The Family at Home

The first, confused days of moving and readjustment were past. The official mourning for Franklin Roosevelt was over. Now a new pattern of life in the White House took shape. Once again, as under the Roosevelts, the White House was a home for an active, happy family.

The President still seemed a little startled at the furor he caused on personal expeditions in the capital. Last week, when he hustled out to open his safety deposit box at a Washington bank, he virtually tied up noon-hour traffic in the street outside. But his informality, his habit of early rising had begun to seem natural. So did the folksy atmosphere which visitors imparted to White House anterooms. Newsmen now rated callers as OFs (Old Friends) and PRs (Payers of Respects).

The President got most of his relaxation from occasional swims in the White House pool, had little time for outside entertainment. But Mrs. Truman took her place in the Washington social whirl, proved herself equal to the rigors of teas, dinners and receptions. At one crowded affair an ample and obviously uncomfortable dowager approached to inquire, "My, aren't you warm?" The First Lady replied: "Most certainly not. I find it very comfortable." Last week she held her first formal White House party (for wives of the diplomatic set), planned a tea for newspaperwomen this week. She also found time to reduce the staff of 33 White House servants by approximately one-third. (Servants' salaries are paid by the Government, but the President must feed them out of his own pocket.) This week she held her first state dinner--for Prince Abdul Illah, Regent of Iraq.

Back to Independence. Meanwhile blonde, 21-year-old Mary Margaret Truman had finished her exams at George Washington University, was obviously enjoying the attention which capital society accords Presidents' unmarried daughters. Washington beaux dated her steadily. (To get her callers into the White House she had to leave their names, identifications and expected times of arrival with guards at the gates.) Escorted by Army Captain Everett Walk of Philadelphia, she led a spirited Virginia reel at the Pan American Union's anniversary dance.

Margaret had only one quarrel with life in the White House--people insisted on linking her romantically with every man who took her dancing. "If it wasn't for that," she said, "my life would be simple."

The Trumans will not be in the White House this summer. They plan to be in their old home at Independence, Mo., make it the summer White House; everyone but the President hoped to get there in early June. There, in the big, plain, high-ceilinged rooms, they planned to resume their old, informal way of life during the hot months. (Independence would be no cooler than Washington.) Said Margaret: "I just want to spend the summer sleeping." But there was already evidence that things would be a little different--motorists drove down Independence's North Delaware St. to gaze curiously as painters worked on the cupolaed 80-year-old frame house.

Harrison Irving, the Trumans' Negro yardman, took a dim view of the whole business. "I'm the nervous type," he confided. "I ain't never been in any of this big time stuff before. I'm going to be plumb scared to death by them secret-service men."

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