Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure - Matthew Algeo [89]
“Smart young lady,” observed Truman.
But her mother put her back on the couch, and this time Kathy took to the grinning stranger in the crisp white suit. The press conference continued with Harry bouncing Kathy on his knee.
He reiterated that he would not accept any position on the board of directors of any organization, out of respect for the presidency. He said he would spend the rest of the year working on his memoirs, or his “statement of fact,” as he referred to it.
He said he’d had “a very pleasant visit” in Indianapolis but was eager to return to Independence, “the finest place in the world to live.” (“You people ought to think that about Indiana,” he added, good politician that he was.) He declined to say which route he planned to take home. He only said he hoped to make it back before the end of the day. But Independence was nearly five hundred miles away. He needed to leave soon. He excused himself and went upstairs to finish packing.
At eleven o’clock, the big black Chrysler swung out of the McKinneys’ driveway and onto 49th Street. The Trumans waved good-bye and headed home.
A few weeks later, Claire McKinney got a call from Jim Clark, the mayor’s brother. They went out on a date and, according to Claire, they didn’t have a very good time. “But,” Claire said, “after I graduated from college a couple years later we were thrown together again by his brother and actually had a very good time. But it never would have happened if it hadn’t been for that reception for Harry Truman!” Claire and Jim were married in 1957. Harry and Bess sent them a silver tray as a wedding present. They still have it.
There was just one tiny problem with Claire’s new husband: he was a Republican. And when he ran for a seat in the state legislature in the early 1960s, Claire joined him. “I jumped ship,” Claire told me. “I had to.” She was nervous about telling her father, so she made an appointment to see him in his downtown office. “I thought I’d better be proper about this,” Claire said. “I said, ‘I just wanted to let you know that I’m changing my registration.’ He said, ‘You damn well better!’ He and my husband were very good friends and he was very proud to vote for him.” In 1962, Jim Clark was elected to the Indiana House of Representatives.
Claire and Jim have four children. The eldest, J. Murray Clark, is the chairman of the Indiana Republican Party.
The McKinneys sold their home on North Meridian Street in 1954, but the current owner was kind enough to allow Claire and me to take a look around. Claire still lives in Indianapolis and passes the house often, but she hadn’t been inside it in more than fifty years. As she surveyed the first floor, she made the observation that everybody seems to make upon returning to a childhood home after a long absence. “It feels small,” she said softly. “Isn’t that funny?”
I felt it would have been a tad presumptuous of me to ask the owner of the house if Claire and I could stay for dinner, but Claire suggested an appealing alternative. She invited me to join her and Jim for dinner at their house. She would invite Murray and his wife, Janet, too. And there was a guest room in the basement, so I could even spend the night. It was a generous offer and one that I did not hesitate to accept.
I arrived at Claire and Jim’s house at five-thirty. Claire and I chatted about the weather—a series of violent storms had recently passed through Indianapolis—while Jim prepared a round of cocktails (vodka and Fresca).
A few minutes later Murray and Janet arrived. Murray looked like a politician—and I mean that in a good way. His appropriately gray hair was perfectly coiffed, his tan suit still crisp even at the end of a long day at the office. His attractive blond wife, Janet, was a pediatric dentist. We all took seats in the living room. Murray seemed a little wary of me at first. Who, after all, was this stranger who kept