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By Root 289 0

artificial thunder and lightning. In 1966 Cole threw in the towel and sold the Deshler to Fred Beasley, an auto dealer and horseman who knew nothing about running a hotel but shared Cole’s enthusiasm for the outlandish. Beasley, legend has it, once rode one of his show horses through the lobby and into an elevator, demanding to be taken to his room. By the summer of 1968 the Deshler was hopelessly in arrears. Beasley was delinquent in real estate taxes by nearly sixty-five thousand dollars. His overdue sewer and water bill amounted to $13,421.39. At one minute after midnight on July 31, the Deshler closed its doors. The wrecking ball came a little more than a year later. Other historic buildings in downtown Columbus, most notably Union Station and the Neil House, another hotel, would meet the same fate in the following years.

For fifteen years, the site of the Deshler was a parking lot, a macadam metaphor for the fall of downtown Columbus, right next to the statehouse. In 1985 a new office building called One Columbus Center was erected on the site, part of a revitalization effort that has met with mixed success. On the ground floor of One Columbus Center there is, of course, a Starbucks. I stopped in and had a cup of coffee and a piece of lemon cake. It was as close as I would ever get to spending a night in the Deshler.

When they checked into the Deshler, Harry and Bess were greeted in the lobby by dozens of squealing teenage girls. They weren’t ex-presidential groupies. The hotel, it turned out, was hosting the annual convention of the Future Homemakers of America. The FHA was founded in 1945 by Edna Amidon, a home economics teacher whose mission in life was to teach girls how to cook and sew and clean. Edna wasn’t being sexist. She was being prudent. Surveys at the time indicated that most American men wanted wives who would be “good housekeepers.” (Women, for their part, wanted husbands who were “industrious.”) So, for young women, learning how to keep house was essential to finding a mate—and, given their limited employment opportunities outside the home, essential to their economic security as well.

More than two thousand girls from forty-five states attended the convention in Columbus. Speaking at the opening session on Friday, July 3, Edna warned the girls that “more families are on the move due to changes in industry, armed forces’ requirements and other causes,” and that they needed to learn how to “make a good home anywhere” and “put down roots quickly in any community.”

The unexpected appearance of the former president and first lady at their convention three days later practically sent the girls into delirium. They nearly tore the hotel drug store apart in their rush to purchase film for their Brownie cameras. “Man, the place was really jumpin',” was how one of the girls described the Trumans’ arrival to a reporter. Said another of Bess, “She was wearing a black dress and didn’t look as old as we thought she would.”

“We’re just on our way home,” Harry said as he and Bess checked in, “and frankly we’re pretty tired. We’re just going to sit down and rest.” They went up to room 1663 and asked for room service menus, which the hotel’s concierge, Fred Riedal, delivered to them.

“Hiya, captain,” said Truman when Riedal came to the door.

“Hello, Mr. President,” replied Riedal with great formality.

The Trumans ordered yet more fruit—this time with cottage cheese. Harry had iced tea. Bess had iced Sanka. When Harry tried to pay for the meal, Riedal refused. “No, sir,” he said, “it’s on the house.” Harry didn’t press the issue.

A reporter and a photographer came to the room, but Harry still wasn’t feeling very talkative. “I think I’ve said about everything anyway, haven’t I?” The photographer asked Harry to autograph a dollar bill, something he had done many times as president, but the now-ex-president demurred. “No,” he said, “there’s a five-thousand-dollar fine for doing that. When I was president, it was all right. I could even ask someone else to do it. But not any more.” (Harry was mistaken. While it was