BACK TO THE FARM


In 1901, John Truman lost nearly everything in wheat futures, including a 160-acre farm on the Blue Ridge, and their house on Waldo River Boulevard in Independence. In order to keep the family together John Truman moved them to Kansas City, where he took a job for wages as a night watchman at a grain elevator.

To help the family make ends meet, Harry took a job as a timekeeper with the railroad construction outfit, L.J. Smith. The job paid thirty-five dollars a month plus board. The task at hand was to build a double track for the Santa Fe railroad from Eton to Sheffield on the outskirts of Kansas City. Harry had to keep the time of three different crews approximately five miles apart. He had to travel to each crew twice daily on a hand-powered tricycle car.

Harry was exposed to some of the seedier people of Kansas City during his time here, as most of them were hobos living from paycheck to paycheck. They would make just enough money for a weekend binge in the saloon. The men were generally paid every two weeks, and so every two weeks, Harry sat in a saloon in either Independence or Sheffield and signed checks for the men. By Monday morning they were back at work and broke from drinking. After about eight months, the job was completed and Harry had to move on.

The Kansas City Star was his next employer. He received $9 a week for "wrapping singles" in the mailing department.1 In early 1903 with the help of a friend, Harry landed a job as a clerk with the National Bank of Commerce starting at $20 dollars a month.

In 1904 John Truman would again uproot his family and move from 2108 Park Avenue in Kansas City to an 80-acre farm in Henry County, Missouri. Harry would remain in Kansas City and board with some of the other boys at the bank at 1314 Troost Avenue. Each of them paid $5 a week for room, breakfast, and dinner.

Truman in National Guard uniform.

Harry received the highest praise of any of the clerks from his immediate supervisor. However, the Vice President of the bank, Charles H. Moore, was a tight man who enjoyed humiliating the clerks on the main floor in front of everyone. In spite of this, Harry was given raises in salary until he was earning nearly $60 a month. After two years, he left the National Bank of Commerce to work at the nearby Union National Bank that paid him $75 a month for the same work. By the end of 1905 Harry was making $100 a month at the Union National Bank.

A National Guard Battery of Light Artillery was started in Kansas City in June of 1905. Many of the boys at the bank had joined and Harry, now twenty-one, also signed up. In his autobiography, Truman said, "I came to the conclusion that every citizen should know something about military, finance or banking, and agriculture. All my heroes or great leaders were somewhat familiar with one or the other, or all three. So I started my grass roots military education by joining a National Guard Battery, June 14,1905."2 Harry began drilling with Missouri's Light Artillery, as part of Battery B, First Brigade.

Grandmother Young, an ardent Confederate sympathizer, was still living on the family farm. After joining the National Guard, Harry stopped by for a visit to show her his blue uniform with red stripes down the legs. Not one to mince words, she said, "Harry, this is the first time since 1863 that a blue uniform has been in this house. Don't bring it here again."3 He never did.

Harry Truman Buck Stopper Biography
 · Early Years - His childhood years
 · Back to the Farm -  Truman's early adult life up until he entered the First World War.
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 · Truman the Democrat - His early political years
 · President by Tragedy - The Truman presidency
 · Cold War Years - His presidency through the Cold War
 · Passing of the Buck Stopper - His post-presidency years
 · Truman Doctrine - A look at the Truman Doctrine
 · Truman Quotes
 · Bibliography - Sources used for this biography
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Harry Truman on a cultivator, around 1910.

By late 1905 more bad luck fell upon John Truman when his corn crop was wiped out in the floods. Uncle Harrison, now tired of working the Young family farm, arranged for John Truman to take over. Harry agreed to go back to the farm to help his father and brother Vivian. So in October of 1905, Harry had quit his $100-a-month job to learn farming.

Harry would spend long days on the plow, working ten to twelve hour days just to plow about five acres. Truman said, "Riding one of these plows all day, day after day, gives one time to think. I've settled all the ills of mankind in one way and another while riding along, seeing that each animal pulled his part of the load."4

The Trumans were good farmers and kept the land producing well by rotating their crops. The full rotation cycle would take five years as they rotated corn, clover, wheat and oats. This process increased the wheat yield from thirteen to nineteen bushels, oats from eight to fifty bushels and corn from thirty-five to seventy bushels per acre.5 John Truman was also a stickler for straight cornrows and no bare spots. The farm produced very well under his guidance.

In January of 1909 Harry Truman applied and was accepted by the Masons in the Belton Lodge. His interest in the Masons was very strong and he advanced in his station. By December he was a Junior Warden. When the Masons decided to start a new Lodge in Grandview, Harry was elected the Presiding Officer and served as the first Master in the new lodge. In fact, by September of 1940, he was elected Grand Master in St. Louis.

In 1910 John Truman was given a political appointment of a road overseer. The road overseer's main responsibility was to see that the bridges, culverts and mud holes were kept in good repair. Collecting money or services from each of the local farmers to make those repairs was also part of the job. Many road overseers were corrupt and simply collected the money without making the repairs. Or a farmer could avoid paying the three dollar tax if he volunteered to work for three days. John Truman, like everything else he did, saw to it that if a man chose that option, he gave an honest day's work for a day's pay. The overseer also had the option to pay someone else to do the work or do the work himself and keep the money. John Truman liked the extra money, and often did the work himself. When John Truman passed away in 1914, Harry became the road overseer in his father's place.

1910 was also the year Truman met up again with Bess Wallace. Bess was living in Independence across the street from his cousins, the Nolands. On a visit to the Nolands, the two crossed paths. Actually the Nolands had a dish that had to be returned to the Wallaces and Harry gladly volunteered to deliver it.

The ride from Grandview to Independence is a 16-mile journey and took considerable time traveling by buggy. Harry began at once to correspond with Bess. He seemed to be able to say things in letters that he could never say in person. Finally in June of 1911 he proposed to her in a letter. He waited three weeks and when he hadn't gotten a response, he sent another letter saying that he hoped he had not offended her. When she finally responded, she turned him down. Despite this, he was not discouraged and continued to come to Sunday dinners at the Wallace house. It wasn't until a letter in November of 1913, that Bess Wallace secretly agreed to marry him. To say Harry was elated would be a huge understatement.

Martha Truman, Harry's mother, became very ill in March of 1914. With Harry's assistance the doctor performed a hernia operation right in the house. After his mother recovered, she gave Harry enough money to buy a car. Harry bought a used 1911 Stafford, hand-built and one of only three hundred ever built. With Bess still living in Independence, this gave him a new lease on life. The car sold new for $2,350 but Harry got it used at a bargain price of $650.

With the death of his father, Harry felt the additional pressures to make the farm work, not to mention that he also inherited his father's large debt. Harry was looking to make it big in order to provide for Bess when they could be married. In the meantime he had lost the job of road overseer when the political winds changed in Independence. Shortly thereafter, he was appointed postmaster in Grandview. This appointment was in name only because Harry let a widow, desperately in need of financial support, do the job and keep the money.

During this time Harry sought to strike it rich by investing in a zinc mine in Commerce, Oklahoma, some 192 miles from Grandview. He partnered with two other men and they named it T-H-C Mining Company after the three partners, Truman, Hughes and Culbertson. The mine was fraught with disasters. By September of 1916 the mine closed, and Truman by his own accounts, lost $2,000.

Not learning from his first mistake, Harry again set out in a partnership with Culbertson-- this time in an oil company. Harry's investment was $5,000. The company bought land in Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas fully expecting to strike it rich. With the war coming, oil would be a boom industry in the country. The problems started when Woodrow Wilson declared war and volunteers flooded to register. This left little manpower to drill for oil. When Truman also signed up, the company quickly went under. Later, another company bought out the land and began drilling. It turned out that had Truman and his partners drilled on that land, they would have all been millionaires--the land they had purchased was part of the famous Teeter Pool.


Foot Notes

1. According to Truman's Autobiography the Star job was after the the job with L.J. Smith. This is in conflict with Truman by McCullough, which has the Star job first.
2. Autobiography of Harry S. Truman, pg.27
3. Autobiography of Harry S. Truman, pg.28
4. Autobiography of Harry S. Truman, pg.30
5. Autobiography of Harry S. Truman, pg.32

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