1911 Stafford automobile (Lizzie)

The 1911 Stafford automobile (Lizzie) was more than a prized possession: it changed Harry S. Truman’s daily reach, social life, and wartime business, carrying him from the roads around Grandview, Missouri, to Camp Doniphan. Bought with money from his mother in 1914, the extravagant car became a vivid marker of her support for his courtship of Bess Wallace and, later, a practical part of Truman’s Army life.

Acquisition and Design

In March 1914, Truman’s mother suddenly became ill and underwent an emergency hernia operation at home. He stood beside her bed holding a kerosene lamp while the doctor worked. The experience was frightening, and Truman later said he hoped never to repeat it. He told Bess Wallace he would have to stay home for several days and wrote of his mother, “I hope she lives to be a hundred and one.” A few weeks later, she gave him money to buy a car. The book leaves uncertain how directly his conduct during her illness prompted the gift, but presents it as a generous gesture that pleased him enormously.

The purchase was no modest farm vehicle. The Stafford was a big, black, five-passenger 1911 model, hand-built in Kansas City, Missouri, by Terry Stafford; only 300 were made. Its four-cylinder engine, right-hand drive, high brass-framed windshield, and Presto-Lite lamps gave it a conspicuous presence. New, it had sold for $2,350; Truman paid $650. That price was a “bargain” to him, although the family’s finances were strained by loans, the cost of a lawsuit over his grandmother’s will, and the need to paint the house. The same sum could have paid two hired men for a year. The car was not the first in Grandview, but it was the fanciest, and even George Porterfield Gates in Independence had nothing comparable. After working on the engine, Truman could climb Dodson Hill, a local test of a car’s power, so quickly that he had to cut the throttle before reaching the top.

Mobility and Social Life

The Stafford altered Truman’s freedom of movement: he could come and go as he pleased, and mostly he went to Independence along Blue Ridge Boulevard. In town, the open car, polished brass, sporty cap, fresh white shirt, and Sunday necktie presented a very different image from that of a farmer. Bess Wallace and several friends piled in for fishing on Blue River, picnics by the waterworks beside the Missouri River at Sugar Creek, or a “spin” through the countryside.

The car also gathered a circle around Truman. Bess and the Noland sisters joined Bess’s brothers Frank and George and their girlfriends Natalie Ott and May Southern. Truman and the Stafford became the group’s focus, and photographs showed them posing beside the car with him at the wheel. May Southern later remembered him as good company and recalled one small exception to his even temper: he disliked onions in potato salad. His uncle Harrison Young enjoyed rides with the top down in any weather, and Truman’s mother insisted on joining an outing to Monegaw Springs. By midsummer, his father, John Truman, was also pleased with the purchase and wanted rides to inspect the roads, jokingly turning the car into an unlikely aid to road work.

The Monegaw Springs Breakdown

A trip to Monegaw Springs revealed how quickly the Stafford’s promise of easy travel could give way to a series of mishaps. On Sunday, Truman drove with his mother and Uncle Harrison Young. Within half a mile of the springs, the car ran over a stump. The impact threw his uncle over the front seat and his mother over Truman’s head; neither was hurt, but the axle bent. Truman backed the car off the stump and continued into town.

The return journey began at six on Monday morning. Rain made the road slippery, and the bent axle and steering wheel made it difficult to keep the car straight. Five miles south of Harrisonville, Missouri, the Stafford plunged into a ditch and smashed its left front wheel. Truman telephoned for a replacement and waited with his mother at Lone Tree, near a railway station, from 1:30 until 8:00 p.m. When the wheel arrived, he could not fit it; he had tried to put it on backward. Rain intensified, so a farmer took them in for the night. The next morning, the farmer hitched a team to the car and pulled it from the ditch, refusing payment for either the lodging or the work.

The setbacks continued. Near Harrisonville, the car ran through a puddle and its magneto became wet. Truman had to call for a mechanic, whose work cost five dollars; another farmer gave them dinner without charge. They finally reached Grandview at three in the afternoon. The account turns the automobile from a polished emblem of freedom into a stubborn, damaged machine, while its repeated breakdowns also bring the kindness of strangers into the story.

From Family Car to Army Truck

Truman drove 5,000 miles in three months. His mother’s gift had made the courtship he wanted easier to pursue, and his father’s later approval extended the car’s role into family life. When Mary Jane Truman wanted lessons, Truman reluctantly agreed because their mother had paid for the vehicle. Her first mishap was a collision with the front gate; Truman was relieved that she hit the gate rather than the stone post.

At Camp Doniphan, Truman brought the Stafford with him and had it stripped down to serve as a truck. The car is described there as bright red, with Truman driving and Sergeant Edward Jacobson beside him as they rolled through camp trailing dust. Jacobson, a former Kansas City clothing-store clerk, had become Truman’s partner in running the regimental canteen. Their friendship grew alongside the business: each wrote daily to his sweetheart, and Jacobson mailed the letters when he went into town to replenish supplies. Truman credited Jacobson with running the enterprise.

The canteen’s success made the automobile part of a larger Army operation. A two-dollar assessment on each man in the regiment provided $2,200 in starting capital. The business soon took in $500 to $900 a day; a barbershop and tailor shop were added, and after six months the operation paid $10,000 in dividends. The partners became popular and thought themselves an unbeatable combination. In this setting, the Stafford was no longer simply Truman’s conspicuous personal luxury: stripped down, it helped him and Jacobson move supplies and became a familiar feature of camp life.

Sale and Significance

On the eve of his departure overseas, Truman sold the car for $200, a steep fall from the $650 he had paid but the end of its place in his life as a personal automobile. On March 19, 1918, he left by troop train. The Stafford had taken him from farm roads to Independence, carried his family and friends, survived the Monegaw Springs journey, and been repurposed at Camp Doniphan. Its changing uses chart a change in Truman’s circumstances: first a gift that widened his private world, then a vehicle folded into military work, and finally property he had to relinquish as he went to war.