Bess

"A woman's place in public is to sit beside her husband, be silent, and be sure her hat is on straight." Elizabeth Wallace Truman

Off and away I'll be going in the next little while, southwest into the Free State for a bit o' school-visiting. On the way out of town I'll make a point to drive past the big white house on Delaware where once lived a good lady who died 28 years ago today. My mom saw her once, up at the Kroger's supermarket. How I wish I'd been with her that day. As a matter of fact, would that I could go to the store w/ my mom again. Anyway I'll be talking to young Kansans tomorrow about my books, especially Ghosts of the White House. I adored doing that book, researching, writing, drawing, painting, reading about the individuals who all lived in the President's House. Do, if you haven't, read William Seale's splendid, readable 2-vol. history of the mansion. I don't know that it's actually haunted. I've never seen a ghost and I don't know that I want to. But I used that device to show & tell about the U.S. Presidency, the men who took on the office. Here's what Bess had to say about the subject:

"Now about those ghosts. I'm sure they're here and I'm not half so alarmed at meeting up with any of them as I am at having to meet the live nuts I have to see every day. ...I won't lock my doors or bar them either if any of the old coots in the pictures out in the hall want to come out of their frames for a friendly chat."