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Return to Independence.

Since she declined to engage the press, the public never really got to know Bess Truman. Her image was that of a dowdy, slightly dour housewife. Nothing could have been further from the truth. “She was full of charm,” remembered journalist Charles Robbins, “with a repressed girlish mischievousness and a dry wit that quickly let the air out of pretense and righted departures from common sense.”

That she submitted to questions on the McKinneys’ porch in Indianapolis was, as Thelma Machael put it in the Indianapolis News, indicative of “the deep enjoyment of her present semiprivate life.”

“Her gestures are restrained,” Machael wrote of Bess on the porch that afternoon, “her laughter soft and sincere and her carriage erect.”

The ex-president, Bess reported, was easy to cook for—except for just one thing: “I don’t dare serve onions in any form.” His favorite meal? Steak with buttered baked potatoes. “Goodness, that man can’t put enough butter on baked potatoes!”

She revealed that Harry had a favorite chair back home in Independence, an old wingback that “creaks and groans when he sits in it; the springs sag, and he won’t let me have it reupholstered—he likes it just as it is.”

Of their road trip Bess said she was acting as chief “navigator, map checker, and road sign watcher…. He’s driving very conservatively on the trip,” she added, approvingly.

Around two o’clock the Trumans said good-bye to the McKinneys—but they would return on their way home. Harry and Bess climbed back into the Chrysler. They picked up Highway 40 in downtown Indianapolis and continued east.

About an hour later, near the town of Greenfield, the Trumans were pulled over by an Indiana state trooper. The state police had set up a roadblock on Highway 40 to hand out traffic-safety pamphlets to motorists. It was part of a program to reduce traffic fatalities and to familiarize out-of-state drivers with Indiana’s motor laws. (At the time, traffic regulations varied widely from state to state. Even road markings were not yet fully standardized.)

The Trumans had passed through the roadblock unnoticed, but as they were pulling away, a state trooper named R. H. Reeves recognized them. Harry was done in by his fastidiousness. “It”—his car—“was so clean that my attention was attracted to it,” Reeves said.

Reeves shouted for Truman to pull over. He did, and got out of the car. “What’re you selling here?” he asked the trooper. Reeves explained the traffic-safety program and asked the former president to pose for a picture to promote it.

“I’m running about two hours late, but I’ll take time for that,” Harry said. “I certainly endorse your program.” While Bess sat and waited inside the sweltering Chrysler, Harry spent about twenty minutes at the roadblock, standing in his shirtsleeves, chatting and signing autographs. Then they were off again. It was nearly four o’clock.

There are no recorded sightings of the Trumans for the next seven hours. In the interim they drove clear across Ohio. Presumably they stopped for dinner. Maybe it was in Columbus. But there are no newspaper reports of their stopping there or in any of the other major towns along their route. Perhaps they finally did manage to travel incognito, at least for a few hours. It’s not impossible. It was a busy Saturday night on Highway 40. One imagines Harry and Bess enjoying dinner in blessed solitude, just two ordinary Americans at last.

* * *

6

Wheeling, West Virginia,

June 20–21, 1953

The road trip is a quintessentially American activity. From the earliest days of the republic, Americans have felt compelled to explore their homeland, in search of everything from gold to good vibes.

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark embarked on the first great American road trip. Lewis left Pittsburgh on August 31, 1803, picked up Clark somewhere along the Ohio River, and set out for the Pacific Northwest—accompanied by a crew of more than thirty, including Clark’s slave York. The journey would take more than two