From: Gene McAloon 

On Sat, 5 Jun 2004 13:57:01 -0500, Bill Lucy  wrote:

>You might want to tell the Park Service that they're doing it wrong,
>then.
>
>http://www.nps.gov/hstr/
>
>Here is a reply from President Truman's secretary regarding the middle
>"name":
>
>October 13, 1972
>
>Dear Miss Courtney:
>
>In reply to your recent letter, the "S" in Mr. Truman's name stands for
>the first letter of the first name of each of his grandfathers. In order
>to be strictly impartial in naming him for one or the other, he was
>given the letter "S" as a middle name. It can be used with or without a
>period after it.
>
>Sincerely yours,
>
>Rose A. Conway
>Secretary to Mr. Truman

Obviously somebody should inform the Park Service that they got it wrong.

The secretary not only got it wrong, since Truman himself used the period,
but not using it implies that the S is itself a name and he himself says it
is not, but rather the first letters of two people.  Apparently he went to
Podunk U. if he supposes an S can stand alone in this context. But then we
are talking about a Southern practice, in case you were not aware of that
either.

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