Oral History Interview with
Mary Ethel Noland
First cousin of Harry S. Truman
Independence, Missouri
August 23, 1965
James R. Fuchs
[Notices and Restrictions | Interview Transcript | Additional Noland Oral History Transcripts]
Notice
This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for the Harry S. Truman Library. A draft of this transcript was edited by the interviewee but only minor emendations were made; therefore, the reader should remember that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written word.
Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview.
RESTRICTIONS
This oral history transcript may be read, quoted from, cited, and reproduced for purposes of research. It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.
Opened 1966
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri
[Top of the Page | Notices and Restrictions | Interview Transcript | Additional Mary Ethel Noland Oral History Transcripts]
Oral History Interview with
Mary Ethel Noland
Independence, Missouri
August 23, 1965
James R. Fuchs
[1]
FUCHS: Miss Noland, would you start out by telling us of your relationship to former President Harry S. Truman?
NOLAND: Yes, Mr. Fuchs, I will do that. My full name is Mary Ethel Noland, and I am named for my grandmother (the Mary part is), who was also the maternal grandmother of Harry S. Truman. But I've never been known by my first name and that is why you know me as Miss Ethel Noland.
My mother, Margaret Ellen Truman, was a sister of John Anderson Truman, who was Harry S. Truman's father. They were both born on the Lykins farm in what is now Kansas City, Missouri,
[2]
though then it was all farm land between Westport and the Landing down on the river; but when they were very small the family moved to Platte County, Missouri, where they stayed until after the Civil War.
My Grandfather Truman's politics was "the Union as it was." I suppose you would call him a Whig at that time, not a Republican, and not a Democrat. They were slaveholders, not great slaveholders, but they were of the type that had inherited slaves. They never bought one; they never sold one, and of course they gave them up at the time that the slaves were freed. They were inherited from the Holmes side of the family, my grandmother having been Mary Jane Holmes. The slaves were all women. They didn't have any men, so it was quite a heavy burden for my grandfather to support his family of a wife and five children, and five
[3]
grown slave women, who did the work around the house and it might seem that they made life very easy for my grandmother, though the truth is that the mistress had burdens that we don't think of very much now, because the slaves were more like children than anything else; so she really had the welfare of her own five children and these five women. She had to look after their clothing, and their food, of course, and their work--she must apportion that and see that it was properly done, and she was a meticulous housekeeper. I remember hearing my mother say that she thought her mother was relieved after the Civil War when she saw my grandfather Anderson S. Truman load all the Negro women and their children--because some of them had married men belonging to other people in the neighborhood in Platte
[4]
County, and there were children--into the big wagon with enough bacon, ham, cornmeal, everything that they might need for a month's supply, and started to Leavenworth, Kansas, where they wished to go. According to my mother, my grandmother felt that it was a great financial loss in a way, but it was a great relief. She was no longer responsible for their welfare, and so she didn't lament the freeing of her property, which was no small property in itself, if they had ever sold them.
Mary Jane Holmes and Anderson Shipp Truman had been married in Shelby County, Kentucky. My great-grandmother, who was Nancy Tyler Holmes, the widow of Jesse Holmes, had come West from that county along about 1845 and had settled in old Westport, because she had a cousin living there who was Christiana Polk McCoy, the wife of Isaac McCoy, who was one of the
[5]
founders of old Westport. She also had two Sons on nearby farms, Silas and Robert Holmes. One of her daughters, who had come out here as a young lady along with my grandmother and a third daughter, was married at old Shawnee Mission by the Reverend Isaac McCoy. Her name was Martha, but she was known as Patsy Holmes, and, after her marriage, as Patsy Holmes Ford, the wife of Lewis Ford. But my mother always spoke of her most affectionately as "Aunt Pat" and she dearly loved Aunt Pat.
After a short time, my grandmother Mary Jane Holmes began to look wistfully back to Shelby County, Kentucky. She liked the young people of Westport; she liked her cousins there; and there was one young man that she had known back in Shelby County,
[6]
whose name was John Wornall, and she liked John Wornall very well. He helped to pass away the time socially along with a number of other young people, but still she looked back to Shelby County because there was one young man there that she didn't forget, and that was Anderson Shipp Truman. She went back to Shelby County on a visit to her sister, Catherine Holmes Clayton, the wife of Dr. James Clayton of Christiansburg.
FUCHS: That was what year?
NOLAND: That was in 1846. And there, of course, was young Mr. Truman, happy to see Miss Mary Jane again. They renewed their old interest in each other, and without getting the consent of Mother Holmes, who was in Westport still, they were married. I think the reason they didn't wait for her consent, they were
[7]
afraid they might not get it, because he was not her favorite prospect as a husband for Mary Jane. But they were married at the Clayton home in Christiansburg.
FUCHS: Is there truth in the statement I've read that the reason Mrs. Holmes objected was because the Trumans were not slaveholders at that time?
NOLAND: It might have had some bearing on the case. At that time they were not slaveholders. They had been further back, I find in records of wills in Kentucky and Virginia. It was a little bit of a social stigma not to own slaves. If you did your own work, it was not quite according to Hoyle--according to the gentry of that time.
FUCHS: They were farmers?
[8]
NOLAND: They were farmers; they were all farmers.
So, now they were married, the question was what to do next. They must make their peace with Mary Jane's mother. She could not go on without asking forgiveness, but she dreaded to come back to Westport and ask for it, so Anderson Shipp or "Andy" as he was always called--not by Mary Jane, to her dying day he was "Mr. Truman" to her, as was the custom then. But to all the rest he was Andy, and
FUCHS: You mean in speaking to him she would call him "Mr. Truman?"
NOLAND: Yes, she did, Mr. Fuchs. It was a formal day.
FUCHS: That's interesting. I thought maybe in speaking of him always she would say...
[9]
NOLAND: Yes, of course, my mother did that, but to him.
FUCHS: That's interesting.
NOLAND: Yes, and all of her sisters did. To Patsy, Lewis Ford was Mr. Ford, and so on; they all did. And to the mother, Jesse Holmes was Holmes.
Mr. Truman offered to come bravely and tell the mother that they were married and ask her forgiveness. He rode horseback from Shelby County, Kentucky, to Westport Landing in Missouri and finally he reached Westport. It must have been a long, tedious journey on horseback. It must have taken a good while. But when he rode up to the house the mother saw him coming; she ran out and threw her arms around him, kissed him and said, "Oh, Andy, where is Mary Jane?"
[10]
With that he told her--I think she had probably had some news about it--that they had married and that they had not asked her consent, but they asked her forgiveness which she very readily granted. He sent for Mary Jane and she came by steamer to Westport Landing and they rented a farm, which was at that time called the Lykens Farm. Dr. Lykens owned this farm which is now in the business section of Kansas City. An interesting bit of local history is that after Dr. Lykens died, his widow married George Caleb Bingham, the artist who painted "Order Number Eleven." After about five years they moved across the Missouri River to Platte County.
FUCHS: That would be about 18
what?
[11]
NOLAND: It must have been late in 1851 or early 52. There were now three children, William Thomas, Margaret Ellen (Ella) and John Anderson, Harry's father.
FUCHS: Yes. Actually then, they went before the Civil War--they went, perhaps, even before the border troubles really got started, so it really wasn't because of the Civil War that they went to Platte County.
NOLAND: No, it was on account of a farm over there that my grandfather wanted and so they moved to Platte County. The place was between Parkville and Barry. They were very happy there. The two younger children were born there, and that would be Emily and Martha. There was a school there called Prairie Point Academy, a subscription school. There must have been some very fine teachers there
[12]
because people were leaving Jackson County on account of the border troubles by that time, and so they came over there and taught at Prairie Point. I think that for a country school the training, the schooling, must have been very superior because they were very well taught in the three R's and other things that I am surprised to this day that they knew about. So they were brought up in an intelligent atmosphere for that day and age.
FUCHS: You say the younger children were born there?
NOLAND: Yes. My Uncle William, the oldest child, was born in 1847. My mother, 1849--she was a forty-niner, and Uncle John in 51. He was very tiny, evidently, when they went to Platte County, and that was Harry's father, John Anderson
[13]
Truman. The John was for his Uncle John Truman, who was my grandfather's brother, John Thomas Truman who was very much beloved by his brother's children. He lived for six years with them here in Jackson County and in Platte County. He went to California in the Gold Rush, which began in 49. It was 1855 when he left because by that time my mother was six years old. She cried when he left for California, and said, "I'm afraid I'll never see you again, Uncle John." He didn't strike it rich in California. He went back to Shelby County, Kentucky, where he married a Miss Moseley, and my mother never saw dear Uncle John again. But her little brother was named John, which I think endeared him to her, and she used to tell about the things that happened when they were little. Once a circus was coming through the country, going from Parkville to Barry, and the little children
[14]
were all dressed up to go down the lane to the big gate on the road to see the circus go by, because there was an elephant, which they had never seen, and there were a few other animals, and there were some big wagons painted up like circus wagons and all that--quite a treat for them to go. Mother used to tell us about little John--how he looked in his little linen homespun suit, with a little, what she called a roundabout jacket, which I infer was a kind of a little Eton jacket. She loved that little brother dearly and thought he was the cutest little boy in the world, and she said she could see him led along by Mary, the colored nurse, down there to the big gate where they stood, probably with big eyes and open mouths, looking at the elephant and the other accouterments of the
[15]
circus. And then as they got older there were pastimes there that were surprising. You know, at that time, everybody read Sir Walter Scott. The Southern people liked Sir Walter Scott, and they all knew their Scott, better perhaps than Shakespeare. An annual social event of the neighborhood was a tournament on May Day, in which the young men rode pell-mell, as you do in tournaments, armed with spears, by means of which they tried to take rings off an overhanging arm that stuck out over the race course. The knight who got the greatest number of rings was the winner and he was allowed to crown the queen of the day. The knights were named after their favorite characters in Scott's poems and novels, such as The Knight of Snowdon, James Fitz-James, Ivanhoe, and so on. If a young man didn't have
[16]
a good horse, it would be like a young man not having a car in this day and age, and they all had good horses, Kentucky stock, because they all had come from Kentucky. I know of only one family mother ever told me about over there that wasn't from Kentucky, and that was the Hinkle family, who were Pennsylvania Dutch. All the rest had come from Kentucky and Virginia just as the Trumans had.
FUCHS: Well, did they originally, as one writer has said, start in the Northeast--I've forgotten whether it was New York--I mean the first immigrant Truman--do you know where...
NOLAND: No, we're not from the Northeast. Do you want me to tell about that?
FUCHS: Well, I was interested in knowing who was the first ancestor of this line of Trumans?
[17]
NOLAND: None of us came to the colonies north of Mason-Dixon's line. If the Mayflower had never landed, we would still be here, because none of us came to the North in any line on any side, which is rather remarkable. We are not mixed up with northern Trumans. Trumans did come to Connecticut and there is a street in New London, Connecticut named Truman Street, and that line of Trumans went down into New York where there's a town named Trumansville These northern Trumans migrated West along Northern lines because they were not slaveholders and you didn't cross Mason-Dixon's line, that is rarely, if you didn't own slaves. You didn't want to get mixed up with that. And if you did live south of Mason-Dixon's line, you didn't cross it because you didn't want to give up your slaves. There might be trouble. According to the Dred Scott decision
[18]
they were legally yours, even in "free" states, but it made complications. So the two sides kept pretty well along the same lines across the country, and so with our Trumans. The first one we find is in Richmond, Virginia, in Henrico County. His name was Richard; and then we find them again in Caroline County, but the courthouse has burned during the Civil War in Caroline County and those records were lost; but then we find them in Kentucky, and then on out here.
FUCHS: You don't know how Richard Truman came down the line as an immigrant?
NOLAND: No, I can't find that at all, because of the records. There are those who think they can trace that, but a genealogist who is worth his salt doesn't guess at things; he must
[19]
have adequate proof.
FUCHS: But you feel that they actually immigrated from the old country to the Southern states rather than coming through
NOLAND: Yes, I'm sure ours did. And they're not connected here in this New World with the Northern Trumans, though I haven't a doubt that back in England they might have been.
FUCHS: I see. I was just interested in that point. You can go ahead now.
NOLAND: And to go back to this tournament business, those gallant young men made quite an impression on my mother and she used to tell often of those great old days in Platte County. I think she thought the people in Platte County were superior to the people of Jackson County,
[20]
though she was born in Jackson County herself. But looking back on Platte County she made comparisons not always to the advantage of those on this side of the river.
FUCHS: Why do you think it was?
NOLAND: Well, we look back on our youth as the golden era, you know, and those must have been very happy days, and the Civil War didn't bother them too much. My grandfather was not a soldier in the war and my Uncle Will was too young to go, so while Lewis and Patsy Ford in Parkville were banished under Order Number Eleven to Alton, Illinois, where they stayed until after the war was over and they were permitted to return, the Trumans were not under that order and lived peacefully until after peace was declared. Then in 67 they moved to Jackson County and bought a farm out in what is now
[21]
Holmes Park, south of Kansas City, part of Kansas City at this time, where they lived until my grandmother's death. Then for a while my Aunt Martha, the youngest of the children, kept house for my grandfather. She never married and she became a schoolteacher. She went to Stephens College at Columbia and prepared herself to teach and then the home was broken up and my grandfather went to live at my Uncle John's, and he was living there in Lamar when Harry S. Truman was born. John Anderson Truman married Martha Ellen Young in 1881 and shortly after they married then grandfather went to Lamar to live with them.
FUCHS: Well, Anderson Shipp Truman's wife had died prior to this time?
NOLAND: Yes, she died--would you like to know when?
[22]
FUCHS: You can check it.
NOLAND: Let me see; these records are so complex...[Miss Noland consulted her genealogical records at this point in the interview.] Mary Jane Holmes died in 1879 on February 15.
FUCHS: So then, we're up to the point where the family was in Lamar after their marriage.
NOLAND: We'll begin right away on Harry Truman which will be important, at least an important incident. My grandfather had a great number of grandchildren, but of all of his grandchildren he was the most devoted to Harry. He was sure, and said many times, that Harry would be President of the United States sometime. Of course, many grandfathers say that, but we remember it. Of course, I never heard him say it, but I've heard others say that he did, that he was sure that Harry would be President, because he was a remarkable little
[23]
fellow. And indeed, I suppose he was. I had no perspective on him because he and I are only six months apart in age. I am from October to May older than he is.
FUCHS: I see, you were born then in 1883.
NOLAND: 1883, and he was born May 8, 1884, but I remember so many of these things. Some people don't have that kind of a mind, you know, but there are some that have the kind that does remember little things they hear. I've always been fond of family history. My grandfather spent a great deal of time with the little fellow and taught him a great deal. My grandfather was a Mason, and he left his Masonic emblem to Harry and I think maybe it had an influence on Harry, because he afterwards went into Masonry with all his heart as he got old enough to do that.
[24]
FUCHS: Can you remember any little incidents that either you were told about or that you recall? Of course, your grandfather died when?
NOLAND: He died in 87, I believe it was.
FUCHS: So you wouldn't remember him?
NOLAND: I do. I remember him quite well. I recall going to the funeral at Grandview with my parents.
FUCHS: Well, yes, you would have been four by that time. Do you recall--I'd like to have any little thing that you might recall about the grandfather and Harry.
NOLAND: Well, my grandfather visited us. We lived over here on Maple Avenue where the Chrisman Junior High is, right over there.
FUCHS: Now, your mother and father were exactly
[25]
who now?
NOLAND: Well, my mother, of course, was Margaret Ellen Truman, second child of Mary Jane Holmes Truman and Anderson Shipp Truman. My father was Joseph Tilford Noland, also of Kentucky stock, born in Estill County, Kentucky, in 1847, the same year that my Uncle William was born out there. He and his father and mother came to Jackson County, Missouri, that's Joseph Tilford Noland, in 1848. He was only a year old, and they came here to Independence because he had a cousin living here whose name was Smallwood Noland, who ran a hotel on the square. Smallwood Noland had married a Nancy MacMonegal who was a sister of my father's grandmother, so they were related on both maternal and paternal sides, So, he
[26]
was among his own people here. Many other Nolands came to Jackson County. It is said that in the first election in Independence, which was in 1827, there were 44 votes cast and 11 of them were cast by men named Noland. It was a very common name here then, some of them connected with our family, all of them probably, but some so distant that we don't know who they were.
FUCHS: What did your father do when he first came to Independence?
NOLAND: He lived with his grandfather because both his mother and father died when he was four years old. Tuberculosis had swept through Kentucky at that time. If you look at old Kentucky records a hundred years ago, you find so many young women and men died of
[27]
tuberculosis, oh, so many. And I suppose they must have had it when they came out here. My grandfather's name was Wesley Tilford Noland and I don't know where the Tilford came from because we aren't connected with any Tilfords. Wesley was for the founders of the Methodist Church, the MacMonegals being Methodists. But the name Tilford goes through our family and my father had been named and my sister Nellie Noland was Nellie Tilford Noland, or Ellen Tilford Noland, to be more exact; and John Southern, my grand-nephew, is John Tilford Southern. The grandfather and the father, Wesley Noland, bought land out here on Noland Road. They owned a great big tract because land was cheap and you bought all you could as an investment. The house stood where the Blevins Davis house is on the Lee's Summit Road. The Noland house is long since gone.
[28]
Some of the land has been made into the Crackerneck Golf Course. It extended a long way there. But after the death of my grandfather and grandmother, Wesley Noland and his wife, my father lived with his grandfather, whose name was Francis Noland, Francis Marion Noland, who was born in North Carolina where his father, James Noland, had gone from Virginia after the Revolution. His father was a Revolutionary solder and he had gone down there fighting in the Revolution. He evidently had like Carolina and had moved to Rowan County, North Carolina, where my great-grandfather and several other sons and daughters were born. After the Revolution they went back to Virginia, and then to Kentucky, to Estill County, where my father was born, and there James Noland, the Revolutionary
[29]
soldier, died and was buried. His son, Francis, came on out here and then Wesley died young and my father continued to live on that farm with my great-grandfather Noland. The Civil War came up when my father was fourteen years old, and there was nobody to restrain him so he shouldered his gun and joined the Southern Army. He was in the battles of Houstonia, Wilson's Creek, Lexington, and, nearer home, the Battle of Independence, and the Battle of Westport, fighting with Price. He was in "Shanks' Regiment," and Hayes' Company. He was with Upton Hayes, his beloved captain, when he was shot. He and two comrades stayed with him until he died in the woods. He's buried in Woodlawn Cemetery. In Westport, of course, they were badly defeated and Price retreated South. They went by a very roundabout way, even over into Oklahoma which was then Indian
[30]
Territory, and on around through Arkansas and down to Texas and Louisiana. Some of them went into Mexico and never came back. Some of the Nolands must have gone to Mexico because you find the name in Mexico now, but they have given it a Spanish form and it's Nolando. My father did not go to Mexico. He went to Shreveport, Louisiana, where he laid down arms, swore allegiance to the United States, and came up the Mississippi River, on a riverpacket to St. Louis. When he got to the landing at St. Louis some of the people that knew the boys who were coming home, were at the landing to meet him, and others who came with him, and one of them was Harrison Young, who was Harry Truman's mother's youngest brother. How glad he was to see Harrison Young--a familiar face from home.
[31]
Harrison Young was there because he was attending Christian Brothers College.
FUCHS: That was where?
NOLAND: Christian Brothers College was in upper Alton, Illinois, but he had come down there to St. Louis, which was not far, to see the boys come home. He had heard they might be coming. Harrison Young was the bachelor uncle of Harry Truman and owned a great deal of land out there at Grandview, and of course his nephews and nieces were his heirs. Some of the land in the Truman farm that became Truman Corners, was the land that had belonged to Harrison Young.
FUCHS: How do you suppose your father had met Harrison Young?
NOLAND: Jackson County was not densely populated.
[32]
Of course, young people all over the county knew each other at that time before the Civil War. The people at Hickman's Mill visited down here at Independence. A good many of the Bryants lived out there, and those are the ancestors of Louella Campbell Truman, and the Greggs, and the Nolands and--all of them knew each other. The social life must have been very interesting. They all rode horseback--everybody had a horse, and finally buggies came in and they had buggies too. So he knew Harrison Young before the war.
FUCHS: Was this '65 that he was coming back from Shreveport or was this...
NOLAND: It was '65 or '66, because it took quite a while for Price's scattered men to make all that trek around because they were afraid
[33]
they might meet some Federals, you know, and they were in no condition to fight again. So it was either '65 or '66. Then my father went from here back to Estill County, Kentucky, where his mother's people as well as his father's people lived. His mother's name was Sarah Ann Scrivner, and his grandfather, Joseph Scrivner, for whom my father was named, had died shortly before that. His estate was being divided and my father was one of the heirs. He had no business at the time, you see, and he had made one trip across the plains. Before he went back to Kentucky, he went with a wagon train to Canyon City, Colorado to take mining machinery. But one trip was enough of that, and so when he came back to Independence from Canyon City, he decided to go to Kentucky because he wanted to look into these business affairs and he
[34]
wanted to see his cousins there, the Scrivner boys, whom he had never seen. They were also kin to the Parks family and a number of others that he had kept up with in a small way, for he was a great person for his relatives. He went back and got his share of the estate and became great friends with the Scrivner boys. One of them was Morgan Scrivner, I remember. Having received that little patrimony he came back and invested in land out by Hickman's Mill. It was quite a nice farm there, I do not know how many acres, but there he was a young bachelor with a farm and looking around for a wife. And one day he saw the very girl that he knew or hoped was destined for him. But there's an interesting little story about that. This girl the night before he saw her had been to a wedding. She had
[35]
recently moved over here from Platte County, Missouri--hadn't lived here more than--oh, say, a few years--two or three maybe--maybe not so much. She had been to a wedding and it was the wedding of a young lady named America Smith. I don't remember who she married but I remember they called her "Mec" Smith, that was her nickname, and a young beau of the countryside had taken her to the wedding. His name was George Kemper, and everybody knew George Kemper. He was a carpenter and he worked in Independence, he worked in Platte County, he worked in Parkville, and he worked all around; and he was a very gregarious fellow and squired the girls around wherever he went--a great beau of his time. And he had just bought a new buggy. He had a pair of little mules--these
[36]
little buckskin mules they called them because they were the color of buckskin--matched mules, and he had driven to the wedding at the home of these people and taken this young lady who was comparatively new in the neighborhood. He always picked out the new girls and got them acquainted with all the desirable young people. So, he had taken her to the wedding. Well, it rained--oh, how it rained, and the roads, you know, at that time, were bottomless. So, after the wedding was over she said, "Well, Mr. Kemper, it's time we were going."
And he said, "Indeed not, Miss Ella,"--her name being Ellen, they called her Ella for short--everybody had a nickname, you know, then--he said, "I'm not going to get my buggy out in this mud."
"Oh, but we have to go. "
"We're not going. You're going to stay all
[37]
night with the Smiths, they're hospitable people and they will invite you to stay and you will stay."
Well, she didn't know the Smiths very well and she didn't want to stay and she was very much chagrined with Mr. Kemper. But he was adamant: "We're not going to take that buggy out in the mud."
So the next morning she was still a little cross with her escort, and she got crosser when he borrowed a saddle and saddled up one of the little mules--a side saddle, of course--for her to ride home, back to where she lived; and he rode the other mule. And she was cross, indeed, because she did not want to ride a mule, and she was put out with the whole affair. And as they rode along a young fellow on horseback saw them and wondered who she was, and he was Joseph Tilford Noland, and
[38]
she was Margaret Ellen Truman. He teased her all his life about seeing her for the first time riding a little dun mule with George Kemper--he knew George Kemper but he didn't know her--and no matter how cross she looked, it didn't hinder him from wanting to know her. He thought she probably didn't like to ride that mule, but he knew George Kemper well enough to know that if he said she was going to ride a mule she'd have to ride it. So he asked for an introduction at another time and then the courtship began. And in 1870, December 18, they were married, at the home of her mother and father, Anderson Shipp Truman, and Mary Jane Holmes Truman. They went to his newly acquired farm to live, and they lived there for twelve years.
FUCHS: This was the farm that Joseph Tilford
[39]
Noland had?
NOLAND: Yes, he had bought it with the money he had inherited from his mother's people in Estill County, Kentucky. During those twelve years, the three of us were born, my sister, Ruth Truman Noland, who is now Mrs. Robert V. Ragland, and Ellen Tilford Noland, my second sister, always known as Nellie, and myself, Mary Ethel Noland.
FUCHS: Were there some other children?
NOLAND: One child, a boy, born in 1874 who lived only a day. His name was William for my Uncle William Truman, and for another Uncle William, my father's brother, who was killed in the Civil War in Kentucky--when very young. Then at the end of twelve years here were three girls to be educated. I was,
[40]
at that time, about two months old. They had built a new house out there and they had planted an orchard, which had just bore a year or two and had been a very profitable apple orchard. But here we were, and they thought we should move to town where we would have more advantages. So move to Independence we did.
FUCHS: Why do you think they moved to Independence instead of a larger city?
NOLAND: Because Independence was the center of learning in Jackson County. There were two colleges here at the time--girls' colleges--Woodland College at Waldo and Union Streets. And Presbyterian College, which is part of the Catholic property now, and the Catholics had a Catholic school too, and before that there had been a girls school called Miss Tillory's School which my father's sister,
[41]
Susan, attended. It was where the Rubon Mop Factory is on Osage Street.
FUCHS: This exceeded the educational opportunities in Kansas City then?
NOLAND: Yes, oh, by far, yes, because Kansas City was founded in 1851 and Independence was a number of years older. Independence has always stood for culture, study classes--you know, they're here galore now. There's the Mary Paxton class which was founded about seventy-five years ago, and many others since.
FUCHS: Kansas City had surpassed Independence in population by 1883, hadn't it?
NOLAND: Oh, much, yes. But Independence was still the place to go if you wanted to find culture and Kansas City was a kind of a Yankee Town, you know, and we were still a little sore about
[42]
what the Yankees had done to us. So Yankee was kind of a bad word.
FUCHS: So, there were probably two good reasons why they came here, at least.
NOLAND: Yes, and another was that my father lived here as a boy. Yes, Independence was Southern and Kansas City was not. So, when we got to Independence, or shortly after, they began to talk about a little railway, a narrow gauge railway that was to come here. We already had the Missouri Pacific, but here was a little "dummy" line that was going to join up with our growing neighbor, Kansas City, and it would come up Lexington Street to the Square and the town would grow. Then afterwards they thought, "Well, why stop at the Square? Why doesn't it go on way out Southeast. There's
[43]
lots of ground out there." And so tracks were laid out there too, though the cars never ran that far, but it made a boom for the town. And here was an opportunity to make lots of money. So, along with a great many other people, we mortgaged the home place on Maple Avenue and we had money from the farm, too--a little money, not a great fortune but enough for that day and age when money bought more.
FUCHS: Where was the place on Maple Avenue?
NOLAND: Well, it was where the high school is over here.
FUCHS: William Chrisman?
NOLAND: That's right, the first William Chrisman School. So, he plunged and he bought here and he bought there and he bought farms and he spread out too thin, and suddenly we found out
[44]
that the dummy line wasn't going to do for Independence what we thought it would, and people began to want their money. And along with a great many other people the Noland family went very flat, indeed, financially. Out of the crash we had only one house left. And that was not this one. It was a place out on West White Oak Street, one of the number that we had owned or built, and we moved out there, and were mighty glad to get in out of the weather, because we were very much reduced and instead of the three girls going to Presbyterian College they went to public schools.
FUCHS: This would have been about what year?
NOLAND: This boom went down about 1890, and not only did that depression strike Independence, Missouri, but it was nationwide; and there was
[45]
depression everywhere, oh, a great depression. I remember that that's the first time that I ever heard of people marching on the Capitol, and probably you never heard of it, but there was a man named Coxey who led the unemployed and they marched clear across the country, through Independence, Missouri, and never stopped until they got to Washington, D.C.
FUCHS: Coxey's Army.
NOLAND: Coxey's Army--there you are. And I saw them go up Maple Avenue over here and on to Washington.
FUCHS: Is that right. You were living on Maple at that time and then you moved?
NOLAND: We lived on Maple and then we moved to that house on West White Oak, then finally we moved back to a house on Maple which was at
[46]
the corner then, not the same house. And that was where I saw Coxey's Army.
FUCHS: So we're down to about 1890.
NOLAND: Down to 1890.
FUCHS: Now did you know Harry Truman during this time?
NOLAND: Yes. Before the boom struck us and the depression that followed had struck us, we were living in that first house on Maple Avenue and the Trumans visited us. That was Uncle John and Harry's mother, whom we always called Aunt Mat--her name, as you recall, was Martha Ellen--but to us, Aunt Mat.
FUCHS: Is this your first personal recollection?
NOLAND: It's my first personal recollection and it must have been--now Vivian was born in 86 and
[47]
it must have been about 88, because they visited us there and I remember Harry's mother playing the piano for us and she played some things that were for the benefit of the older members of the family--for us she played things she thought we would like, and one of the, the only one I can recall, was "Little Brown Jug" and she not only played it, but she sang it to our delight. We were highly entertained by her music for the children, and she loved children. Of course, Mary Jane was not born yet. She was born in 89, but Harry and Vivian were there and Vivian must have been very tiny--not even two, but Harry must have been four, and I was four and a half. But I remember Vivian scratched his fingernail on something and Harry said, "Oh, Vivian, don't, you make me stingy!"
The grown people laughed and I didn't know what made them laugh but I afterwards knew that he meant "scringe."
[48]
That is all I recall of that visit and the next recollection is visiting them at the Young Farm, it was called then, the home of Solomon Young and his wife Harriet Louisa Gregg Young. Strange to say, they had come from Shelby County, Kentucky, the same county from which the Trumans and Holmeses came, and I've often wondered if they knew each other back there. Doubtless they did. The population was not dense anywhere in the Midwest then and they probably knew each other very well back there in Shelby County, Kentucky in the eighteen forties. But my Uncle and Aunt were living there about 1890 with their three children, by that time, because Mary Jane was born in 89. We had driven out there in the surrey to visit them. We had the surrey with the fringe on top as so many people did and a horse named
[49]
"Doll," and we had driven "Doll" out to the farm which would be something like sixteen miles, I think, from Independence, and spent a few days there at the Young Farm visiting with the family. Mary Jane was just a baby then, a very pretty little girl, and I remember playing on the long veranda on the stately old home that the Youngs lived in. They had lived there since the early 1840's, I think, and had hundreds, maybe thousands of acres of land, which took in the land between the two rivers, Big Blue and Little Blue, not reaching both rivers, but it was on the ridge between them which is now known as Blue Ridge, and was then. It's the ridge of land which extends from here down to Arkansas, which is a sort of a little divide like the Great Divide in the Rocky Mountains. On the West side, it drains into
[50]
the Big Blue; on the East side into the Little Blue system out here east of Independence. And a very rich and beautiful farm it was with a grove of trees which extended down to the big road, and a well-furnished, fine, old country place. That house was burned in the nineties...
FUCHS: Do you know which year it was burned?
NOLAND: I don't know that. I wish I did know, but some time in the nineties, it was burned.
FUCHS: The information I have is that it was after Solomon Young died and some writers have said 92 and some 93.
NOLAND: I don't have the date when he died.
FUCHS: He died in 1892, if my information is correct.
[51]
NOLAND: '92, well you're correct. I'm sure it was along there He was dead at the time that it burned, and with it was burned the family records of the Young family, which we don't have now. And we would like to have them. I wish we could find them somewhere.
FUCHS: Now when you made this visit out there, John Anderson Truman and his wife were living there?
NOLAND: They were living there.
FUCHS: So that would have been, I understand, if my information is correct, that they moved to Independence in December of 1890, is that right, so this would have been prior to the end of 1890?
NOLAND: Yes, it was sometime before they moved to Independence, in that interval, between the time
[52]
Mary Jane was born and when they moved to Independence. I think it's interesting that they did live in such a beautiful place.
FUCHS: Could you describe that house that was burned in more detail?
NOLAND: I only remember the big parlor where the piano was and this gallery or veranda, a long veranda, on the side of the house where we played as children.
FUCHS: Was the front of the house of Southern pillar type construction...
NOLAND: No, I don't remember any pillars, but it was large and it was an impressive house, and very, very comfortable and roomy, because Solomon Young had a big family of daughters and two sons; one of them, Harrison Young, that we mentioned before, the younger one, and William
[53]
Young who had served in the Confederate Army with my father.
FUCHS: Are there any incidents of that visit that you recall?
NOLAND: They had a hammock on that porch, I remember that. And, of course, we swung in the hammock. A cousin was there, who was staying with my Uncle John at the time; her name was Grace Truman. My Uncle William's wife had died and had left three children, an older son, Earl, and Grace, and a younger son, Ralph Truman, who afterwards became Major General Ralph Emerson Truman. And after the wife died, Grace stayed with Uncle John for awhile; and when they moved from Lamar, she came there with them, and afterwards my Uncle William remarried and went to Texas and took two of the children with him. He took Earl and Grace, but not
[54]
Ralph. Ralph stayed with a family by the name of Gray, who reared him.
FUCHS: Why do you suppose he didn't take all three of the children?
NOLAND: Well, Ralph had become very dear to Mrs. Gray and Mr. Gray and they wanted to keep him, and they had taken him as a tiny baby. He left Ralph because they just couldn't bear to give him up. I remember Grace swinging in the hammock, and what long hair she had and how it flew out as she swung back and forth in the hammock. But that's all, just the little incidents that a child would remember, not any very important thing.
FUCHS: Do you recall, then, when the Truman family moved to Independence?
NOLAND: Oh, yes, indeed, I do. They bought a large
[55]
house on Crysler Avenue and it had been built by one of the few Jews that lived in Independence at that time, a rich Jew. Jews nearly always have money and know how to use it well and how to make the most of it, I think. And he built this very nice home but he was leaving here; he was going to live in Kansas City.
FUCHS: Do you recall his name?
NOLAND: Yes, I remember his name very well. His name was Blitz. And this house had a good deal of ground, several acres around it, and my uncle always had a fine garden there. And he still traded in cattle because he could have them out on the farm out there and do his trading in Kansas City or wherever trading was good. They had a very comfortable life there. I remember he bought a pair of goats for the little boys and a little cart, and how we loved
[56]
to ride in the goatcart. It was really a miniature farm wagon, and three or four small children could sit in it and enjoy quite a ride. The novelty of it, of course, appealed to us. The children had diphtheria while they lived in the Blitz place and Harry was very ill. At one time he was so low that they thought he might not live. Dr. Twyman, Dr. G. T. Twyman, was their physician and he was concerned about that boy. He had a boy of the same age named Elmer who was afterwards a lifelong friend of Harry. He told Harry's mother to give him some ice. We didn't have ice the way you have ice now. It was wintertime and it had snowed and she raised the window and reached out and got a handful of snow and gave it to him, and it brought up the mucus out of his throat and he began to get
[57]
better. But he was paralyzed for a while, and, of course, that was very frightening; but he had a good constitution and he finally overcame that and by the time he was old enough to go to school...
FUCHS: This was before he went to school?
NOLAND: ...yes, this was before he went to school--he was ready to go to school at the Noland School, which was on South Liberty Street, because they were in that district.
FUCHS: Was this named after your Nolands?
NOLAND: Not a close relative of them was named Hinton H. Noland, and as he was president of the school board when that school was built, it was named for him, A fine person he was, I remember him quite well, but not close kin to us, though we always claimed kin. You know,
[58]
you claim kin with the ones you want to claim kin with, even though they are distant, and some not so distant are "no kin."
FUCHS: One point I was interested in was, he started to school, as I understand it, in 1892 which would be when he was, going on nine, after his eighth birthday, which seemed to me a little bit late. Was that customary in those days?
NOLAND: No, that is the explanation that I just gave. He was sick.
FUCHS: It was the sickness.
NOLAND: Yes, it was the sickness. But he made up for lost time. He dearly loved those teachers. I'm sure he was always the teachers' pet, because he was a very fine little boy,
[59]
a very good little boy, I must say, really quite the best little boy in the whole family connection and possibly the best one in his room wherever he went to school. He went to school to Miss Isabel Dodds, and Miss Myra Ewing--I don't remember the names of any others because I didn't go to that school. I lived on the other side of town and never went to the Noland School, though I did teach there five years after I became a teacher. The school is no longer there. It's been torn down and a new school has been built. They built the Columbian School, in 1893. They gave it that name because it was begun in 1892 which was the centennial of the discovery of America. Harry went from the Noland School to the Columbian School. The Wallaces were in that district too, and Bess Wallace went there too...
[60]
FUCHS: Where would they have been living?
NOLAND: They lived down here on Delaware Street, just off of Waldo.
FUCHS: Why would they have been in the Columbian District?
NOLAND: Well, there were only two or three schools in town at the time. In fact, then, there were only three: the Columbian, the Noland, and the Ott. We lived over here on Maple Avenue and we went to the Ott School, but down here on Delaware, by some gerrymandering process, that was in the Columbian District.
FUCHS: Actually they were closer to the Ott School, though.
NOLAND: I would say so, I would think so, but they went to the Columbian, and there, in Miss
[61]
Caroline Stall's room, Bess and Harry saw each other again.
FUCHS: What grade would that have been?
NOLAND: That was in the seventh grade, and I don't think Bess went there before the seventh grade. She had gone to Ott School before that.
FUCHS: One point I was wondering about. One account I read said that he became ill while he was in the second grade and dropped out and then when he went back to school he went into the third. Do you recall anything of that?
NOLAND: I may be wrong. I thought it was before he went to school at all.
FUCHS: Well, it might have been a different illness...
[62]
NOLAND: Well, I think there was only the one--I think so--and if he told you this about those dates you're probably correct on that.
FUCHS: Well, that's an account that I read and it may be in his Memoirs, In the meantime Columbian had been built and then when he did resume his studies he didn't go into the second grade, but into the third grade, and at Columbian School.
NOLAND: I imagine you may be right about that; I think you probably are.
FUCHS: Well, how old were you when you started to school?
NOLAND: I was almost seven. You see, my birthday being in October, I was seven in October and I started in September of that year; and I
[63]
started at the Ott School and went on to the Ott School, never went to any other school until the high school was built up here on Maple Avenue. I went there after they had a high school. But my first two years in high school were in the old Ott School and my last year in high school was up here.
FUCHS: Do you recall any talk about Harry Truman' s eyes prior to his starting to school?
NOLAND: Oh, yes. By the time he was four years old he was having eye trouble and they took him to a specialist in Kansas City--I don't know what specialist--but the specialist said he had very defective eyes and should have glasses. So he was fitted quite early with glasses.
FUCHS: Prior to his starting school.
[64]
NOLAND: Yes. So when he started to school he was wearing glasses; And of course, that hindered his taking part in active games all his life. For instance, baseball, he couldn't play baseball, because he couldn't see well enough without the glasses, and of course he didn't dare keep them on to play; and it did interfere with his playing actively when he was a child, although it didn't seem to interfere with his health at all. After that illness I never knew him to be sick again.
FUCHS: That, to your recollection then, wasn't a cause of his not starting to school a little earlier, which is what I'm trying to establish? One account says that the reason that they came to Independence was because of the school. Do you think that's correct?
NOLAND: I'm sure it was.
[65]
FUCHS: They came at the end of 1890 at which time he was six, by May of 91, he would have been seven, right? So, I was wondering why he didn't start to school in 91?
NOLAND: Well, there was no compulsory school law then. If you never started to school, nothing would have happened.
FUCHS: Well, I just wondered why he didn't.
NOLAND: Yes, and he could probably read before he ever went to school. I could, I know. So much of what you learned you learned at home.
FUCHS: Well, it's just a minor point. I often wondered why they waited until 92 before he entered school.
NOLAND: Well, I was almost seven, you see, before I started. I could have started the year before;
[66]
there would have been nothing to hinder it, but I didn't.
FUCHS: Yes. Things were a little more relaxed in those days. "Well, I think I'll go to school this year."
NOLAND: Yes, but if you didn't why nothing happened.
FUCHS: Do you have any vivid recollections of Solomon Young?
NOLAND: I don't recall him very well. He was there at the time we made that trip out there. I just remembered that he was around, but I don't remember him. I do remember he visited us once and had dinner with us when we lived out here on West White Oak, after we moved to the little house after the boom. And he had
[67]
dinner with us that day, though I don't recall anything he said or did. I just recall that Mr. Young came for dinner.
FUCHS: Do you recall when the house burned?
NOLAND: No.
FUCHS: Do you know if the house was built on the same exact site?
NOLAND: Yes, and on the same foundation. There was a cellar there where they kept the milk and that same cellar was in the new house that they built. So it was built on the same foundation, and the same ground plan, but nothing like the fine house that the old house had been. It didn't look like the old house at all.
FUCHS: What is your next recollection of Harry Truman in Independence after he came here in
[68]
1890 to the Crysler Avenue home?
NOLAND: Well, for six years we lived on Liberty Street and I remember that he came there very often to see us, but I don't remember any particular incident about it, until we came here. We moved to this house in 1900--August of 1900. That put us much nearer to them than we had been on Liberty Street because by that time they had left the Blitz house on Crysler and had moved to West Waldo. I don't remember just what year they bought that.
FUCHS: It's said to have been 1896.
NOLAND: Then they had moved to this house which they always spoke of as the Pittman house because the Pittman family had owned it before them.
[69]
FUCHS: You mean on Waldo?
NOLAND: Yes, on West Waldo.
FUCHS: And then you moved here four years later.
NOLAND: Yes, we moved here in 1900, yes. So, we saw each other very often, because going uptown, of course, and. going to school he had to pass here every day. Now, a great many people think that he was on the farm all during his childhood, which you know is not correct. He didn't live on the farm, although they were at the farm a great deal, especially after Mr. Young died. They would go back and forth out there, especially at weekends, but Mrs. Young was not alone. She kept help and her son, Harrison Young, was there until long after she died. But my aunt, Harry's mother, was a very faithful daughter and she was devoted to her
[70]
mother all her life, and she went out to Grandview as much as she could, because she loved to be with her mother. They were very companionable. After the high school was built on the corner of Pleasant Street where the Palmer High School is now, Harry came by every day, and of course, Bess was in high school, and they would come here to study--both of them--because part of the Wallace family lived in the house on Delaware beyond Waldo and part of the time they lived here with the Gateses, because the Gateses were getting older and the house was large and they liked to have Mrs. Wallace live there with them. And so, they were at the Gates place a very great deal, and Bess was over here a good deal. So, when it came to Latin, my sister was very good at it and they would come over here to read their Latin
[71]
with Nellie. I don't know whether they got much Latin read or not because there was a lot of fun going on, and Harry had become interested in fencing. He had two foils, or rapiers, or whatever you call them; and so we would sometimes practice fencing, which we knew absolutely nothing about, but it was fun to try, and we had the porch and we had room here to play and have fun, generally, which we did, with a little Latin intermingled, maybe. Though I'm afraid Caeser had a very slim chance with all that was going on. But there was a great deal of comradery about it and Harry always was fun. The cousins always liked him. They might quarrel with each other, but there was always peace where Harry was concerned. He was a great peacemaker, surely. We were always just good playmates and good comrades,
[72]
and Bess was the kind of a girl that the boys liked. They liked to play whatever game she liked to play. Harry wasn't any good at tennis. She was--she was really good. There was a tennis court by Woodland College and whether we played much or not we liked to go out there and congregate, you know. Other young people were there. Then there were lots of picnics, The Wallaces had a horse and we could drive and go.
FUCHS: Now this is all while you were in high school?
NOLAND: Yes.
FUCHS: Did you notice that Harry paid particular attention to Bess at that time?
NOLAND: Oh, in a, general way. I don't think
[73]
there was anything sentimental about it. But to tell the truth, there was never but one girl in the world for Harry Truman, from the first time he ever saw her at the Presbyterian kindergarten. That kindergarten was not a public school kindergarten nor a private--it was a church kindergarten. He saw her there and she was always just the one. If he hadn't married Bess he never would have married at all. He would have been like Mr. Harrison Young, a bachelor, I'm sure.
FUCHS: Well, now when John Anderson Truman left the farm and moved to Independence in 1890, Solomon Young would have been quite old. Who was actually running the farm then and farming?
NOLAND: Well, I don't think Mr. Harrison Young was ever much of a farmer. I think Mr. Solomon Young was probably a good overseer and there
[74]
was a, great deal of help they could get then, and the farm help lived in the home. I remember the farm hands they had, and some of them were not just farm hands; they seemed quite capable men and they were treated like members of the family, always ate with the family, and I think that he could oversee.
FUCHS: Well, I just thought with his advancing age, I wondered why John Anderson wouldn't have stayed there on the farm and continued to make his way there?
NOLAND: Well, I think it was the consideration of the children going to school and then he could continue his trading in cattle and work with his father-in-law and brother-in-law in the cattle business, with the farm as a background. I think that was probably the way they worked it.
[75]
FUCHS: Do you know of another farm that he owned after he came to Independence and farmed?
NOLAND: Yes, he bought one at Clinton, Missouri. They moved down there for a while, but they didn't stay very long.
FUCHS: Well, that was after he moved to Kansas City, as I understand it; but I had heard one account that while he was here, if I'm correct, he had a farm of some 200 acres. But all I can recall is that it was south of Independence, but I don't know where. I thought maybe you might recall something of that?
NOLAND: No. I don't doubt it. I think it's probably true, but I don't know of it because being a child at the time I didn't take much interest in the business affairs, and I don't know how they managed that.
[76]
FUCHS: Well, then, you graduated in 1900 and he graduated in 1901. Well, we've come that far and it's 5 until 12.
NOLAND: Well, I think we better quit for this time.
[Top of the Page | Notices and Restrictions | Interview Transcript | Additional Mary Ethel Noland Oral History Transcripts]
|
