Daniel, a long-time New York resident, died in a care facility in Chicago from complications from an infection contracted recently, said library director Michael Devine.More of the Reuters obit can be found here. The Associated Press has its own take here. And The Washington Post, despite having miscounted the number of her mystery novels Truman saw published during her lifetime, has much to contribute to her story here.
After living for decades in the same New York apartment, she moved to Chicago to be closer to the eldest of her four sons, Clifton, Devine said in a telephone interview from the Independence, Missouri, library.
Margaret Truman did not let being the president’s daughter keep her from pursuing first a singing career and then one as a mystery writer that took off after her father’s death in 1972.
It was her singing and his fatherly protection that ignited President [Harry S.] Truman’s well-known temper, leading him to write one of the most famous presidential letters in history.
After Washington Post music critic Paul Hume panned one of her vocal recitals--“Miss Truman cannot sing very well”--Truman responded from the White House that the review was “poppycock” and the critic was a “frustrated old man” who was “off the beam.”
“Some day I hope to meet you,” the president wrote Hume, ignoring the fact the critic had called his daughter “extremely attractive.” “When that happens you’ll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below!”
POSTSCRIPT: Coincidentally, today also brings notice of the death of another presidential offspring, Theodora Keogh. The granddaughter of President Theodore Roosevelt (her father was TR’s son Archibald), she gained renown as the author of nine pulpish novels, one of which was The Other Girl (1962), which fictionalized the bizarre 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short, aka the “Black Dahlia.” January Magazine has more on her story here.
3 comments:
Margaret Truman was a fine lady, and I hope it doesn't detract from her memory to point out that her mysteries are generally accepted to have been ghost-written by Donald Bain, who also does the Jessica Fletcher books. See for example, Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.
Even if she didn't write the novels, one can easily imagine she had considerable input. The background of the books was almost always Washington DC, and the one or two that I've read certainly felt authentic to me.
---Steve
I don't think it was any secret that she didn't write them. That's generally the case with "celebrity" novelists.
In Miss Truman's case, Donald Bain has always denied writing her books, but now I see that some of her online obituaries are starting to mention his name.
I'm sure it was Jon Breen who wrote an article about 5 or 6 years ago that pointed to Bain as the probable author of the Truman books. Whether he was the first to make the connection, I'm not so sure.
In any case, David's right, it's not been a well-kept secret. But the first obituaries I saw seemed to suggest she wrote them all.
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