Ethel Noland

Ethel Noland was Harry S. Truman’s favorite cousin, a lifelong confidante, and one of the people who understood him most closely. Six months older than Truman and a year ahead of him in school, she shared with him a durable intimacy built from reading, conversation, humor, and daily companionship. Across the years, she was also a witness to the shy young man who pursued Bess Wallace, the farmer who knew he belonged elsewhere, and the candidate who accepted backing from a political organization. Her recollections make her more than a relative in Truman’s story: she is one of its clearest interpreters.

Family and early friendship

Ethel and her younger sister, Nellie Noland, were Truman’s closest friends among his cousins. He had thirty-nine cousins by his own count, but Ethel and Nellie remained his favorites throughout his life. Both were good-natured and well read, curious about the world and devoted to him; Ethel, in particular, came to understand him almost as few others did. Their closeness offered him a secure companionship distinct from his friendships with the boys around him.

The three spent hours together after school and in the evenings, usually at the Noland house on Maple Avenue. In summer, Ethel and Nellie regularly visited the family farm at Blue Ridge. Ethel remembered Truman as considerate and companionable, and recalled, “Harry was always fun.” They read Shakespeare aloud and took parts in the plays. After they performed Hamlet, Ethel began calling him Horatio, the brave and steadfast friend. The nickname captured the affectionate, literary playfulness of their bond, while their repeated time together made the sisters a constant presence in his youth.

Ethel also knew about Truman’s long-standing feelings for Bess Wallace. Bess had been in his class since he transferred to the Columbian School in fourth grade, and the alphabetical seating arrangement placed her desk directly behind his year after year. The Noland sisters knew how much he still cared for her, even when he could not easily express it in person. Ethel’s knowledge of that attachment predated Truman’s renewed courtship and gave her a view of his romantic hopes from close range.

Witness to Truman’s courtship

In the summer of 1910, a cake plate that needed to be returned to Bess’s family gave Truman an opportunity to see her again. Ethel, who was still living with Nellie in the family house on North Delaware Street, later recounted how quickly he volunteered to make the delivery. He crossed the street, went up the walk and the porch steps, rang the bell, and waited for Bess to answer. From her own porch, Ethel appears to have watched the encounter. She remembered that seeing Bess and speaking with her was an enormous occasion for Truman; he did not return for two hours.

The distance between the farm near Grandview and North Delaware Street was only sixteen miles, but visiting Bess was an undertaking. A horse-and-buggy trip could take four hours round trip. The train required a walk into Grandview, a change in Kansas City, and a further connection to Independence, with few trains and poor connections. Another route involved a buggy ride to Dodson and transfers between interurban and streetcars. Truman made the journey whenever he could and sometimes spent the night on the Noland sisters’ couch. In Independence, Grandview was regarded as “the sticks”; the effort he made to visit underlined how strongly he wanted to remain near Bess and the people who knew him best.

A confidante in letters and war

As Truman’s courtship developed, he wrote letters to Bess in which he could say more than he managed in her presence. Ethel was not the recipient of that courtship correspondence, but her closeness to both cousins placed her among those who understood the young man behind it. She was part of the family circle that exchanged letters with Truman during his military service in France, along with his mother and sister. Their letters could take a month or more to arrive and often came in batches of six or seven. Truman urged them to keep writing, and, knowing how worried they were, withheld upsetting news and serious complaint.

One letter he did send Ethel conveyed the strain of the fighting and the relief of its end. Recalling the shells falling around him before the November 11 cease-fire, he wrote, “You’ve no idea how happy we all were to have the war end,” and described the moment the order to stop firing arrived as “the most agreeable sigh of relief I ever have [had].” The letter records more than a battlefield reaction: it shows the trust that allowed Truman to share his feelings with Ethel, and the continued place she held in his intimate circle while he was far from home.

Her perspective on his work and politics

Ethel’s understanding of Truman extended beyond family affection. She believed he was never meant to be a farmer, a judgment that aligned with his own awareness even though he had held on to farm life for ten years and had done his share and more. He later remembered the farm as a formative experience, valuing its hard work and the time it gave him to think. Ethel’s view held together the difference between what Truman could endure and what suited him: he could remain committed to the farm without mistaking it for his vocation.

When Truman decided to enter politics, Ethel strongly approved. Colonel William Southern warned him that a life of chronic campaigning could damage his character and bring poor rewards, but Truman had made up his mind. Ethel later offered a concise account of why he took up with the Pendergast political organization: “They always like to pick winners, and they endorsed him. And, indeed, if he hadn’t been endorsed by the machine he couldn’t have run. He was very grateful to them….” Her explanation acknowledges both the practical necessity of the endorsement and Truman’s gratitude for it. Rather than erase the political machine from his rise, she described the support as a decisive condition of his candidacy.

Ethel’s testimony connects private knowledge to public history. She remembered Truman’s early reserve, his attachment to Bess, his long labor on the farm, and his entry into politics; she also preserved a view of him that combined affection with clear-eyed judgment. In that balance, she appears not simply as the loyal cousin beside him, but as a witness able to recognize the continuities between the boy she called Horatio and the adult who chose a public life.