What These Presidents Actually Wanted To Be When They Grew Up

If Harry Truman's mother had gotten her way, her son would have been a world-renowned concert pianist rather than a wartime U.S. president. Harry himself loved the piano and considered music his biggest passion. He started daily piano lessons at the age of 10, first under his mother and then under a Kansas City teacher named Mrs. E.C. White, who had studied with European master teachers. Harry rose every morning at five to practice for two hours and continued his lessons until the age of 15. His longtime friend, Charlie Ross, recalled, "He didn't lack spunk when he braved the jeers of the boys to go regularly to his music teacher, carrying his music roll." When it came to tickling the ivories, it looks like there was no slowing Truman's roll.

The problem was that he knew he wasn't good enough to become a serious musician, so he pursued politics instead. He joked at one point, "My choice early in life was either to be a piano-player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth there's hardly any difference." Though he chose to be a politician, he still made time for his music whenever he could, including, famously, for actress Lauren Bacall (and who wouldn't make time for such a total femme fatale?). Both Bacall and then-Vice President Truman visited the National Press Club in February of 1945, which was a place for soldiers to get free hot dogs and beer on Saturday afternoons. Politicians weren't allowed to speak for more than two minutes, so Truman naturally gravitated to the piano in the ballroom. Bacall's press agent suggested she jump on top of the piano, and the pair posed for pictures while Truman played.

The incident wound up not only starting a long-time friendship between Bacall, husband Humphrey Bogart, and Truman, but also inspired the current Truman Lounge, a members-only room at the club which still features a piano. "If you look closely at it and at the picture, you'd say it's not the same piano," said Gilbert Klein, the chairman of the press club's history committee. "But I'm told that so many women got on top of that piano after that picture was taken that the cabinet collapsed." He may not have been a hit in concert halls, but it sounds like Truman sure was a hit with the ladies.

The future 31st President of the United States was orphaned by the age of nine and sent to live with an uncle in Oregon, where he struggled with school, save for mathematics. Determined to attend the newly founded Stanford University in its inaugural 1891 class, Hoover studied hard, but again failed every portion of the entrance exam except for math. He wound up being admitted on a probationary basis, and the once-shy Hoover finally found his calling: geology.

Hoover spent several summers as a student assistant working on geological survey teams in Arkansas, California, and Nevada under the tutelage of noted geologist and Stanford professor John Casper Branner, who encouraged Bert (as he was known by friends) to change his major to geology. Hoover flourished at Stanford, becoming a fine and popular student. But a love of rocks wasn't the only love Hoover found in geology class. He also met his wife, Lou Henry, who was Stanford's first female geology major. Sounds like she found a nice rock, too — one for her ring finger.

Hoover's love of rocks wound up turning him into a multimillionaire. After he graduated from Stanford in 1895, Hoover took a job with a British mining company, and by the time he turned 27, he was one of its four partners. He started his own mining consulting business in 1908, and within a few years, he was incredibly wealthy from his businesses, owning a silver mine, and writing a textbook on mining engineering. In fact, he had businesses on every continent except Antarctica. Not bad for a shy, math-averse orphan.

Though widely considered one of America's worst presidents (not to mention one of the biggest philanderers), Warren G. Harding was quite an enterprising, brilliant young man. The oldest child of a doctor and midwife, Warren had a fairly idyllic childhood, learning to read and write in a one-room schoolhouse and spending the rest of his time swimming and playing outdoors. He entered Ohio Central College at age 14 and flourished as the editor of the campus newspaper. Upon graduation in 1882, Harding didn't really know what he wanted to do with his life, so he tried his hand at teaching, law, and insurance sales before he took a job as a journalist at a local newspaper. Two years later in 1884, Harding and two friends raised $300 and bought the defunct Marion Star newspaper.

Harding and his friends revitalized the Marion Star, and within five years, it was a profitable paper once again. But it took a lot of hard work. "I always have had a lot of respect for him as an editor," admitted former Marion Star reporter Sherry Hall, "because even physically, it was tough to put out a newspaper. He used an elbow press. He was hand-cranking the press. In those early days, they're it: writing the story, setting the type, operating the machinery. If it breaks, taking a wrench out to keep themselves in business. It would have been a really tough job."

But Harding persisted, and so did his future wife, divorcee Florence DeWolf, who relentlessly pursued the young newspaper man. After they married in 1891, "Flossie," who came from a wealthy family, helped Warren with the business end of the newspaper. Within ten years, the Marion Star had become a favorite for Ohio politicians because of Harding's unbiased reporting. With Flossie's encouragement, Harding became involved in politics while still overseeing the newspaper. Hall notes, "He said once someone asked him, 'Why newspapering?' and he said, 'It combines my two passions, writing and the opportunity to affect change.'" Considering his track record, maybe he should have stuck to the press instead of the presidency.

Though Ulysses S. Grant is perhaps best known for boldly leading the Union Army in victory against the Confederacy during the Civil War, the 18th president of the United States was a shy child. His father was a tanner, skinning animals and turning them into leather goods. Ulysses often worked alongside his father, but he couldn't bear the smells of the animal carcasses boiling in chemicals all around him. Who could blame him?

Nicknamed "Useless" at school due by other children who mistook his shyness for stupidity, Ulysses proved to be anything but when it came to working with horses.Ulysses' father often asked him to care for the family horses on the farm. It was a solitary task the young boy enjoyed, preferring the company of the animals to most people. He was especially good with the wilder ones. It was a skill he carried with him into the military, where he quickly became known as one of the fastest, best riders in the entire Army. Corporal Harrison Strong remarked, "He was a great horseman and sat his horse as if he were part of the horse, all one figure. There was never a movement of any description that was not masterful and graceful. No one ever saw him disturbed in any way, that is, jolted or taken unaware on horseback, whether he was going fast or slow. He was a born horseman." Too bad he got saddled with leading the country during the Reconstruction, one of the most difficult and contentious periods in American history, which surely cut into his riding time.