Margaret Truman
Margaret Truman | |
|---|---|
| Margaret Truman on cover of February 26 1951, issue of TIME magazine. | |
| Born | February 17, 1924  Independence, Missouri, USA |
| Occupation | Writer Historian |
| Genre | Mystery fiction Biography Autobiography |
| Spouse | Clifton Daniel |
| Children | Clifton, William, Harrison, Thomas |
| Website | |
| Official Website | |
Mary Margaret Truman Daniel (born February 17, 1924 in Independence, Missouri died January 29, 2008, Chicago) is an American writer and the author of biographies, books on the White House and several best-selling mystery novels.
Singer and First Daughter
Margaret is the daughter of 33rd president Harry S. Truman and his wife, Bess Truman. She was christened Mary Margaret Truman - Mary for her aunt, Mary Jane Truman, and Margaret for her maternal grandmother, Margaret Gates Wallace. From childhood, she was called Margaret.
In the 1940s, she aspired to be a singer. After graduating from George Washington University and undergoing some classical vocal training, she debuted in a vocal recital on the radio in March 1947. After a performance in December 1950, Washington Post music critic Paul Hume gave her an unfavorable review, resulting in an incident in which President Truman threatened to beat the reviewer, calling Hume an "eight ulcer man on four ulcer pay." Many fathers wrote in support of her father's outburst. Despite the bad press, she performed on the stage, radio and television well into the 1950s.
In 1944, she christened the battleship USS Missouri (BB-63), named for her home state. When the ship was recommissioned in 1991, she was a featured speaker at the ceremony.
Writing career and marriage
Truman married New York Times reporter, and later editor, Clifton Daniel (1912 - 2000) on April 21, 1956, at Trinity Episcopal Church in Independence, Missouri, her mother's birthplace. Their sons are: Clifton Truman Daniel (born 1957), William Wallace Daniel (1959 - 2000), who was killed in a taxi cab collision in New York City, Harrison Gates Daniel (born 1963), and Thomas Washington Daniel (born 1966). Clifton has written and spoken publicly about his grandfather and his experience as the grandchild of a president.
Shortly before her father's death in 1972, Daniel, under her maiden name, published Harry S Truman, a critically acclaimed full length biography of her father. The book extensively used sources from Presidential papers in the Truman Library. Daniel followed this book in 1986 with a volume of her mother's life, Bess W. Truman, which covered her mother's, as well as her father's life from an insider, micro perspective as opposed to a macro perspective taken in Harry S Truman.
Daniel also wrote books on White House first ladies and pets, the history of the White House and its inhabitants, as well as a critically acclaimed series of fictional murder mysteries set in various well-known locations in and around Washington, D.C. An article in The Weekly Standard makes a strong though circumstantial case that the murder mysteries are the work of a ghost writer, Donald Bain. Now in her 80s, she continues to write and publish regularly.
Current life
At the age of 83, Mrs Daniel is a surviving child of the earliest American President and the second eldest surviving child of any American president, only younger than John Eisenhower, and continues to reside in her Park Avenue home in Manhattan. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Harry S Truman Presidential Library and Museum. Mrs. Daniel is also on the Board of Governors for the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute.
Bibliography
Fiction
| Book | Year | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Murder in the White House | 1980 | ISBN 0-87795-245-0 |
| Murder on Capitol Hill | 1981 | ISBN 0-87795-312-0 |
| Murder in the Supreme Court | 1982 | ISBN 0-87795-384-8 |
| Murder in the Smithsonian | 1983 | ISBN 0-87795-475-5 |
| Murder on Embassy Row | 1984 | ISBN 0-87795-594-8 |
| Murder at the FBI | 1985 | ISBN 0-87795-680-4 |
| Murder in Georgetown | 1986 | ISBN 0-87795-797-5 |
| Murder in the CIA | 1987 | ISBN 0-394-55795-6 |
| Murder at the Kennedy Center | 1989 | ISBN 0-394-57602-0 |
| Murder at the National Cathedral | 1990 | ISBN 0-394-57603-9 |
| Murder at the Pentagon | 1992 | ISBN 0-394-57604-7 |
| Murder on the Potomac | 1994 | ISBN 0-679-43309-0 |
| Murder at the National Gallery | 1996 | ISBN 0-679-43530-1 |
| Murder in the House | 1997 | ISBN 0-679-43528-X |
| Murder at the Watergate | 1998 | ISBN 0-679-43535-2 |
| Murder in the Library of Congress | 1999 | ISBN 0-375-50068-5 |
| Murder in Foggy Bottom | 2000 | ISBN 0-375-50069-3 |
| Murder in Havana | 2001 | ISBN 0-375-50070-7 |
| Murder at Ford's Theater | 2002 | ISBN 0-345-44489-2 |
| Murder at Union Station | 2004 | ISBN 0-345-44490-6 |
| Murder at the Washington Tribune | 2005 | ISBN 0-345-47819-3 |
| Murder at the Opera | 2006 | ISBN 0-345-47821-5 |
| Murder on K Street | 2007 | ISBN 0-345-49886-0 |
Non–Fiction
| Book | Year | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Souvenir, Margaret Truman's Own Story | 1956 | OCLC 629282 |
| White House Pets | 1969 | OCLC 70279 |
| Harry S. Truman | 1973 | ISBN 0-688-00005-3 |
| Woman of Courage | 1976 | ISBN 0-688-03038-6 |
| Letters From Father: The Truman Family's Personal Correspondence | 1981 | ISBN 0-87795-313-9 |
| Bess W. Truman | 1986 | ISBN 0-02-529470-9 |
| Where The Buck Stops: The Personal and Private Writings of Harry S. Truman | 1989 | ISBN 0-446-51494-2 |
| First Ladies | 1995 | ISBN 0-679-43439-9 |
| The President's House: 1800 to the Present | 2004 | ISBN 0-345-47248-9 |