tired
His wife Bess outlived him by nearly ten years, passing away on October 18, 1982. The Trumans are buried in the middle of the courtyard at the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri.
Truman was not very popular when he left office on January 20, 1953, having the lowest approval rating of any president during the time that such things were recorded. In time his reputation came to be rehabilitated and he was viewed as an elder statesman. In 1956, he traveled to Europe with his wife, receiving an honorary degree in Civic Law from Oxford University and meeting with Winston Churchill.
When he turned 80, Truman was honoured in Washington and addressed the United States Senate, as part of a new rule that allowed former presidents to be granted privilege of the floor of the Senate. He also campaigned for senatorial candidates. But he suffered a bad fall in his home in late 1964 and his physical condition declined. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Medicare bill at the Truman Library and gave the first two Medicare cards to Truman and his wife Bess to honor his fight for government health care as president.
A little known fact about Truman: he did not have a middle name. He simply had a middle initial, the letter "S". His parents chose the name Harry after his mother's brother, Harrison Young. His parents chose "S" as his "middle name" in an attempt to please both of Harry's grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young. The initial did not actually stand for anything, a common practice among the Scots-Irish.
