Carl Sandburg and Lincoln

[Rob Wick]

Bill,

He built a house in Harbert in 1927 with the proceeds from The Prairie Years and lived there until 1945 when he moved to Connemara. The house in Michigan, however, is in private hands so I doubt that tourists are very welcome. I'm not sure what Harbert has in terms of Sandburgiana.

An interesting story about the move from Harbert. Sandburg's wife, Lillian (also known as Paula) packed all of Sandburg's belongings from his garret in two boxcars for the move to North Carolina. To keep the disruption for his writing to a minimum, she immediately set everything up in Connemara exactly as it was in Harbert down to the location of his desk and all his books.

Almost forgot another one. Sandburg used to take long walks on the beach in order to give his eyes a rest. He often walked with his head down, deep in thought. Two neighbor boys supposedly paid a tall man to dress like Lincoln down to the hat and walk past Sandburg. The faux-Lincoln supposedly said "Good Morning Mr. Sandburg" to which Sandburg was said to have looked up and replied "Good Morning, Mr. Lincoln" and continued on his walk. Not sure if it really happened, but a good story none-the-less.

Best
Rob