Notes

Harry S. Truman was the first of three children born to John Anderson Truman, a farmer and mule trader, and his wife, Martha Ellen Truman. Harry was named in honor of his maternal uncle, Harrison Young, but his parents couldn’t decide on a middle name. After more than a month, they settled on simply using the letter “S” as a tribute to both his maternal grandfather, Solomon Young, and his paternal grandfather, Anderson Shipp Truman.

After the war, Truman returned home and married his childhood sweetheart, Elizabeth “Bess” Wallace in 1919, with whom he had one daughter, Mary Margaret. That same year, he made a foray into business when he and an associate, Eddie Jacobson, set up a hat shop in Kansas City. But with America experiencing an economic decline in the early 1920s, the business failed in 1922. With the closing of the business, Truman owed $20,000 to creditors. He refused to accept bankruptcy and insisted on paying back all the money he borrowed, which took more than 15 years.

About this time, he was approached by Democratic boss Thomas Pendergast, whose nephew James served with Truman during the war. Pendergast appointed Truman to a position as an overseer of highways, and after a year, chose him to run for one of three county-judge positions in Jackson County. He was elected judge, which was an administrative rather than a judicial position, but he was defeated when he ran for a second term. Truman ran again in 1926 and was elected as a presiding judge, a position he held until he ran for senator.