Elizabeth Virginia "Bess" Truman was the wife of Harry S. Truman. She had known her future husband since they were children attending the same school in Independence, Missouri. As First Lady, she did not enjoy the social and political scene in Washington as had her enormously popular predecessor Eleanor Roosevelt. At her death in 1982, aged 97, became the longest-lived First Lady.
Background
Bess Truman was born Elizabeth Virginia Wallace on February 13, 1885, to David Willock Wallace and his wife, the former Margaret Elizabeth Gates, in Independence, Missouri, and was known as Bessie during her childhood. She was the eldest of four; three brothers.Harry Truman met Bess soon after his family moved to Independence, and the two attended school together until graduation.
Career
When Harry Truman became active in politics, Mrs. Truman traveled with him and shared his platform appearances as the public had come to expect a candidate's wife to do. His election to the Senate in 1934 took the family to Washington. Reluctant to be a public figure herself, she always shared his thoughts and interests in private. When she joined his office staff as a secretary, he said, she earned "every cent I pay her." His wartime role as chairman of a special committee on defense spending earned him national recognition - and a place on the Democratic ticket as President Roosevelt's fourth-term running mate. Three months after their inauguration Roosevelt was dead. On April 12, 1945, Harry Truman took the President's oath of office - and Bess, who managed to look on with composure, was the new First Lady.
Bess found the White House's lack of privacy distasteful. As her husband put it later, she was "not especially interested" in the "formalities and pomp or the artificiality which, as we had learned..., inevitably surround the family of the President Harry Truman." Though she steadfastly fulfilled the social obligations of her position, she did only what she thought was necessary. When the White House was rebuilt during Truman's second term, the family lived in Blair House and kept their social life to a minimum. In most years of her husband's presidency Mrs. Truman was not regularly present in Washington other than during the social season when her presence was expected. The contrast with Bess's activist predecessor Eleanor Roosevelt was considerable. Unlike her, Bess held only one press conference after many requests from the media.The press conference consisted of written questions in advance and the written replies were mostly monosyllabic along with many no comments. Bess's response to whether she wanted her daughter Margaret to become President was "most definitely not." Her reply to what she wanted to do after her husband left office was "return to Independence".