Dates: 1852-1897, 1945-1975
The papers of Eric Fowler consist of a letter from Benjamin Franklin Wallace to John Parker, two grade school registers recording the attendance of Harry S. Truman and Bess Wallace, and correspondence between the Truman and Bostian families.
Size: Less than one linear foot (about 400 pages).
Access: Open.
Copyright: No donation of copyright has been received from the donor of this collection. Copyright interest in the documents presumably belongs to the creators of those documents, or their heirs.
Processed by: Austin Trantham (2007); David Clark (2017).
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Eric Fowler, a document collector and local historian in Independence, Missouri, originally accumulated these documents. The Harry S. Truman Library Institute obtained the documents for the Harry S. Truman Library.
The papers of Eric Fowler contain a copy of a letter Benjamin Franklin Wallace wrote to John Parker from Jefferson City, Missouri, on December 22, 1852. The letter discusses the prospects of bills in the Missouri legislature aimed at promoting construction of the Pacific Railroad in western Missouri through loans and land grants. Benjamin Franklin Wallace was the grandfather of Bess Wallace Truman. The collection also includes Mr. Fowler’s transcription of the handwritten letter.
The collection also contains two school registers from Independence, Missouri, documenting attendance and grades for students during the period from 1888 to 1897. The records apparently were kept by Nannie Wallace, a teacher at Ott School in Independence, who was the sixth-grade teacher of Harry S. Truman and his future wife, Bess Wallace. One of the registers records the attendance of Harry and Bess for the period from September 1896 to January 1897. (Harry was twelve in 1896, while Bess was a year younger.) The register does not record their grades.
The correspondence consists of photocopies of letters written primarily between Bess Truman and Mary Bostian. Bess Truman and Mary Bostian, both lived in Independence, Missouri, and were members of the Bridge Club. The collection also contains a few letters from Harry S. Truman to Ken and Mary Bostian.
Related materials at the Truman Library include the records of the Independence (Missouri) School District, which include the grades and attendance records of Harry S. Truman in the first and second grades, the Bess Truman Papers and the Bess Truman Collection.
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1 |
SUBJECT FILE, 1852-1897, 1945-1975 Letters and school registers. Arranged alphabetically. |
SUBJECT FILE, 1852-1897, 1945-1975
Box 1
- Correspondence, 1945-1975
- Letter, Benjamin Franklin Wallace to John Parker, 1852
- Ott School Register, 1888-1892
- Ott School Register, 1889-1897