Vintage presidential wedding

Today's vintage wedding photo is of Harry & Bess Truman - the 33rd US President and his first lady. Their courtship reads like a romance novel because young Harry fell in love with Bess when they were only children.


Looking young, adorable, and southern on their wedding day - June 28, 1919


Eight letters, revealed this week to the media for the first time ever by Truman's eldest grandson, Clifton Truman Daniel, shed insight into the intimate and close relationship shared by the Truman couple, who met at Sunday school when Harry was 6 and Bess was 5.

"He recalled in his memoirs, walking in and seeing this blue-eyed, blond-haired little girl, and he was just smitten," Daniel said. "He basically carried a torch for her from then on, all through grade school and high school.

"As far as we know, she had one or two other suitors, but he never looked at another woman from the age of 6 on."

Twenty-nine years later, while overseas after the end of World War I, Truman implored Bess to marry him. "Please get ready to march down the aisle with me just as soon as you decently can when I get back," he wrote on Feb. 18, 1919.

The whole article is a long, but interesting read. The found letters shed light on the private personalities of the President and First Lady.



The two were married until his death in 1972. They had one daughter, Margaret Truman. Bess Truman lived to be 97, making her the longest lived First Lady in US history.

-Kay