The plane facts

I was recently getting off a plane in Louisville, Kentucky, when I heard people talking in the aisle behind me.

Someone asked a couple if they were from Louisville and the couple responded that they were from Larue County – only five miles from where Abraham Lincoln was born.

Another person said that he thought Lincoln was from Illinois.

Then I heard someone say that Lincoln was born in Kentucky but raised in Illinois.

It was then that I turned and politely but emphatically informed them that I lived in Spencer County, Indiana, and that Abe lived ten miles from where I live from the time he was seven years old till he was twenty-one.

Not many people are aware of this fact and it is our passion to let the world know what influence our State had in forging the character of one of the best presidents this nation has ever had.

--Fr. Jeremy King, LBDA vice-president

My Journey to Abraham

As President of the new Lincoln Boyhood Drama Association (let’s call it LBDA), I am working with a wonderful Board of Directors to create a new production about the life of the 16th and greatest president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, who just happened to live here in Indiana for 14 years.

My trip to Lincoln City, Indiana, the Lincoln home place in Spencer County, takes only five minutes from my office.

The journey to come face to face with Indiana’s most remarkable citizen would, I know, be longer and more complicated.

As a part of our organization’s mission, "To produce an inspiring, patriotic dramatization of historical events from the life of Abraham Lincoln which portray his character forged here on the Indiana frontier," I’ve established a personal mission: to get as close to the real character of Abraham Lincoln as I can, 142 years after his death.

I am not in search of dates or places, not looking for contacts, and political maneuvers. I want to understand what made this man tick, how he rose from obscurity to become our 16th president, how a virtually uneducated pioneer raised on the Indiana frontier came to be perhaps our most "literary" president. How a man of such humble origins and expressed personal humility rose to such greatness, and through the most trying and demanding of circumstances, guided his life by an extraordinarily true "moral compass."

In other words, I am a man in search of the character of Abraham Lincoln.

I do not claim to be an expert on Abraham Lincoln. In fact, when I started this process, my understanding of Lincoln was the stereotype that I think many of us have in mind when we think of this American icon. Honest Abe, the Rail Splitter, the boy who read every book he could find, the man of the people elevated to our nation’s highest office in its time of greatest trial, the sainted President who "gave the last full measure of devotion" to his beloved country, just as the Union had achieved victory in the bloody Civil War.

However, I would like to share my personal learning experience, and the conclusions that I’ve formed in the process.

My journey begins and continues with books. Somehow, this seems appropriate, given the nature of my quest. As Lincoln "made himself" through reading, so I set out to educate myself through books. More books have been written about Abraham Lincoln than any other American. So, my quest had to be targeted from the beginning.

My first step on the journey was A Team of Rivals, by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

This book was recommended to me by Father Jeremy King, a member of our Board, a monk and Choirmaster at the Saint Meinrad Archabbey, just a few miles to the northeast of my office.

During early meetings as we planned to develop a new Lincoln drama, Father Jeremy indicated that the monks had a regular practice of having someone read books aloud at meal times. One of the books that they’d recently shared was Goodwin’s. I soon had purchased a copy.

Goodwin’s book brings the Lincoln Presidency to life in ways that I hadn’t before experienced. In particular, through the detailed drama of the interactions of his cabinet, the "team of rivals" to which the title refers, I began to get a glimpse of Lincoln, the man. In addition, I was fascinated by some of the details of how the machinery of government operated in the 1860s in the United States of America.

There was a great deal of information that fit what I will call the "Lincoln Stereotype," but many others that began, for me, to paint a far richer picture of the man, and the world in which he lived.

In my next entry, I’ll begin to talk about how the Lincoln in A Team of Rivals differed from the "Lincoln Stereotype" that was my understanding of Lincoln when I began this journey.

--Will Koch, LBDA president

Lincolnphiles and Lincoln Files

One hundred ninety-nine years ago today, Nancy Hanks Lincoln was great with child.

This was not to be her first offspring; Nancy already had toddler Sarah to care for, along with her husband, Thomas.

There was so much to do in preparation, and so little time.

There's a bit of a hustle and bustle going on here in Lincoln City, Indiana, in the present day. The "birth" we're planning for June of 2009 is a new play for the Lincoln Amphitheatre. The "parents" are a group of Lincolnphiles who also have a passion for theatre.

In the coming months, we'll use this blog to introduce members of the board of the Lincoln Boyhood Drama Association and, as they're selected, our playwright, general manager, artistic director, and other staff members.

Meanwhile, we'd like to pull aside the curtain to reveal little-known information about Abraham Lincoln's boyhood here in southern Indiana.

Let's start with this wonderful article that ran recently in the Evansville Courier & Press. It's the story of an Evansville woman whose grandfather spent the day with Abraham Lincoln back in 1840.

Since articles such as this tend to lead to interesting discussion, I emailed a copy of the article to our board members.

One of our members, Richard Mourdock (yes, the fellow who is Indiana's State Treasurer), replied with his own interesting tale:

This "report" is not a first-hand "Lincoln sighting," but something I find fascinating.

Last spring I was attending the Howard County Republican Dinner in Kokomo. The county chairman is named Craig Dunn and Craig has written several excellent texts on the 19th and 20th regiments from Indiana that served during the Civil War. Everyone in the audience knew that Craig has this historical interest and is always the case, the Republican party's local event is known as a Lincoln Day Dinner.

Craig began his remarks from the podium with, "Well ... I see a lot of gray hair in the room tonight and since this is a Lincoln Day dinner I have to ask ... do any of you remember Abraham Lincoln?"

Of course, everyone in the room chuckled a bit.

"Well ... would any of your parents remember Mr. Lincoln?"

Again the room filled with laughter ... and then a short, very white-haired lady raised her hand in the front row.

Marvela Butcher was introduced and she is 70 years old. Her father was born ... are you ready? ... when James Buchanan was president of the United States!

When Marvela was born, her father was seventy-seven years old and the speculation is that she may be the last direct descendant from a pre-Civil War American!

After the event I spoke with her for a few moments and summed it up with, "Mrs. Butcher, yours is an amazing story. Why, between you and your father you've covered 147 years of American history!"

She tapped me on the forearm and said with absolute energy and confidence, "Thus far, sonny! Thus far!"

Please join with us as we prepare for the reopening of the magnificent Lincoln Amphitheatre. We're just days away from the deadline of our playwright search and interviews for the amphitheatre's new general manager will take place soon.

So much preparation in so little time. So many wonderful stories to tell.

Thankfully, Mr. Lincoln himself adds a calming thought: The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.

--Paula Werne, LBDA Playwright Committee co-chair