John Truman

John Truman was a farmer and road worker whose final illness made Harry S. Truman confront, in practical daily terms, how much his father had sustained the family. In 1914, a hernia and intestinal obstruction led to surgery and then to John Truman’s death. The burden of caring for him, keeping the farm running, and taking over road work fell increasingly on Harry S. Truman before his father was gone; afterward, Harry S. Truman acknowledged that the farm had depended on John Truman to make it work.

Identity and Family Role

John Truman was a stubborn, physically hardworking man. Earlier, while moving a boulder from one of the roads, he strained himself—a kind of exertion he had repeatedly warned Harry S. Truman against. The incident became the beginning of the illness that would overtake him. The account presents his work not as an isolated task but as part of the ordinary demands of maintaining the roads and farm.

The family’s new automobile briefly offered a different kind of shared activity. By midsummer 1914, John Truman had come to approve of the purchase and wanted Harry S. Truman to drive him out to survey the roads. The car that had helped Harry S. Truman travel also became, as his father’s condition worsened, a means of getting John Truman to medical appointments. Its changing use marks the shift from work and forward movement to care and apprehension.

John Truman’s place in the household was also practical and sustaining. Harry S. Truman had already been running the farm for some time, but he later distinguished managing it from making it go: in a letter to Bess Wallace after his father’s death, he described the work now before him and said that John Truman had always been the one who made the farm function. The admission conveys both Harry S. Truman’s new responsibility and the extent of his father’s continuing role.

Illness and Harry S. Truman’s Responsibilities

By midsummer, John Truman’s strain had become a serious problem. He refused to consult specialists, fearing an operation, while the pain persisted. An X-ray around Labor Day showed that a severe hernia was obstructing his intestines. He had lost considerable weight and looked dreadful; doctors told him that his choice was surgery or death. Even when he could scarcely raise his head, he told people he was fine. Harry S. Truman, fearing the worst, urged him to undergo the operation.

The illness rearranged Harry S. Truman’s days. He ran the farm, took over the road work, and drove his father to a doctor in Kansas City, Missouri, as often as four times a week. At the same time, the farm demanded continued attention, including getting 200 acres of wheat planted. Harry S. Truman worried that he could not get by without his father. His letters to Bess Wallace described that fear, while her encouragement helped him persist with what he had set out to do. The family’s concern was not abstract: some evenings John Truman could hardly speak, and Harry S. Truman’s mother asked him to forgo trips to Independence.

John Truman underwent surgery at Swedish Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, in October. Bess Wallace sent flowers, which pleased both father and son. John Truman would not let the nurse throw them away until they were entirely gone. He returned home after the operation, but Harry S. Truman understood that the recovery had not removed the danger. As word of John Truman’s condition spread, neighbors began visiting.

Death and Funeral

A visitor, Stephen Slaughter, later recalled that John Truman knew he had little time left and described himself as a failure in life. Stephen Slaughter’s father tried to comfort him by recalling the good neighbor he had been, the friends he had made, the useful work he had done, and the fine family he had raised. By then, Harry S. Truman was rarely away from his father’s side and was probably present during this conversation. The remembered exchange sets John Truman’s despair against the community’s account of a life measured through service, work, and family.

John Truman died on Monday morning, November 2, 1914. Harry S. Truman later recalled that he had sat watching beside him for a long time, nodded off, and awoke to find him dead. Brownie Huber, the hired man, remembered the morning’s familiar routine: he and Harry S. Truman had risen early and quietly so as not to wake the women in the house; Harry S. Truman made biscuits, oatmeal, and eggs, then went in to stay with his father. He soon appeared at the door and reported that John Truman had passed away. The ordinary breakfast routine and the vigil at the bedside belonged to the same morning.

Schools in Grandview, Missouri, closed for the funeral, and friends came to the house from throughout the county. Buggies, horses, and Model T automobiles lined the drive beneath bare trees. The Independence Examiner described John Truman as an upright citizen whose death would be a blow to his community. He was buried at Forest Hill Cemetery (Kansas City), on the brow of a slope beside the graves of Solomon Young and Harriet Louisa Young.

Narrative Significance

John Truman’s illness and death form a turning point in Harry S. Truman’s family life because they convert an established pattern of shared work into a sudden transfer of responsibility. Before the illness, Harry S. Truman could run the farm while his father remained the person who made it operate; during the illness, he took on farming, road work, and repeated medical trips at once. Afterward, he had to reckon with the practical work his father had left behind as well as his absence.

The account keeps John Truman’s final days grounded in specific acts: moving a boulder, resisting medical advice, accepting surgery, holding on to Bess Wallace’s flowers, and receiving neighbors at home. His own judgment of failure is answered not by an abstract tribute but by recollections of useful labor, friendship, neighborliness, and family. That contrast gives his death its significance in the narrative: John Truman is seen through the work he did and the responsibilities that became visible when he could no longer do them.