Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb__ A Tour of Presidential Gravesites - Brian Lamb [60]
Touring the Tomb at the Harry S. Truman Library
The Harry S. Truman Library and Museum is open daily, except Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. It is open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Saturday, with extended hours until 9:00 p.m. on Thursdays from May through September. Sunday hours are from noon to 5:00 p.m.
Admission is $8.00 for adults, $7.00 for senior citizens, and $3.00 for children ages six to fifteen. Children under six are admitted free.
From Kansas City International Airport: Travel east/south on I-435 approximately thirty-two miles to the Winner Road exit. Winner Road becomes U.S. Highway 24. Travel east three miles to the library, which is on the north side of U.S. Highway 24.
From the north: Take I-35 to I-435 South to Winner Road/U.S. Highway 24 East. The library is on the north side of U.S. Highway 24.
From the east: Take I-70 to Noland Road north (about 5 miles) to U.S. Highway 24 West (about one mile). Look for the Harry S. Truman Library sign at the intersection of Noland Road and U.S. Highway 24.
From the south: Take I-35 to I-435 North to Winner Road/U.S. Highway 24 East. The library is on the north side of U.S. Highway 24.
From the west: Take I-70 to I-435 North, to Winner Road/U.S. Highway 24 East. The library is on the north side of U.S. Highway 24.
To reach the gravesite from the Library and Museum’s east entrance, go to the courtyard. President Truman’s grave is located in the center.
For additional information
Harry S. Truman Library
500 West U.S. Highway 24
Independence, MO 64050-1798
Phone: (800) 833-1225/(816) 268-8200
Fax: (816) 268-8295
www.trumanlibrary.org
“…funerals invite reconciliation.”
—Richard Norton Smith
A man defines himself in many ways, not least of all through his loyalties. In January 1945, less than a week after being sworn in as Franklin Roosevelt’s vice president, Harry Truman learned of the death of Tom Pendergast, the Kansas City politico who had sponsored Truman’s early career and who had later gone to prison on charges of income tax evasion. Courageously, Truman decided to attend “the Big Boss’s” funeral. It was a lifelong habit. In his magisterial Truman, David McCullough quotes an Independence minister who was taken aback one bleak winter day to find himself presiding over a committal service at which the sole mourner was the thirty-third President of the United States. Having said the benediction, the pastor turned to Truman.
“Mr. President, why are you here?” he asked. “It’s cold and bitter. Did you know this gentleman?”
“Pastor,” replied Truman, “I never forget a friend.”
Truman’s home at 219 North Delaware Street, a few blocks from his library
Old men spend an inordinate amount of time burying each other. At the same time, funerals invite reconciliation. For example, it took the burial of John F. Kennedy to bring Truman together with his successor, Dwight Eisenhower, after a period of estrangement that dated back to the 1952 campaign. Truman never forgave Eisenhower for failing to come to the defense of General George Marshall when the former secretary of state was attacked by Joe McCarthy. For his part, Eisenhower resented Truman’s strident attacks in the closing days of the campaign (in later years, he acidly dismissed New York’s patrician governor, Averell Harriman, as “a Park Avenue Truman”).
Yet when Marshall died in the fall of 1959, the two men sat side by side in the Fort Myer chapel where Marshall was memorialized. Two years later they attended the funeral of Speaker Sam Rayburn. Joined by President Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon Johnson, they were on hand in the rose garden at Hyde Park as Eleanor Roosevelt was laid to rest in November 1962. But it was the Kennedy funeral, during which they rode together to and from the services at Arlington, that drained the poison from their relationship.