I remember this, too. It was about 1896, and Lincoln’s face was intact, except that the eyebows are partly missing. No wonder since they must have pumped his body with embalming fluids. It was seen by many thousands in an open casket in Philadelphia and New York, and took more than a week to get home. The article had a line that haunts me: something like the last man still alive who had seen the face of Abraham Lincoln. That meant something special to me. My great-grandmother was a child during the civil war and had spent time in a cave inside of a besieged Vicksburg. Her uncle, a Choctow indian, was kiled during the battle. So as late as WWII, the Civil War was a living memory, and when my great-aunts spoke of “the War,” they weren’t talking about World War II. I guess the South is the last part of the country to have a sense of history, despite the efforts of the New Age to reduce reality to myth. Anyway, in 1940 Abraham Lincoln stood as close to me in time as Franklin Roosevelt does today.
“All 23 of the people who viewed the remains of Mr. Lincoln have long since passed away. The last one was Fleetwood Lindley who died on February 1, 1963. Three days before he died, Mr. Lindley was interviewed. He said, ‘Yes, his face was chalky white. His clothes were mildewed. And I was allowed to hold one of the leather straps as we lowered the casket for the concrete to be poured. I was not scared at the time but I slept with Lincoln for the next six months.’ Mr. Lindley was 75 when he died and 13 when he had viewed the body. He had been the only child to do so.”
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