Elizabeth (Bess) Wallace Truman, White House Collection

This oil on canvas portrait of First Lady Bess Wallace Truman was painted by Martha Greta Kempton. As a child, Mrs. Truman led an active life and played a wide range of sports. She and Harry Truman met during their early childhood education, became engaged right before he left to fight in World War I, and married when he returned home. She found the lack of privacy in political life distasteful, but faithfully fulfilled the social obligations of a first lady throughout her husband's time in office, which ran from April 12, 1945 until January 20, 1953.