The Wilmington morning star., 1947-05-18

derstood she had one sinking spell
early this morning, rallied some.
what and then had another set.
back.
As the Presidents plane rosred
Eove- the home toward the air.
port. Miss Mary Jane Trurnen
ms sister, and The two doct y
stepped to the front porch ano
watched the plane disappear into
a cloudbank.
only Vivian Truman, his brother.
and Fred Canfil, U. S. Marshal,
were at the airport to greet him
MT. Truman was not accompanied
by a White House press corps be.
cause OF the sudden nature of his
trip. Hundreds of the curious were
lined up along the fence of the air.
port but the drenching rain hac
driven them into their cars before
he landed.
1t was the presidents SECOND
flight home in six days. A setback
late last week lent a note of urgen.
cy to his already planned Mothers
Day visit with his mother. Blu,
he hew back to Washington ate,
a the-hour visit when assured by
six physicians that her condition
was considerably improved.
DR.. Greene said that "complica
tons have set in" The complica.
TORS, however, were understood
not to include pneumonia. Mother
Humans chest late last week
was CLOUDY" but had cleared al
the time of the presidents Moth
er's Day visit.
On Mothers Day Mr.. Truman
was informed by the doctors pres
ent that her hip, fractured in mid
February, was knitting satisfac.
torily. However, he was warned
that her setback had been caused
by general debility, brought on
PARTLY by advanced age and partly
because of the enforced stay in
bed.
The president and his mother
always have been very close. Since
his ascendancy to the White House,
he has made it a point to fly home
for brief visits on her birthdays
and on Mothers Day. Whenever he
could squeeze in other visits, he
spent fleeting hours in the home
where today he found her in crit
ical condition.
She'd seen her son climb from
a county court job in her native
jackson county to the highest Of
flee in the nation. Though duty
often led him far afield, the phone
rang frequently in the home here
as he called to talk a while with
her.
Once she said He always seems
to do the right thing, and he al
ways thinks of his mother"
Mrs. Truman was born near the
heart of what is now Kansas City.
She was the daughter of a prom
inent early-day freighter on the
overland trails. Except for a few
years when she and her husband,
the late John A. Truman, lived al
Lamar, Mo-, she spent her entire
life in Jackson county.
Much of her life was spent son
the farmlands Of the upland south,
ern part of the county, on land her
father had entered from the gov
eminent hear Grandview. 1t was
there her famous son titled the
land before he went to war In the
First World War and it was there,
as he put it many years later, that
he learned to pillow the s%traightes'
row of corn in Missouri.
Mother Truman lived through
four wars. She saw, as a little girl.
the horror and waste OF the War
Between the States as it ripped
open this border district. Here the
guerillas and the Buschwhackers
fought it out in raids with gun and
torch.
AS a young woman she knew OF
the Spanish-American war and
then came.the time her son march
ed off with the National Guard, to
fight with the famous 35th divi-
sion in France as a captain Of ar
tillery.
Deep down, she was sorry Wher
her son became president. But she
has had that deep pride of a moth
er in seeing a son rise to high
place.
That rise, though, meant nc
change in her way of living. She
was still the good neighborly Mis-
souri, farm woman to her Grand
view neighbors, although the ole
farm home itself passed out the
family hands during the bad year
of the 1905 to meet a tax loan
1T was til IN that she and Mis-
| Mary Jane Truman moved to tn
cottage. The other son, Vivian
continued to farm at a place JUS
west of the old home place.