September 28 Discovering Independence

What a great day! Well except for the terse words Bill and I had about directions and the map first thing, but he saw the light!




Santa Fe Trail Monument

 I prepared a good breakfast of eggs, ham and cheese to make sure we’d last til lunch as we didn’t know when and where we’d exactly be. We are pretty much just a few blocks from the historic district of Independence here, so we decided to do all the sites in the area today. First we went to the National Park Service visitor center of the Harry Truman National Historic Site to get our tickets for a tour of Truman’s home here in Independence. There are only 8 people to a tour and after Labor Day the number of tours decreases so we managed to get tickets for 2:30. We also watched the tail end of a movie on Truman.  We walked to the main square to view the monuments to the Santa Fe and Oregon Trails that are by the courthouse.

Harry and Bill

Graved of Harry and Bess Truman

Then we visited the Truman Library and Museum. That was really interesting and once again, I learned a lot. I never really knew much about Truman and his Presidency. I gather public opinion changed drastically about him from the time he left office to later and now. His rise to the Presidency was not the norm either. He was the last President to not attend college but he was an avid reader of history, political books and biographies so by the time he finished high school he had read every one of those books in the Independence Public Library.

We lunched in the historic town at a German place and it was very good. I had a brat with sauerkraut and spatzle, while Bill opted for a burger of sorts that had the onions and spices ground in to it fresh in the kitchen. I also had a HUGE radler to drink and it was so refreshing.

Frank James' Grave after cremation

We had some time before our 2:30 tour so we took in a couple of the shops there near the square and then drove to the Hill Cemetery to see the grave of Frank James of Frank and Jesse James notoriety. Bill thought we were in the wrong place as the cemetery is on the back side of a huge park and was very small. It has a short stone wall and there were only 8 – 9 headstones. There was a joint stone for Frank and his wife so of course we had to take a picture.  Frank's instructions were to be cremated and saved until his wife's death and buried together so he would not fall victim to grave robbers.



On the front steps of the
Truman House

 When we arrived back at the Truman House the ranger was there and ready for our tour. There were only 8 of us in our group as you can’t step off the gray carpet and in some places that doesn’t give you much wiggle room. He was very informative about the house, its history and the history of Harry Truman. Harry didn’t marry Bess until he was 35 and they miscarried twice and then had Margaret when he was 40 and Margaret didn’t marry until she was 32 so he was over 70 before he had grandchildren, 4 grandsons. When they left DC, they came back to the same house they lived in before and went on as residents of Independence, MO. The only thing in the house that signifies that he was President is a place setting of the Presidential china in a built in the wall cabinet, lined with shelf paper held down with thumb tacks. That’s pretty humble. The house has not been changed since Bess’s death in 1982, when she had left it to the National Archive who then turned it over to the National Park Service. Their clothing and every bar of soap, dish, and piece of furniture is just as it was the day she died.

Just down the road from our RV park is the Frontier Trails Museum, so of course we had to make a stop there. There were artifacts and displays devoted to the history of the Santa Fe, Oregon and California Trails. Many quotes from the journals kept by the travelers were used as part of the displays. I told Bill I think I could have been a pioneer woman better than a Civil War woman tending to amputees and medical procedures. He agreed! The lady at the ticket desk told us that just across the street and behind the house there we could see the remnants of many swales (what we always called ruts) of where many of the wagons gathers and started their journeys. So we made that our last stop of the day. We parked it the lot by the house and walked back. It’s all covered in grass but you could see the indentations in the ground

After resting a bit I grilled steaks on the mini George Foreman (thank you Melissa), made baked potatoes and we each ate a leftover vegetable. Then I sat down and started downloading photos and writing my journal, in addition to catching up on emails. We watched the season openers of our TV shows and headed to bed.