What strikes you first about the home of the 33rd President of the United States is how modest it is. Harry Truman lived in this Victorian house at 219 Delaware Street for most of his adult life — his mother-in-law's home that he and Bess moved into after their marriage in 1919, and to which he returned after leaving the White House in 1953. Truman's rise from Independence farmer to US Senator to Vice President to President is one of the most improbable in American political history.
Tom Pendergast, the Kansas City machine boss, gave Truman his first political opportunity — a fact Truman never denied, even after Pendergast went to prison. When Truman succeeded Franklin Roosevelt in April 1945, he faced decisions of almost incomprehensible weight: the final months of World War Two, the atomic bomb, the founding of the United Nations, the onset of the Cold War. He made those decisions and then came home to Independence and walked to the drugstore for a haircut.
The house is administered by the National Park Service and open for tours.