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The funeral event is sponsored by Fricke-Calvert-Schrader
Funeral Home and hosted by Chuck and Penny Fricke and Dennis and
Marcia Schrader in association with the Abraham Lincoln Tourism
Bureau of Logan County, the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission
of Lincoln and the Logan Railsplitting Association, which sponsors the Abraham
Lincoln National Railsplitting Festival.
"Now He Belongs to the Ages: A Presentation of Abraham Lincoln's
Life, Death, and Funeral" will be a special bicentennial kickoff to
the Railsplitting Festival.
The event will start on Sept. 12.
Featured on that Friday will be a presentation on "Death, Dying
and the Funeral Process" by Virgil Davis, founder of the Museum of
Funeral Customs in Springfield.
Also on Friday, the "Life and Death of Abraham Lincoln" will be
presented by historians Paul Beaver and Ron Keller.
Davis, retired owner of Ellinger, Kunz and Davis Funeral Home in
Springfield, has been a lifelong collector of Lincoln artifacts and
other funeral memorabilia from that era. On Sept. 12 and 13 there
will be many special exhibits. Davis will display his collection
along with collections from James and Betty Hickey, of Elkhart, and
the Lincoln College Museum. Most of these artifacts will be in an
annex room of the funeral home, with some being displayed in the
main area.
Included in the artifacts will be samples of mourning jewelry,
which was made from the hair of a deceased family member, and many
archival pictures of that era, including a rare photo of the 17th
and final interment of the president in his tomb. These and other
artifacts will allow visitors to gain a better perspective on the
times in which our 16th president lived and died.
A very special inclusion of Mary Todd Lincoln's china that was in
the White House during their stay has generously been allowed to be
exhibited by the Hickey family.
There will also be photographs of the Lincoln wake, found in 1954
in the Lincoln Library. The photographs are rare, as then-Secretary
of War Edwin Stanton declared that all photographs of the funeral
should be destroyed. It was Stanton who is credited with the
statement, "Now he belongs to the ages."
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The funeral home intends to change the look of the main room to
replicate what it would have been like to have actually attended the
president's funeral. In that room, one of only three commissioned
replicas of Lincoln's casket will be put on display. The casket will
be on loan from the Museum of Funeral Customs in Springfield just
for this two-day event.
To add further to the return to a day long past, an authentic
1860s-era funeral carriage on loan from the Mott Henning Funeral
Home will be on hand to enhance the sense of what it would have been
like in 1865 as a nation mourned.
Hal Smith, director for the Looking for Lincoln Heritage
Coalition, was present at Wednesday's gathering. He wanted to show
support for the rare and special exhibition that will be in our
community this coming September.
The linkage between our city and Lincoln are not lost on Smith.
When it was mentioned that Lincoln's bicentennial will draw interest
from Americans across the country, Smith expanded that comment. "I
have been on all the continents," he said, "and wherever I have
gone, people know who Abraham Lincoln was."
Smith believes, like most Lincolnites involved in the
encompassing preparation of this local event, that this is a
once-in-a-lifetime glimpse of what it was like at the great
president's funeral.
Smith also believes that as the bicentennial approaches, greater
and greater interest will be shown toward Abraham Lincoln and the
communities where he lived and worked.
The use of the Fricke-Calvert-Schrader Funeral Home for this
re-creation is fitting. Being built in 1880, it would have been
around the time of Mary Todd Lincoln's death. The funeral home has
been recognized by the state of Illinois as being one of only three
remaining in business at the same location for over 100 years.
The funeral event is a kickoff for the re-enactment of Lincoln's
funeral train procession in 2009.
"Now He Belongs to the Ages: A Presentation of Abraham Lincoln's
Life, Death, and Funeral" is an event sanctioned by both the local
and state bicentennial commissions.
For more details on this and other Railsplitting Festival events,
please call 217-732-8687 or visit
www.railsplitting.com.
[Abraham Lincoln Tourism Bureau of
Logan County and LDN] |
