Born on May 8, 1884, in Lamar, Missouri, Harry Truman moved to Independence at age six and regarded that city as his hometown. There he met five-year-old Bess Wallace, his lifelong love, who became his wife twenty-nine years later. The newlyweds lived with Bess's parents in the elegant house her grandfather had bought in 1867, and their daughter, Mary Margaret, was born there in an upstairs bedroom. On the eve of his election in 1948, Harry addressed the nation by radio from his living room, and there he received news of the invasion of North Korea in 1950. After serving as the thirty-third President and as a Democrat, he and Bess returned to 219 North Delaware Street, where he lived until his death in 1972. Ten years later, Bess Truman died and bequeathed the house to the nation her husband so proudly served. A twenty-four-foot-tall Siberian elm stood in the southwest quadrant of the yard surrounding the Independence, Missouri, home.