Moving Day

After nearly 26 years of marriage, Bess Truman looked and lived last week a good deal like a million other middleaged, prosperous, happy U.S. wives. Perhaps she thought a little differently from most --like women who marry doctors or professional soldiers, a politician's wife learns to live in her husband's special world. Before Harry Truman became Vice President, Bess Truman had been his secretary, added her salary ($4,500) to his $10,000.

But with her neatly waved grey hair, her nicely cut, unobtrusive clothes, she could have blended into the crowd in an A. & P., in any woman's club.

Bess Wallace had gone to high school at Independence, Mo., where her family ran a flour mill, lived in quiet prosperity. When she married Harry Truman, they went to live with her widowed mother. In the nation's capital last week Mrs. Truman did the housework in her sunny, five-room apartment, as she had done it back home. Every morning she got up at a little before 7 to get the Vice President's breakfast--always fruit, milk and toast. She had given up trying to find a maid. Almost every evening she cooked supper, sometimes sighing a little over the dearth of beefsteak, her husband's favorite dish. She does not smoke; her husband does not approve of women with cigarets.

Mary Margaret, the Trumans' 21-year-old daughter, was her companion in this quiet life. Blonde, clear-complexioned Mary Margaret is a junior at George Washington University, a member of Pi Beta Phi Sorority, a serious student of music. At home in Missouri she sang in the choir of Independence's Trinity Episcopal Church, traveled to take part in summer productions of the Denver Opera Company. In Washington, she had much the same sort of dates, interests, enthusiasms as other U.S. college girls.

Then, in one fantastic afternoon, Bess and Mary Margaret Truman found their placid way of life irrevocably snatched away. Mrs. Truman sobbed at the news of Franklin Roosevelt's death. She cooked her last meal in the apartment; she and

Mary Margaret did their last dusting. This week (after three Arab princes moved out) the Trumans moved into Blair House, the 135-year-old mansion in which the U.S. lodges visiting diplomats, heads of state, distinguished officials. Ahead, for calm, shy, friendly Bess Truman, lay the responsibilities of a President's wife; for both the First Lady and her daughter the glare of publicity. Newspapers immediately began to speculate on the chances of Mary Margaret eventually affording the capital the excitement of a White House wedding. After Eleanor Roosevelt had had time to pack, Bess and Mary Margaret Truman would move into the Executive Mansion.

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