Margaret Truman Daniel, the only child of the late President Harry S. Truman, is selling her longtime apartment on New York’s Park Avenue and moving to Chicago to live and work on the latest addition to her series of murder mysteries, her son said Monday.
Daniel has lived at her Park Avenue address since 1956, when she used the proceeds from her first book to buy the home.
Now at 83 and a widow, she needs to downsize from her enormous New York apartment, said her son, Clifton Truman Daniel, director of public relations for Truman College in Chicago.
She will likely live with him and his family on the city’s North Side, he said.
Though she hasn’t visited Chicago in years, her son said his mother has pleasant memories of the city.
More Top Picks Camping Chair
She recalls tromping up the wrong way on the old-fashioned wooden escalators at Carson Pirie Scott on State Street, he said.
She was a 20-year-old history major in 1944 when she was on hand for her father’s nomination as vice president at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. And she lunched at the Pump Room with Irv Kupcinet, when he squired her about town on her father’s directive, while she waited for a connecting flight to Los Angeles to film a TV show, her son said.
When Truman was a year into his presidency, Daniel completed her degree at George Washington University, then spent years as a concert singer and TV show guest.
When a performance by Daniel was panned by a Washington music critic in 1950, Truman famously dashed off a letter on White House stationery: “It seems to me that you are a frustrated old man who wishes he could have been successful. When you write such poppycock … it shows conclusively that you’re off the beam. … Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you’ll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below.”
———-
Personals was compiled by Kim Profant from Tribune news services and staff reports.