We All Need Friends Like This

[L Verge]

I hope I don't embarrass him, but I want to say a widespread thank-you to forum member Dr. Blaine Houmes. Through the years, he has been very generous is sharing things with the Surratt Society and Surratt House Museum and allowing us to use them at our discretion. In the past few weeks, however, he has outdone himself.

Our first surprise were three original documents related to the history of Mary Jenkins Surratt -- an 1835 receipt from the Sisters of Charity for three months of her education through them at their school in Alexandria, Virginia ($25); an 1817 county receipt to her father for payment of county taxes in 1814 & 1815 (what about 1816?); and a state order signed by a justice of the peace and dated 1816 forcing her father and uncle to pay a debt of $4. The last two items would seem to indicate that Mary's father had just as hard a time paying debts as her husband would later have!

Today's mail brought more goodies as Blaine has begun to send us photographic copies from his extensive collection of CDVs, Cabinet Cards, etc. related to the Booths, actor friends, and the Lincoln assassination.

All will be placed in our photographic archives and also scanned into our photographic database for further use at the museum and with researchers, authors, and media.

[RJNorton]

Laurie, you are spot on. Blaine is also an excellent author. Just a few of his published articles include "John Wilkes Booth and the Enid Mummy" in the Lincoln Herald, Vol. 106, No. 1, Spring 2004, pp. 23-31, and "The Last Words of John Wilkes Booth...Or Were They?" in the June 2007 edition of the Surratt Courier. He also has written about several other topics including the relationship between Lucy Hale and Robert T. Lincoln.

There is much more about Blaine here.

[BettyO]

Blaine is a true scholar and gentleman. He goes by the Old Rule which was set by the likes of Messrs. Hall, Brennan, Keesler and Tidwell - History was made to SHARE; a quality which we unfortunately don't see often nowadays....