Passed Vice Presidents - # 33 – Henry Wallace

  

Grave of Henry Wallace (21 July 2025)

Served under Franklin D. Roosevelt

20 January 1941 – 20 January 1945

Preceded by # 32 – John Nance Garner

Succeeded by # 34 – Harry S. Truman

Born – 7 October 1888

Died – 18 November 1965 (age 77)

Buried – Glendale Cemetery, Des Moines, Iowa

Date Visited – 21 July 2025

This past summer, we drove to Wisconsin for another Ripley family wingding. When it was time to return, Beck reminded me that the ‘Field of Dreams’ movie site in Iowa has long been a bucket list item for her. What the heck. It’s just four or five hours further from home. Once there, I decided we’re too close not to go a few more hours further west to pay my respects to one of our vice presidents.

Central Iowa – 2025 (20 July 2025)

Tall corn and wind turbines as far as the eye can see.

Late afternoon western light makes everything stand out.

Henry Wallace was quintessential Iowa. He entered this world in 1888 in the rural town of Orient (1880 population - 31). He graduated from an ‘Ag’ college and wrote his family’s farm journal. He founded a successful hybrid corn company and like his father before him, served as the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. That post was during FDR’s first two terms (1933-40). Wallace was a Republican for decades up to that time, but he became such a strong New Deal proponent and loyal FDR guy that the president insisted he be his running mate for that unprecedented third term. The decision not to continue with the incumbent VP, John Nance Garner, was made easier given ‘Cactus Jack’ had opposed a number of Roosevelt’s positions and challenged him for the presidential nomination. Although they did not carry Iowa, the ticket defeated Wendell Wilkie in a landslide.

Vice President Henry Wallace

Official Portrait – 1940

(from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_A._Wallace

Come the 1944 election, conservative Democrats (you don’t hear those two words together anymore) wanted a change and replaced Wallace with Harry Truman. We must remember that the old South was represented by segregationist Democrats and they were not happy with Wallace’s liberal views on race relations. Appreciating Wallace’s loyalty, FDR offered him any cabinet position he wanted except Secretary of State. He chose Commerce, figuring it would play a significant role in post-war activity. It took only a year until he gave a speech that ticked off all sides on the issue of dealing with Soviet Russia. President Truman asked for and received Wallace’s resignation in 1946.

Footstone of Henry Wallace Grave,

Glendale Cemetery, Des Moines, IA (21 July 2025)

We had to clear the turf around this marker.

‘Perpetual care’ can do only so much.

The next presidential election was the famous one where Republican Thomas Dewey was widely expected to defeat Truman but didn’t. Complicating the 1948 choices were other parties on the ballot. The racist Dixiecrats bolted to protest Truman’s racial accommodations. Strom Thurmond carried four states that still believed White supremacy was the most important governing principle. Taking votes from the other end was Henry Wallace heading the Progressive Party that opposed the administration’s Cold War policies.

By 1950, he left the Progressive Party and eventually returned to the Democrat fold but no longer served in governmental positions. He died of ALS in 1965 and is buried in Glendale Cemetery in Des Moines.

Wildflower Scattering Garden

Glendale Cemetery, Des Moines, IA (21 July 2025)

Glendale Cemetery is as diverse a burial ground as one can find. It has Catholic, Masonic, Jewish, and Islam sections as well as areas for Tai Dam (Vietnamese) and infants. The section pictured above is a wildflower garden where ashes can be scattered. The people who have done this are recorded on these abstract obelisks.