Harry & Nancy
Cold winter days are the perfect opportunity to find respite in our city’s many museums. A few weeks ago, I did just that and landed in Independence for a private tour at The Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum. The institution received a $29 million complete re-envisioning and renovation that was completed in 2021, and it still freshly sparkles.
From the opening room devoted to Truman’s early life, I felt connected to the type of person he was. A large floor-to-ceiling cylinder is wrapped in love letters to Bess. They reveal not only his tenderness for her, but foreshadow his fortitude and persistence. Beginning in 1910, he wrote more than 1,300 letters to her across their lifetimes. Nine years of courtship and rejection made me wonder if I could do what he had done—repeatedly propose, hoping to ultimately receive a different outcome. Perhaps it was his unwillingness to accept defeat that made him the unlikely and ideal leader to one day effectively bring an end to World War II.
Also among the early-life exhibits, following a survey of Truman’s impressive World War I service, there is a recreation of the Truman and Jacobson Haberdashery, the men’s shop he cofounded in downtown Kansas City. Due to the Great Depression, the shop closed in 1922, saddling Truman and his business partner with significant debt. Jacobson declared bankruptcy, but Truman insisted on repaying his debts—which he did across almost 15 years. Had his shop been a success, there would have likely been no President Truman. The professional crisis forced him to take a fresh look at his life and future. Thereafter, he successfully ran for judge in Jackson County, at Tom Pendergast’s persuasion. That position and several others led him to a successful run for the U.S. Senate. The entire experience was an early window into how this humble man would deal with setbacks and failure.
World War II and the presidency, of course, occupy a significant portion of the museum’s exhibits. Interesting artifacts include the bomb fuse safety plug pulled from the plutonium bomb dropped over Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945. There’s also Truman’s draft of the letter formally recognizing the state of Israel.
I was astounded by Thomas Hart Benton’s massive mural, Independence and the Opening of the West, which one must walk through to visit Truman’s recreated Oval Office. Truman even painted a bit in the corner himself. Regarding art, I also appreciated the original Norman Rockwell painting, Family Squabble, depicting the bitterly divisive 1948 Presidential campaign via an argument between a husband supporting Dewey and a wife supporting Truman. It felt so oddly contemporary.
Another room I found fascinating was one dedicated to the extensive White House renovation overseen by Truman. In 1948, a leg of Margaret Truman’s piano fell through her upstairs bedroom floor when a major support beam broke. Engineers declared that the 1820s structure was barely standing, and extensive repairs were required. The fateful beam is onsite overhead, and photos capture a skeletal White House with bulldozers and dump trucks inside its dirt-floored, gutted shell. The Trumans lived in nearby Blair House during the four years of interior reconstruction.
Various other exhibits bring visitors into the drama and complex decision-making that filled Truman’s presidency. One can get a sense of the struggles of war and the even harder work of peace. There are numerous interactive features where visitors can step back in time to experience some of Truman’s most difficult decisions, including dropping the atomic bomb, recognizing the state of Israel, and desegregating the military.
I am so grateful to my guide for the day, Kim Chamberlin. Her joy, deep knowledge, and ability to connect decades-old challenges with those we somehow find ourselves facing today were so enriching to my experience.
While a Truman Library tour had long been on my to-do list, admittedly, I was there for another reason. The Truman Library Institute (the nonprofit partner of the Truman Library) was hosting a book conversation for former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Her new book is The Art of Power: My Story as America’s First Woman Speaker of the House. The Institute invited me to attend the event, and I delightedly accepted.
Across the library’s 67-year history, it and the institute have hosted an impressive array of diverse voices and viewpoints. It was my honor to participate and also have some time with former Speaker Pelosi prior to the event. My takeaway: she is warm, bubbly, sharp, and wickedly humorous. Diminutive in size, but not presence. In one word, unflappable.
Needing no introduction, Nancy Pelosi has served in Congress for 38 years, achieving the highest levels of political success. As House minority leader, she became the first woman to lead a major party in either chamber of Congress and made history again as the first woman to become Speaker of the House of Representatives. Across her time in Congress, she’s witnessed a lot of change. When she took office in 1987, 23 women occupied the 435 House seats. Today, that number has increased fivefold. I can still vividly remember watching the State of the Union address in 2007—as I do every year—when President George W. Bush said the words: “Tonight I have the high privilege and distinct honor of my own as the first president to begin the state of the union message with these words: Madam Speaker.” In a rare moment, everyone rose in bipartisan applause. And, yes, I cried.
It was clear from the outset that this particular visit was personal to Pelosi. As a daughter of the mayor of Baltimore (and later Congressman), she lived in a household where it was not uncommon to host or rub shoulders with sitting presidents. Harry Truman was one president she met on several occasions during her childhood and adolescence. He left such an impression on her family that his portrait held a prominent place in their home. As she described it, they used it not only to measure their height, but also their values.
In Truman’s post-presidency, as he was campaigning for Pelosi’s father, she recalled the topic on which he hammered most feverishly: “education, education, education”—she said. “Education is everything.” So, it is fitting that Truman’s legacy lives on today at this institution of learning. Anecdotes like these, from someone who actually knew Harry Truman, felt pricelessly poignant.
The conversation with Pelosi was guided by Kansas City’s own treasure, David Von Drehle. While his questions served as thoughtful guideposts, Pelosi scarcely needed conversational handholding. She spoke extemporaneously for more than an hour with but one note—a quote. It was a quote by Truman as he signed the North Atlantic Treaty, establishing NATO. Yeah—he also did that.
She closed by conveying what an honor it was for her to be sitting on the same stage where President Lyndon Johnson traveled to sign the Medicare legislation into law—an issue advocated for (but not entirely completed) by Harry Truman. Truman was enrolled, on this stage, as the first Medicare beneficiary and presented with the first Medicare card. A historic moment. Less than a decade later, President Truman would lie in state on the same stage. “Let us be inspired by him,” Pelosi said. “An ordinary person doing extraordinary things. Deep values, a beautiful vision—a wonderful president of the United States. How fortunate we are to be present in a place where he went on to heaven. Let us pray that God blesses America.”
Spotted: Congressman Emanuel Cleaver II, Congresswoman Sharice Davids, Mayor Quinton Lucas, Mayor Rory Rowland, Alex Burden, Mark Adams, Nancy Lee & Jonathan Kemper, Charlotte Kemper Black, Sue & Lewis Nerman, Sarah Rowland, Madeleine McDonough & Cyd Slayton, Maureen McMeel Carroll, Kelly Anders, Melesa Johnson, Pam & Gary Gradinger, Jamila Weaver, Debby & Gary Ballard, Sarah & Jon Baum, Dan Meiners & David Brinkerhoff, Julie & Pete Browne, Jim Blair, Kevin Hancock, Kevin Bryant & Tom Suther, Hilda Fuentes & Allan Gray II, Jen Macias-Wetzel & Richard Wetzel, Betsy & Tim Triplett, Guy Townsend, Sheryll Myers, Mark Allen Alford, Jr., Bernard Shondell, Richard Hull, Pamela & Irvin Bishop
A Symphonic Piazza
On a Friday after work, I devised an evening of much-needed catching up with friends. I met Lee Page and Kurt Knapstein for pre-Symphony bites and drinks at the new Mineral Lounge. Conveniently across Broadway from the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, it’s the perfect gathering spot for a pre-theater experience. Mineral Lounge is operated by the same folks as nearby Tannin Wine Bar & Kitchen and features a distinctively Mediterranean menu. Being our first time, we cast a wide net for our sampling. We enjoyed every last bite of the stuffed Italian sausage meatballs, the heirloom tomato bruschetta, the olives and feta, dolmas, Spanish tinned fish, ahi tuna crudo, and lamb kofta. Mineral has an extensive wine selection, understandably, but we opted for some of the signature cocktails. My Anar & Smoke with mezcal, amaro, pomegranate, lime, and rose was my idea of perfection. I also sampled the Autumn in Istanbul, which is made with whiskey, apple ginger juice, black cardamom, sumac, honey, and lemon and was equally impressed. I highly recommend this spot; I will return again and again.
We gathered that evening for something new the Kansas City Symphony is offering, and I’d been eager to experience it. One Friday each month, the symphony performs a shorter-format concert, followed by a social experience in the glass-sheathed great hall.
For this iteration, we were thrilled to see Conrad Tao’s mesmerizing piano skills in action as he performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1, a work that Beethoven composed as a showpiece for his talents. It’s a work that harkens back to Haydn and Mozart, while hinting at what’s in store for future Beethoven. With no intermission in this abbreviated format, we plunged right into Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, composed while Beethoven was focusing on his health in the spa town of Teplice. At its debut, he believed it to be one of his finest works.
Following the performance, guests gathered for complimentary cocktails and mingling. Matthias Pintscher, the symphony’s highly acclaimed new music director, joined us, and it was a thrill to catch up on how he’s acclimating to life in Kansas City (exceedingly well, I can report). I can also attest that the orchestra has a fresh new glow; a renewed sense of vibrancy and joy.
Going into all this, I somewhat cynically imagined two things. 1.) Very few guests would stick around after the performance, and 2.) I’d sense a mingling obligation from the musicians, and that they’d rather be packing up for home. I was entirely wrong on both counts. Nearly everyone—orchestra and guests—stayed to mingle. My friends and I ran into so many familiar faces. Those from the orchestra were beaming with excitement from their performance and this rare opportunity to interact with their (highly complimentary) audience. A piazza is, of course, a (typically European) small-town square where people gather and converse. And that’s precisely what the symphony has created here. It was a rare, pulling back of the social curtain, allowing artists and patrons to mingle—a beautiful thing and a unique experience. It was the perfect way to kick off a weekend and a new twist on how one can enjoy our celebrated Kansas City Symphony.