Margaret Truman Daniel, Daughter of a President, Dies at 83
Jan 29, 01:11 PM
By The Kansas City Star, Mo. Jan. 29--Margaret Truman Daniel, the only child of former President Harry S. Truman and his wife, Bess, died this morning in Chicago. She was 83. The Truman presidential library in Independence confirmed Daniel's death this morning on its Web site. The library said she had suffered a brief illness and had been living in an assisted living facility for the past several weeks and was on a respirator. A longtime resident of New York, Daniel was also the author of mystery novels, many of them set in Washington; books on the White House; and biographies, including books on her father and her mother. The library said Daniel was one of the eldest surviving children of an American president, second only to John Eisenhower, the son of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Born Mary Margaret Truman on Feb. 17, 1924, she was raised at 219 N. Delaware Ave. in Independence and, like her father, always considered the town her home. She was 21 in 1945, when her father succeeded to the presidency following Franklin D. Roosevelt's death. Although she was a president's daughter and met dignitaries from around the world, she was mindful of her humble beginnings. "How can anybody be pretentious about something that is temporary?" she said in a 1980 article in The Star. "... It never entered my mind that I or my parents were special people. We just weren't." Daniel described her family as close-knit and had fond memories of the three of them spending evenings together, each reading a good book. The Associated Press contributed to this report. For more on this story and other local news see Wednesday's edition of The Star. ----- To see more of The Kansas City Star, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.kansascity.com. Copyright (c) 2008, The Kansas City Star, Mo. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
Margaret Truman Daniel, Daughter of a President, Dies at 83
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