Harry & Bess Truman Home in Independence, MO

The Home Where the Trumans Lived

Harry & Bess: Wedding Day

While camped at Longview Farm, we drove to Independence on two separate days. Independence is a quiet, serene town that looks like a throwback to the 1950s. The charming Truman Home was our first tour. It had been built by Bess's grandfather shortly after the Civil War, and she would live there for her entire life. Harry was less well off and lived on a farm near Grandview with his family near Independence. The couple met across Delaware Street from Bess’s home at the Noland house when Harry was returning a bake dish to his cousin. Bess was at the Nolands that day, and the rest is history, although it was many years later when they married in 1919. The two of them, with their only child, Margaret, were so close that they were known as the “Three Musketeers.” The home is lovely, picturesque, and upscale. The furnishings are original as left by Bess at the time of her death in 1982 at age 97. Photography is not permitted inside, and a National Park Ranger conducts 15 minute tours of the first floor only. While living in the White House, the Trumans always enjoyed coming home to their comfortable old home in Independence where they would live for the rest of their lives.