Truman by David McCullough

Yesterday I finished reading Truman by David McCullough.

This is one of the best books I’ve ever read. Not only does David McCullough take the time to know his subject as thoroughly as it is possible, he writes superbly, never bogging down in the details, and brings as closely to life as a biography can the character and humanity of Harry S. Truman. This is all clearest in his final page of summation of Truman:

“Born in the Gilded age, the age of steam and gingerbread Gothic, Truman had lived to see a time of lost certainties and rocket trips to the moon. The arc of his life spanned more change in the world than in any prior period in history. A man of nineteenth-century background, he had had to face many of the most difficult decisions of the unimaginably different twentieth century. A son of rural, inland America, raised only a generation removed from the frontier and imbued with the old Jeffersonian ideal of a rural democracy, he had had to assume command of the most powerful industrial nation on earth at the very moment when that power, in combination with stunning advances in science and technology, had become an unparalleled force in the world. The responsibilities he bore were like those of no other president before him, and he more than met the test.
“Ambitious by nature, he was never torn by ambition, never tried to appear as something he was not. He stood for common sense, common decency. . . . He held to the old guidelines: work hard, do your best, speak the truth, assume no airs, trust in God, have no fear. Yet he was not and had never been a simply, ordinary man. The homely attributes, the Missouri wit, the warmth of his friendship, the genuineness of Harry Truman, however appealing, were outweighed by the larger qualities that made him a figure of world stature, both a great and good man, and a great American president.” [p 991]

McCullough does not hide Truman’s flaws either. There were clumsy mistakes, wrong-headed decisions, misplaced loyalty in his stubborn refusal to condemn old friends who were shown to be crooks. He had outbursts of temper that belied his usual kindness and made him seem a “little” man, yet he was never really small-minded. His decisions could be extremely unpopular. At times his approval rating as President was truly dismal, down as low as 26%, and then only six months later it would be nearly 70%. He was a complicated man, and one of the most interesting traits that McCullough covers very clearly is Truman’s ability to grow under pressure to meet any crisis, of which he had many to handle, especially that first year of being President.

McCullough quotes historian Eric Sevareid on the last page, who said, “I am not sure he was right about the atomic bomb, or even Korea. But remembering him reminds people what a man in that office ought to be like. It’s character, just character. He stands like a rock in memory now.” [p 992] In this book, published in 1992, setting Truman’s character against the character of later presidents was McCullough’s unspoken lesson in caution during election years, a lesson the American people seem to need even more now than ever.

Finally, I love this quote: “He was the kind of president the founding fathers had in mind for the country. He came directly from the people. He was America. In his time, in his experience, from small town to farm to World War in far-0ff France in 1918; from financial failure after the war to the world of big-city machine politics to the revolutionary years of the New Deal in Washington to the surge of American power during still another terrible World War, he had taken part in the great chronicle of American life as might have a character in a novel. There was something almost allegorical about it all: The Man of Independence and His Odyssey.” [991-992]

Truman does seem to me to be a larger-than-life character now. I have gained appreciation and admiration for him. We need these fundamentally decent characters in public life, no matter what their politics.

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A note about the negative critics: in response to the charge that McCullough too clearly liked Truman and wasn’t hard enough on him for his controversial decisions, I don’t want to read a long and detailed biography written by an author who doesn’t like his subject. As another reviewer said, McCullough’s attitude toward his subject made it more enjoyable to read. Leave it to the newspaper columnists to give us the unrelentingly negative viewpoint. McCullough does not shy away from the controversy at all. It’s there if you are reading with any attention.

Was He Murdered?!

1832 Peter Selgrad Death Record:

Transcription:

No. 12. Petrus Selgrad, 10 Januarii
Anni millesimo octingentesimo trigesimo secundus die vera octava Januarii subito extinctus est Petrus Selgrad civis et clavarius ex St. Ingbert maritus relicto Eva Bauer. Sexaginta et novum annarum aetatis. Qui die decima Januarii in caemeterio parochiali est sepultus Tla Lester J. Pfeiffer parochas in St. Ingbert.

Rough Translation:

No 12. Peter Selgrad, 10 January
In the year one thousand eight hundred thirty-second on the eighth of January Peter Selgrad suddenly was killed, a citizen and nail maker of St. Ingbert, married to the (now) widowed Eva Bauer, (he was) 69 years of age. He was buried on the tenth of January in the parish cemetery. [Signatures of clerks] in St. Ingbert.

The phrase “subito extinctus est” means suddenly or unexpectedly he was killed, slaughtered, destroyed, or extinguished. That verb choice “extinctus” has a lot of evil-sounding connotations in its possible meanings! So, was he murdered? It sounds like it was more than an accident. Also, almost all the other death records in this book use the words “obiit,” or “abiit,” which mean simply “died.” I wish there were more information on the death record. This is my direct ancestor and I really want to know!

Next I found that Peter’s wife, Anna Eva Bauer, died three days after his funeral. Her record says that she received the last rites of the Catholic Church before she died, but Peter didn’t. I’ve been watching Father Brown Mysteries on PBS and it seems that he always administers the last rites to murder victims, just in case, I suppose. Why didn’t Peter receive them? I don’t know the rules for this ritual.

It’s curious that Eva died so soon. Broken heart? Had she been sick and couldn’t recover from the blow of her husband’s death? But back to that violent scenario, I wonder, were they attacked and he died immediately while she lingered a few days more? Yikes. It’s an explanation that fits the known facts and the aura cast by that unique verb choice, but of course I don’t have all the facts.

I know I am influenced by my habit of reading murder mysteries. I read tons of them. Back to the facts and a less malevolent scenario: they could have been involved in a terrible accident that left Peter dead and Eva mortally wounded. After all, the parish clerk did not use any of the several Latin words for “murder,” and I have to suppose that his choice was deliberate and descriptive.

Hm. Could this tragedy have led to his children moving clear away to the United States within the next few years? If the nail making workshop were destroyed as a part of this tragedy (maybe there was a terrible fire), perhaps his son Jacob decided not to try to rebuild but to work for the iron works in town until he had enough money to buy passage for his entire family.

More research!

Of the Vinegar Makers

I’m wrestling with relearning Latin and learning some more French. And what are you doing to delay the onset of dementia? Ha ha.

I have been working on the Selgrad family line in southwestern Germany for several weeks nonstop. They lived in the town of Sankt Ingbert, which is close to Saarbrucken and part of Saarland. Back the days of the records I have been studying, the town had been taken over by the French under Napoleon Bonaparte.

Civil records started having to be kept in French, but I’m still decoding the Latin church record books. Happily for me, the microfilmed images are available online, but they aren’t translated nor indexed. My challenge is to find all the Selgrads (and Schmelzers, whom they married) and translate their records so I can assemble them into family groups and eventually figure out how they are interrelated.

In the year of the Lord one thousand eight hundred first on the twenty first day
of September was born and the following day was baptised, Maria Johannetha . . .

The records for the 1790s had been in Latin and started with “In the year of the Lord one thousand seven hundred ninety” - something. Then domini was dropped as the French Revolution promising Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity did not include religion. I find the omission curious, since these were still, after all, records kept by the Catholic church parish clerk. In the record below, despite his use of the new French government-mandated dating system, with the “month” Thermidor and its ten-day weeks, he still wrote down the centuries-old dating system too, “August 17” providing me with a very welcome orientation in time. I’m still amazed after all these years since I first learned it that the Revolutionaries thought they could replace something so basic and entrenched as a calendar system. It boggles the mind.

I had to take a year of Latin as part of my graduate school studies. I was very busy that year, working to support myself and pay for my schooling, as well as studying and writing like mad. I gave my Latin classes the bare minimum attention in order to pass, but I didn’t do well. So now I’m looking up word lists and using Google Translate and studying various online dictionaries and taking online classes in genealogy-specific Latin. I’m finding out that it’s hard when the clerk doesn’t spell things the way the dictionaries and Google Translate think is correct. It’s hard when the clerk doesn’t seem to use the inflected endings I expect from my studying. I am sure my studying is more than partly to blame, but I’m working harder at it now!

The occupations have caught my fancy and I am more than curious to know what these people did for a living. I am, in fact, determined to know.

agricola - that’s easy, that’s a farmer.
pistoris - that’s the baker
molinarius - the miller, and of course the baker chooses him to be godfather to his child
mercatoris - merchant, of whom there would have to be some
tutoris - that’s a tutor, but the way it’s written I wonder if it was really sutoris, a cobbler?
textoris - weaver, which is further broken down into linen or wool
sartoris - the tailor, upon whom the weaver depends for sales, obviously
calcearii - a shoemaker, maybe of a different flavor from the sutoris?
fabri - a carpenter or maybe a smith; the term can also be combined as a workman or artisan in something
fabro ferreo - this looks like iron maker, and indeed, a number of the records show men “de oficina ferrea” or workers in an iron making factory, likely using the puddling method developed in 1784 to lower the carbon content of cast iron or “pig iron” and turn it to the less-brittle wrought iron.
mercenarii - of the day laborers, of which there were quite a few
operarii - workers for hire, like the day laborers
fabri carbonum - of the charcoal makers; this region was rich in iron and coal ore
vinarii - of the vintners
clavi fabrii - of the makers of nails or spikes (but Google Translate insisted on “vinegar makers”)

In the year 1804 on the 17th of August, the 12th year of the Republic of
France on the 27th of Thermidor was baptised Johann Jacob the legitimate
son of Peter Sellgrad [occupation] and Eva Bauer his wife living in St. Ingbert.
He was born the third hour of the same morning. Godfather was Johann Jacob
Gries unmarried son of Ludwig Gries nail maker and Elisabetha Holzer his 
wife of St. Ingbert. Godmother was Maria Selgrad unmarried daughter of 
Johann Jacob Selgrad nail maker and Maria Johannetha Decarm his wife of 
St. Ingbert. Each has signed [made their mark] below.

“Petri Selgrad, clavarii” it says. Google Translate says he’s a vinegar maker. What? My Latin dictionary says clavarii has to do with money given to soldiers for shoe-nails, and clavi are nails or spikes. I think I believe the Latin dictionary over Google Translate, and the clerk had been busy reading about Roman wars before he made this entry . . .

There’s a lot of difference between someone who hammered metal into a square-and-tapered shape and someone who poured alcohol into a vat and let it sit for months to make vinegar. At least, I hope so.

Meanwhile, what have those folks programming Google Translate been drinking? Too much sour wine?