Cindy Lange-Kubick: Truman letter inspires seller's remorse
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In the big scheme of things, the letter is not a big deal, so let’s just start with that:
It’s just a letter.
And Pamela Thompson, currently of Kansas City, formerly of Lincoln, did sell it intentionally. Did part with it for a pittance — $3, maybe $4 — at her moving sale in August.
She put the letter President Harry Truman sent her dad in 1945, thanking him for his service in World War II, out on the driveway, along with the gold-beveled mirror and antique dishes and bedding and bric-a-brac from her curio cabinet.
She even sold the curio cabinet. She was simplifying her life, paring down, packing up.
Then, earlier this month, she put an ad in the newspaper.
ATTENTION: A framed letter from Harry S. Truman was accidentally sold at a sale at 4815 Calvert, on August 25, 2007. Seller would like to purchase letter back.
The words “accidentally sold” may have been a bit misleading, Thompson admitted, when I called the number at the bottom of the ad.
“At the time, moving was such a big deal,” she said, a bit distracted on her cell phone as she navigated her new city.
“I thought, ‘It’s not a big deal, let’s just get rid of it.’”
Her dad, Carl Lee Thompson, was a radio operator on the front lines. He received the Bronze Star — and this letter from the president thanking him for his service.
He came back after the war and raised his kids in Illinois, before the family moved to Nebraska in 1973.
“He only talked about being in the service a couple of times, it was so painful,” says the 52-year-old who tells people she’s 35 because that’s how old she feels.
Her dad had saved some of his old war rations and Thompson took them to school for show and tell. He told his daughters stories about the dog that warned them when the Germans were coming.
He said he saw a lot of his buddies die. But mostly the war was a memory.
One of her sisters and her husband eventually had the memorabilia framed. Thompson ended up with the pictures and letters and medals after her mom died a few years ago. (Her father passed away in 1995.)
She put some of those old framed mementos out on garage sale day. She remembers grabbing back the Bronze Star, but not the letter.
“It was just such an emotional day for me. I was getting rid of everything I really didn’t need.”
She remembers “a gentleman” buying the letter, picked up from a table near her Santa Claus collection and old books.
That was a Saturday. By Wednesday she’d packed up and left town.
Thompson felt led to move to K.C., where the headquarters for the International House of Prayer — IHOP, like the pancake place — are located, she said.
She’d had an internship there, where they offer a 24/7 prayer service, the year before, and loved it.
“I thought the Lord was instructing me to be a part of it. I thought I was supposed to be on staff, but that was a no, so I’m just seeking what I’m supposed to do next.”
While she was seeking, she started thinking.
One day, out driving, she realized, Oh my gosh, this is where Harry S. Truman is from.
“I think it really hit me that I was in Harry S. Truman’s backyard, 200 yards from Truman’s old farm.”
And later she found out Truman’s family had donated land to IHOP.
And then she thought about that letter from Harry S. Truman.
And then she had seller’s remorse — which is something lots of people can relate to.
Who hasn’t tossed out Grandma’s chipped dishes? Or parted with some Beatle’s 45s? Or sold the stuffed lamb they slept with when they were 5 for 50 cents at a garage sale, only to realize days, weeks, months, years later they really really would like to have Lambie back?
No one answered her ad.
“I’ve really become fine that I don’t get it back. It’s a thing.”
She could probably get a copy of the letter somehow, if she really wanted to, Thompson said.
She was however, a little worried about a column appearing in the paper, telling the story.
Her sister, she said, didn’t know she’d sold it.
Reach Cindy Lange-Kubick at 473-7218 or clangekubick@journalstar.com.
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