Oh, to be a kid again

When I was a child, I knew nothing about politics.  My parents didn't even vote.  I think they finally started voting in the 70's.  I was probably five or six years old, though, when I learned they were non-voting Republicans.  There were several jokes going around about at the time that made fun of Democrats.  I got to hear some of the jokes, but there were others that my mom didn't want me to hear, so she would tell me to go outside and play.

Harry Truman became president in 1945 when Franklin Roosevelt died, and was elected for four more years after that.  We were listening to the radio one evening, many years before we had a television,  probably around 1950.  Whatever show we were listening to didn't interest me, but my parents were talking about Harry Truman as they listened.  Actually, they were making fun of him.  And before long they started laughing about what a terrible singer his daughter was.  I wanted to know what she sang, and Mother, still laughing, said, "Oh, I don't know, but it was awful."

I was thinking about that this morning, wondering just how bad it could have been. I went to Youtube and found that yes, she had been recorded.  If you'd like to hear her sing, just click HERE.  Even if Margaret Truman had been amazing, my parents and I wouldn't have liked it; it was a song from an opera, which is about as far from Hank Williams as you could get.  

Margaret was President Truman's only daughter; any book I've ever read about him portrays him as loving his wife and daughter above all else, writing letters to them almost daily when they were apart.  He was very proud of Margaret's singing.

The critics didn't agree.  Here's something I found, with help from Google:

Margaret Truman, daughter of President Harry Truman, had dreams of being a singer. She practiced hard and got professional help via operatic vocal training. But when she gave her first radio recital in 1947, reviews were lukewarm. But she soldiered on (it was easy for her to get bookings because of her celebrity status), and she kept getting bad reviews.

In 1950 Washington Post music critic Paul Hume wrote that Truman was “extremely attractive on the stage... [but] cannot sing very well. She is flat a good deal of the time. And still cannot sing with anything approaching professional finish,” President Truman wrote to Hume, "Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you'll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below!"

In 1951, a German newspaper joked that she was going to make a concert tour of West Germany in order to "inspire German approval of rearmament."

The Truman Library is in Independence, about twenty-five miles from where I live.  I've been there several times, and also visited the home he returned to after leaving Washington DC.  What he said to that music critic is how he talked to anyone he didn't like.  He actually reminded me of my father in that sense, although he would roll over in his grave if he heard me say that.  Two men who didn't care if they said exactly what they thought.