"When we moved to Independence in 1890," Truman wrote in 1945, "my mother's first thought was to get us into a good Sunday school. The nearest church to our home, to which she was willing to take us, was the First Presbyterian.... We...learned all the good stories of the Old and New Testaments..." (Handwritten manuscript, 1945.) Another of the students in Truman's Sunday school class was Bess Wallace. "I saw a beautiful curly haired girl there," Truman remembered. "I thought (and still think) she was the most beautiful girl I ever saw. She had tanned skin, blond hair, golden as sunshine, and the most beautiful blue eyes I've ever seen, or ever will see." (Handwritten manuscript, May 1931.)
First Presbyterian Church is located on the northwest corner of Lexington and Pleasant Streets.