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Friends suspect that Bess Truman never wanted Margaret to sing in public, that it was indulgent Harry who gave his daughter encouragement. But the Trumans have always presented a solid front in public, and except for Harry's reservation that Margaret must first get her college degree, there was no open family opposition to her career. Harry himself taught her to play her first piano piece (The Little Fairy Waltz) when she was only six. At twelve, Margaret joined the choir of Independence's Trinity Church.
Harry Truman gave up his ambition to become a professional pianist because, as he explained later, half-seriously it was "sissy." But Harry's daughter, a serious-minded honor student with a strong predilection for "self-improvement," was as earnest about her music as about everything else she tackled. Moreover, she frankly admits, she was hopelessly stagestruck. In 1939, a family friend gave her burgeoning ambition a forceful boost.
The 298th Gypsy. Mrs. Thomas J. Strickler, the wife of a Missouri gas-company executive, was then a bustling woman with an interest in music and unlimited enthusiasm. She somewhat dramatically claims to have discovered the full quality of Margaret's voice during a rainy automobile ride when she and Margaret sang together to pass the time She promptly informed Bess of her discovery. "Mrs. Truman," she said later, didn't appear much impressed, but she agreed that if Margaret's voice had possibilities, she should have training." Mrs. Strickler went to work. For almost seven years, during her schooldays at Gunston Hall and George Washington University Mrs. Strickler's protégée worked in obscurity. In 1943 she made one public appearance in a Denver summer opera company during a visit to relatives out West. But that hardly counted. "They had 297 gypsies in the chorus of Countess Maritza" Margaret says, "and they needed 298. I was it."
In May 1946, a year after her father became President, Margaret graduated from George Washington with a high B average. The one condition Harry Truman had put in the way of her career was at last fulfilled. Ten months later she made her debut as a professional coloratura soprano with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. It was a bow made to the accompaniment of such curiosity as has rarely been accorded an untried concert artist. Margaret sang a brief program of such trifles as Cielito Lindo and The Last Rose of Summer. The music critics who turned out kindly reserved serious judgment on the newcomer. But the nation's newsreaders cared little about the voice. What about the girl? What was she like?