List of Ford's Theatre Attendees

[jbarry]

(05-02-2026 05:57 PM)Linda Anderson Wrote:  Hi Joe, You gave an intriguing presentation today at the Surratt Society meeting. It's fascinating to learn that we forget 50 - 80% of info within a couple of days of receiving it.

My mother, who lived until her 80s, gradually forgot who we were as she lay dying (she still felt our love for her though) but she did remember her youth.

It's hard to know if what she was remembering was correct but she said was happy then and I believe that. So maybe people remembering the assassination many years later, especially the kids who were present, are remembering it the way they experienced it then, which, of course, may have been different from the way others experienced it.

I was also amazed to learn how quickly Booth ran across the stage. You said if someone in the theatre looked at the person sitting next to them to see if they knew what was happening, they would have missed Booth. That reminds me that it took only a couple of minutes for Powell to attack Seward in Seward's bedroom. Bell ran to the corner to Gen Auger's headquarters and ran back in time to see Powell run out the door of Seward's house.

Thanks Linda! Having been with a loved one with Alzheimer's, I've noticed there are core memories that stay with people even when they lose so much else. I've also read one newspaper account of a woman, 86, who mentioned seeing Booth jumping onstage and running, and 3 months later she doesn't remember seeing Booth even though she admitted she knows it happened. Definitely a challenge to navigate through the vagaries of human memory over time.