FIRST LADY BESS W. TRUMAN - FREE FRANK SIGNED 01/22/1974 - HFSID 52812

BESS W. TRUMAN
Bess Truman signs an envelope with her Free Frank at upper right.
Envelope free franked at upper right: "Bess W. Truman", 6¼x4¼. Printed return address at upper left: "INDEPENDENCE, MISSOURI 64050." Addressed by typewriter to John J. Cochanes, Forest Park, IL. Postmarked: "U.S. Postal Service 640, Jan. 22, 1974." The former First Lady was granted the franking privilege a year earlier after the death of her husband, President Harry S Truman. The oldest woman to be First Lady (67 years, 341 days at the end of Truman's term) was also the oldest former First Lady (97 years, 247 days at her death in 1982). In 1919, 35-year-old Harry S Truman married 34-year-old Elizabeth "Bess" Wallace. When six-year old Harry Truman first met five-year-old Bess Wallace in a Sunday School class in Independence, Missouri. Harry later said it was love at first sight. At his death in 1972, Harry and Bess Truman had been married for 53 years but they had known each other for an incredible 82 years! On her first day in the White House, First Lady Bess Truman made breakfast, made the bed, washed dishes, dusted, vacuumed and then read a detective novel, The Crimson Claw. Unlike her predecessor, Eleanor Roosevelt, she gave no press conferences and usually responded to any questions with a terse: "No comment". She tried to curb her husband's salty, blunt language. When one society matron complained that the President had used the word "manure" in public, Bess replied that it had taken her 20 years to get him to say "manure". Envelope slit across the top edge when opened. Fine condition.