[The White House] July 26, 1947
Dear Bess:
This is turnip day and Nellie Noland's birthday. I sent her a telegram--did not refer to turnip day. My old baldheaded uncle, Harrison Young, told me that July 26 was the day to sow turnips--sow them "wet or dry, twenty-sixth of July." In 1901 he went to the seed and hardware store in Belton and stated to the proprietor, Old Man Mosely, a North Carolinian, that he wanted six bushels of turnip seed--enough to sow the whole county to turnips. Mr. Mosely asked him what he expected to do with so much seed. My old uncle told him that it was his understanding that turnips are 90 percent water. Nineteen hundred one was the terribly dry year. Therefore if the whole farm were planted to turnips maybe the drought would be broken.
You and I graduated that year from high school and I spent quite some time on the farm, then Tasker Taylor was drowned in the Mo. River, just above the Independence pumping station, and I became a timekeeper for L.J. Smith's railroad construction outfit. That experience was very useful to me when those R.R. hearings were going on.
You see age is creeping up on me. Mamma is ninety-four and a half because she never lived in the past. I'll never be ninety-four and a half but I'm not going to live in yesterday either.
Dr. Graham went out today and is to call me tonight. So, I may run in on you Sunday. But I should clean up these bills before I leave. Hope all the family are in good health. Give my "baby" a kiss.
Lots and lots of love, Harry