Margaret Truman and Clifton Daniel’s Wedding took place in Independence on April 21, 1956, bringing Margaret Truman Daniel’s private romance into public view. The ceremony returned her family to the church where her parents, Harry S. Truman and Bess Wallace, had married in 1919; outside the reception, reporters and sightseers made the occasion a public spectacle.

A Private Engagement

In mid-March 1956, Margaret Truman Daniel announced her engagement at a press conference at the Carlyle Hotel in New York. Her parents had known for several weeks, but she had kept the romance from the public. She and Elbert Clifton Daniel Jr., an assistant foreign news editor at The New York Times, had known each other for more than a year. He was forty-two, ten years older than his fiancée, and had spent ten years as a foreign correspondent in England. Although he appeared polished and sophisticated, he, like Margaret, had grown up in a small town.

In a letter to Dean Acheson, Harry S. Truman recounted how Margaret had managed the announcement on her own terms: she made him hang up while she told her mother, forbade him to tell his brother and sister, and later asked her parents what to do. The couple had also visited Daniel’s parents in North Carolina and dined with Jonathan Daniels while trying to keep the engagement secret. Truman joked about having no chance to tell his friends before the announcement. The news brought the family a flood of attention: Truman reported receiving at least two thousand letters and telegrams, while his daughter received twice as many. Beneath his amusement, he admitted to Acheson that he was worried and hoped the marriage would work out.

The Ceremony and Reception

The wedding was held on Saturday, April 21, at Trinity Episcopal Church on Liberty Street, where Harry S. Truman and Bess Wallace had married in 1919. A small reception followed at the bride’s home. Its setting recalled the reception held there in 1919, but the public circumstances had changed: this time the gathering was indoors, screened from hundreds of reporters and photographers at the iron fence and carloads of sightseers passing the house bumper to bumper.

The day was warm, with temperatures in the eighties. The shaded lawn was clipped and green, and spirea bushes bloomed beside the porch. Margaret wore an ankle-length, full-skirted pale beige wedding dress made from two-hundred-year-old Venetian lace. These details framed a family ceremony that retained the appearance of an intimate home occasion even as the crowd outside turned it into national news.

Truman as Father of the Bride

Truman had written to Acheson about his anxiety over his daughter’s choice and asked for reassurance. Acheson responded warmly, expressing confidence in Margaret’s judgment and in Daniel’s character. He also joked that fathers of brides were often left out of their daughters’ decisions and suggested bourbon as consolation. The exchange gave Truman a way to voice both affection and unease as his daughter made a major decision independently.

At the church, arriving by limousine with Margaret and during the ceremony, Truman appeared unhappy and unsmiling; the account likened him to the pitiable father Acheson had described. At the reception he brightened noticeably, possibly in response to Acheson’s joking prescription. The contrast captures the mixed tone of the day: his visible reluctance to surrender his daughter to a new stage of life, followed by a more relaxed family celebration.

After the Wedding

Less than a month later, Truman and Bess Wallace set out on what was described as a honeymoon of their own. They spent seven weeks touring Europe by train, traveling through France, Italy, Austria, West Germany, Brussels, the Netherlands, and England. Rain fell for much of the trip, but Truman’s diary recorded that the weather did not diminish his spirits. The wedding thus became the beginning of a new family chapter for Margaret and Daniel, while also prompting her parents to embark on a journey of their own.