Truman's cook served many roles over 36 years

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. -- At the Independence home of Harry and Bess Truman, Vietta Garr prepared dinner and served it.

Over decades of such service at the Truman home and the White House, however, she would do much more.

She would help raise Margaret, the Trumans' daughter. She also would be a companion to Madge Gates Wallace, the president's mother-in-law. That was important because Wallace in the 1940s agreed to move to the White House if Garr went, too.

That meant Bess Truman, instead of having to remain in Independence and tend to her mother, also could stay in the White House.

No longer distracted by domestic matters, Harry Truman could run the country.

"Vietta had a way with Mother Wallace that nobody else had," said Bill Curtis, a historian of the Independence African-American community.

A new exhibit at the Harry S. Truman National Historic Site in Independence observes Black History Month with a display devoted to Garr.

A flour sifter and a potato masher, borrowed from the Truman home's kitchen, invoke her official role as cook.

Part of the family

But other artifacts, such as a photograph of Garr attending Margaret Truman's 1956 wedding, indicate how much she became part of the Truman family. The exhibit also documents Garr's prominent standing in the Independence African-American community.

"For most people, her prominence is because of relation to the Truman family as their cook," said Kristen Stalling, the site's museum technician, who assembled the exhibit.

"But she was well-liked and respected in the Independence black community, and I wanted to show her importance there."

For example, Garr was affiliated with the Knights and Daughters of Tabor (International Order of Twelve), a now-defunct fraternal organization. The group offered its members not only a social community but also medical and burial insurance unavailable through white-owned companies.

Garr also was active in the Second Baptist Church of Independence.

"She was a very kind lady, and when I say lady, she was a 'lady'," said Ann Taylor, a longtime member of Second Baptist.

She began working for the Truman-Wallace family in 1928. In 1945, when Franklin Roosevelt's death made Harry Truman president, the Trumans sent for Garr, who instructed White House cooks in what the Trumans enjoyed. Later, when Margaret Truman toured the country in pursuit of a singing career, Garr accompanied her.

"The Trumans were very worried about this young lady going out into the world, so they sent Vietta along," Curtis said. "They trusted Vietta implicitly."

On television

Garr ultimately worked 36 years for the Truman-Wallace family. When Margaret Truman was the host of a segment of Edward R. Murrow's 1950s "Person to Person" television show from the Truman home in Independence, Garr was included, along with Margaret's parents.

"She was treated kind of like family," said Sue Gentry, longtime Independence Examiner reporter and Truman family confidant. "She just did everything with them."

Garr died in 1973.

It's unclear how much, if at all, Garr's constant presence may have influenced Harry Truman's attitudes on racial relations. Although his courtship letters to Bess contain the occasional racial slur, Truman still was the first president, in 1947, to address the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In 1948 he initiated the integration of the U.S. armed forces.