daughter of President Truman! . . .

More love than you can realize now,

Dad

The entire Truman Administration was glued to the radio, at 8:28 Eastern Standard Time, on March 16, 1947. By now, numerous other things had gone wrong. Dr. Graham had ordered sunlamp treatments for me at the White House and the Medical Corps attendant left me under the lamp too long. I got a very bad sunburn, which did nothing to help me relax. The zipper of my dress, a long-tailed blue chiffon with a many-layered billowing skirt, broke while I was putting it on, and Reathel had to sew me into it. I was singing in an empty auditorium, with only the orchestra for company. Unknown to me, Dr. Krueger had arranged for two dozen reporters and critics to sit in the back row, ignoring the fact that I was singing into a radio microphone, and the empty hall created acoustical problems that would make it very difficult for them to judge my voice. The announcer who introduced me yakked about who I was for several unnecessary minutes. Finally came the moment of truth. I sang “Cielito Lindo,” a Spanish folk song, “Charmante Oiseau,” an aria from Felician David’s “La Perle du Brasil,” and “The Last Rose of Summer.”

As soon as my performance was over, Dr. Krueger unleashed the photographers on me again, and I staggered back to the Book-Cadillac in Detroit, exhausted. Dad telephoned to tell me he thought I had been wonderful. But, of course, I knew he would have said that if I had croaked like a frog. I was more anxious to hear what the critics said. On the whole, they were very kind. Most of them found my voice quite acceptable and foresaw a promising future for me, with more training and experience. I was thrilled by praise from other singers, such as Robert Merrill, and by an offer from Hollywood to appear in a film named “Las Vegas,” for a fee of $10,000. I was wise enough to decline that one, however, without even bothering to ask Dad. I knew what he would say.

Best of all, the public seemed to like me. I received thousands of letters, which had me writing thank you notes and signing mail for the next several weeks.

On March 22, Dad wrote to his mother, giving her a good description of his feelings about my debut:

It was a great relief to have it over with. Don’t think I ever spent such a miserable day and when that “bird” just kept talking just before she came on I wanted to shoot him.

Mrs. Vinson, the wife of the Chief Justice, called up Bess and said that he walked the floor and cussed the roof off while he was making that announcement. I felt like doing the same thing, but all the gang who were with me at Key West and all the help in the house were seated around listening in at the same time so I had to sit still and bear it.

With me out of the way, Dad devoted most of his worries to his mother. She was not recovering as well as he wished or hoped from her fall. At ninety-four, bones heal very slowly, if at all. “I hope you’ll get someone to help you and that you’ll take good care of yourself,” Dad wrote to his sister. “I worry about both of you a lot - but what makes me more worried I can’t seem to do anything about it.”

I went back to New York, to launch a concert career, which now seemed a very real possibility. Mother joined me to consult on clothes. On May 5, I signed contracts for appearances in Pittsburgh and Cleveland. I spent a week of intensive practice with my accompanist, Mrs. Carlton Shaw, and another week working on publicity pictures and press releases. Dad, of course, was following all this very carefully. In between worrying about the Russians and the Eightieth Congress, he worried about whether I would survive my travels around the country without another case of pneumonia, and if I managed this and became a success, whether I might develop into a prima donna. On May 14, he wrote me: “The best of luck, your dad’s praying for you. Wish I could go along and smooth all the rough spots - but I can’t and in a career you must learn to overcome the obstacles without blowing up. Always be nice to all the people who can’t talk back to you. I can’t stand a man or woman who bawls out underlings to satisfy an ego.”

I was packing for my appearance in Pittsburgh when Mother telephoned me with shattering news. Mamma Truman was on the point of death. Dad had flown to Independence. He did not want me to change my plans because it might be a false alarm. In Pittsburgh, on the morning of May 19, came another phone call, telling me Mamma Truman was not expected to live through the day. That made singing out of the question. I canceled my appearance and took a plane for Kansas City. My concert manager was absolutely wonderful about this decision and told me not to worry about all the defunct tickets I had just created. I spent five days with Dad, while he spent every available moment at Mamma Truman’s bedside. She was terribly weak, but her mind was still amazingly clear. She brightened when she saw me, and that made the tangle of canceled concerts worthwhile.

Dad signed the Greek-Turkish Aid Act in his Muehlebach Hotel office on May 22, after it had finally cleared the Senate. The doctors had given Mamma Truman up two days before this date, but she declined to cooperate. On the twenty-fourth, she awoke early in the morning and asked for a slice of watermelon. Dr. Graham said she could have anything she wanted. Half the Democrats in Missouri were soon looking for watermelon, which was out of season. One was found and rushed to Grandview. Mamma Truman ate most of it, and the following day she was talking politics, while the doctors watched and listened, dumbfounded.

“Is Taft going to be nominated next year?” she asked Dad.

“He might be,” Dad said.

Mamma Truman thought about this for a few moments. Senator Taft was her most unfavorite Republican, and that is saying a lot. “Harry, are you going to run?” she asked.

“I don’t know, Mamma.”

Mamma Truman frowned at the mere thought her son might pass up an opportunity to thrash Senator Taft. “Don’t you think it’s about time you made up your mind?” she asked him.

On May 29, Mamma Truman was so improved that Dad and Mother and I flew back to Washington. Early in June, we took a trip to Canada, but Dad kept in close touch with Grandview by mail and telephone. “Tell Mamma to ‘behave’ herself,” he wrote on July 10. A few days later, his sister Mary sent him very disappointing news. Mamma Truman’s broken bone was not healing, and the doctors were now saying she would probably never get out of bed again. On July 25, Dad wrote to Aunt Mary: “It is certainly too bad after all the effort and work you put forth for her that Mamma can’t get up. But it has been a great fight and we almost won it. Anyway we know that everything possible was done.”

By this time, Mother and I had gone home to Missouri. I was practicing hard, getting ready for a reconstructed concert tour. There was no trace of worry, only the usual complaints about loneliness in the letters Dad sent me in mid-July.

It is very lonesome around here even if I do work from daylight until dark [he wrote on July 16]. It is much nicer when someone is around making a “noise.” Then the “ghosts” continue to walk up and down the hall and around the study. . . .

I hope your lessons are working out to advantage. I sure want that postponed concert tour to be a grand success. . . .

Don’t eat too much chocolate ice cream, be nice to your aunts and go see your country grandma once in a while. . . .

On July 19, he was teasing me: “Do you need anything - money, marbles or chalk? You may have anything I have. You should see the most beautiful and ancient ring the latest Arab visitor gave me. It is a peculiar stone carved evidently in ancient Egypt. The ring itself was made before Christ. I can’t get it on.”

Early in the morning of July 26, his sister Mary called Dad at the White House to tell him Mamma Truman had pneumonia and was close to death. Dad had to stay in the White House long enough to sign the armed forces unification bill, one of the great achievements of his administration, but he was airborne before noon. He was dozing in his cabin when his mother’s face suddenly appeared before him with amazing clarity. Dad sat up, terribly shaken. A few minutes later, Dr. Graham handed him a report which the pilot of the plane had just received. Mamma Truman was dead. “I knew she was gone when I saw her in that dream,” Dad said. “She was saying goodbye to me.”

We met Dad at the airport at 3:30 p.m. He was calm but sad. Mamma Truman had been part of his life for so long he found it hard to realize she was gone. In spite of his grief, he immediately took control. He appointed me his deputy, charged with making sure “none of the family gets pushed around during the funeral.’”

The next two days were hectic. Dad spent most of his time in Grandview, talking to people who came to pay their respects. The following day, July 28, I summed up in my diary as follows:

Monday, July 28th, 1947

The funeral was at home in Grandview. It was brief, as Mamma Truman wished. The house was covered with flowers and even the floor was carpeted with floral tributes. The Cabinet sent a huge wreath of red roses and President Alemán of Mexico a huge wreath. One of the gardenias came from Cuba and one of the glads from the Senate. Mother got an enormous spray of red roses, Mamma Truman’s favorite, for the casket. All the other flowers were sent to hospitals. We all drove to Forest Hill Cemetery for the services and they were short too. She is beside Grandfather Truman now.

On August 1, Dad was still feeling his loss.

Someday you’ll be an orphan just as your dad is now [he wrote to me]. I am going up to Shangri-la today and will meet your ma at Silver Spring on Monday as I return to town. Wish you were coming back with her. This place is a tomb without you and your mother.

I have been looking over the thousands of letters, cards & telegrams about your old grandmother. They come from every state and every country and are very kind. Have heard from the Pope, King George, Chiang Kai-shek, the Queen of Holland and every President in the Western Hemisphere.

But the ones I appreciate most come from home. Heard from men & women your mother and I went to school with - some I hadn’t heard from in forty years. Got one from the colored man who always waits on me at the Kansas City Club and one signed Fields [head White House butler], Pye [another butler] and Prettyman [his valet], one signed by all the sergeants who guard my plane. I like them more than all the topnotchers. Your dad just can’t appreciate a formal stuffed-shirt approach. Had letters, cards and wires from all Senators, House members and governors, even Dewey and Taft.

I picked up my singing career again with an appearance in Los Angeles. I sang in the Hollywood Bowl on August 26, 1947, with Eugene Ormandy conducting the orchestra. On October 17, I relaunched my concert tour in Pittsburgh. Mother, Mr. and Mrs. John Snyder, Mrs. Fred Vinson, Pearl Mesta, and several other Washington supporters flew in to boost my morale. Dad would have given anything to come, but he absolutely vetoed the idea, in spite of strong pleas from the mayor of the city and Senator Myers of Pennsylvania. “I’m afraid I’d upset the apple cart if I went,” he wrote to me a few days before the event. I understood exactly what he meant. He wanted me to get the publicity, and it is impossible for anyone, even the President’s daughter, to manage this when the Chief Executive and his traveling circus arrive on the scene.

The concert was a success and I took off on a swing through the south and southwest, singing every second or third night at places like Amarillo, Forth Worth, Oklahoma City, Little Rock, Memphis, and Shreveport. Dad kept very good track of me as you can see from this letter he wrote on December 3, 1947:

My dear daughter - I called you last night because I was not sure you were comfortably and properly situated in Des Moines.

You should call your mamma and dad every time you arrive in a town. . . . Someday maybe (?) you’ll understand what torture it is to be worried about the only person in the world that counts. You should know by now that your dad has only three such persons. Your ma, you and your Aunt Mary. And your Aunt Mary is running around just as you are. [Aunt Mary was very active in the Order of the Eastern Star.] So - you see beside all the world and the United States I have a couple of other worries.

On December 21, I ended my tour with a concert in Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. It was one of the most wonderful nights of my life. Dad could join the audience here without turning the city inside out. Every seat was filled. The Cabinet sent me a great basket of red roses, and I received eleven bouquets over the footlights. I sang better than I had sung anywhere else throughout the tour. Dad was immensely pleased. I really think in some ways he enjoyed the evening more than I did.

It was a perfect prelude to our first White House Christmas. The thought of Christmas at home without Mamma Truman was too painful for Dad. So he invited the whole family to join us at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Here is how he summed it up in a memorandum he wrote on his calendar that day:

We have a most happy and pleasant Christmas, with all the brothers of Bess present. Frank, George & Fred with their wives Natalie, May & Christine with two children of Fred - David & Marion. . . .

My sister, Mary Jane came on the 22nd and I am sure spent an enjoyable time. My brother could not come - in fact I didn’t ask him because he told me he intended to have his family at the farm. He has four boys all married but one and a lovely daughter. I called him and he said 22 sat down to dinner at his house. I am sure they had a grand dinner - a much happier one than a formal butler served one, although ours was nice enough.

But family dinner cooked by the family, mother, daughters, granddaughters, served by them is not equalled by White House, Delmonico’s . . . or any other formal one.