Around the Corner: Noland House

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• This  is  the  Noland  house.    The  Nolands  were  Harry  Truman’s  aunt  and  uncle.    They  had  three  daughters,  two  of  whom,  Ethel  and  Nellie,  were  close  to  Harry’s  age,  so  these  girls  were  friends  with  Bess  as  well  when  everybody  was  young.    The  National  Park  Service  owns  the  Noland  House  now.    It’s  part  of  Harry  S  Truman  National  Historic  Site.
  
  Back  when  the  Trumans  first  came  back  from  the  White  House,  though,  his  cousins  were  still  living  here  and  they  were  in  the  best  spot  to  see  how  things  were  going  to  be  different,  because  now  the  Trumans  were  famous  and  everyone  wanted  to  see  where  the  president  lived.
  And  the  Noland  cousins  could  see  everything  going  on  across  the  street.  At  the  time,  Ethel  Noland  said,  “Of  course,  since  Mr.  Truman  came  back  from  Washington,  the  tourists  are  omnipresent.    They’re  there  when  I  first  look  out  in  the  morning.    They  walk  down  Truman  Road,  and  they  survey  the  house  from  all  sides.    And  finally,  you  find  them  standing  out  in  front.    And  one  always  goes  across  the  street  and  takes  a  picture  of  those  at  the  front  gate.    It  seems  to  me  that’s  almost  an  unwritten  law,  that  they  shall  do  this.”  
     
  One  evening  in  1955,  Harry  and  Bess  walked  over  here  to  the  Noland’s  to  visit  his  cousins.    Remember,  there  was  no  Secret  Service  protection  for  retired  presidents,  yet.  Bess  told  the  story  like  this.    She  said,  “We  had  a  funny  experience  the  other  night.    Dad  [Harry  –  she  was  talking  about  Harry  –  she  was  telling  this  story  to  Margaret]  Dad  and  I  went  over  to  see  your  cousins  across  the  street  and  there  were  so  many  [sightseers]  out  here  in  front  of  the  house  we  couldn’t  come  home.    We  had  to  spend  most  of  the  evening  on  the  front  porch  all  by  ourselves  because  our  cousins  weren’t  at  home.”
  
  That  story  shows  how  much  the  Trumans  wanted  to  be  back  in  their  familiar  old  town.    For  the  rest  of  their  lives,  they  would  have  to  deal  with  the  headaches  that  go  with  being  famous.    They  had  the  money;  they  could  have  moved  somewhere  where  they  were  more  isolated,  someplace  with  more  land,  if  they  had  wanted  to.    But  they  never  seriously  talked  of  moving.    
  In  fact,  they  had  to  buy  their  house  from  Bess’s  mother’s  estate  because  Bess’s  mother  died  without  a  will  only  a  few  weeks  before  the  Trumans  left  the  White  House  for  good.
  So  it  looks  like  this  is  where  they  wanted  to  be.
  
  However,  as  they  got  older,  their  health  did  get  to  the  point  where  they  needed  more  help.    By  the  mid-1960s,  Secret  Service  protection  was  available  for  retired  presidents,  and  by  November  1970  that  the  agents  were  back  at  the  Truman  home.      When  Truman  was  in  office,  the  Secret  Service  had  a  little  building  in  the  back  yard  they’d  used,  but  the  Trumans  had  torn  it  down  before  the  agents  returned.    So  in  1970,  the  Secret  Service  base  was  in  the  house  on  the  corner  across  Delaware  Street  from  the  Truman  home.    Walk  on  up  to  the  corner  to  Number  224.
  

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