Here's another peep:

  W2.3.2.jpg (Size: 8.11 KB / Downloads: 47)
Hint #2: The item's fame is first of all associated with Mary.

Well, obviously this question doesn't score...

Hint #3: The item is not long-lasting and probably apocryphal - which has more than once been discussed on this forum, as well as instructions how to make your own replica have been shared.

I wish the photo would enlarge like the others that you have posted. I was thinking that it was a picture of Mary in one of her flower-bedecked gowns until your last sentence. Back to the drawing board...

(12-02-2014 01:03 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Hint #3: The item is not long-lasting

Mary Lincoln's white cake?

Kudos, Roger! And it's actually the one from your (daughter's) link here:
http://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussio...e#pid36572
My idea was that a cake would be something suitable for an Advent calendar...I'm sorry if it was the lacking enlargement that prevented you from guessing - I updated my photo editing program, maybe there's an error so that the attachments didn't work out as usual. I'll try to find out.
Now here's your prize, Roger:
   

As soon as you receive that prize, Roger, let me know; and I'll fly down (on a plane, not a broom) to have a piece!

Welcome then to guess who hides behind #3:
   

We know from John Stanton that Benjamin Stringfellow sometimes disguised himself as a woman and had long hair, but I doubt this is him. So I will guess Mary Lincoln.

This is a very logical guess, Roger, but the lady is not Mary Lincoln (and indeed not Benjamin Stringfellow either)!

Looks like Laura Keene to me.

Brilliant, Dave, it's Laura Keene:
   

(12-02-2014 02:05 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  My idea was that a cake would be something suitable for an Advent calendar...

Speaking of cake, I'm curious again - what Xmas baking traditions do you have or remember? Did or do you have a favorite kind of cookies or cake? Please share!

I loved to "create" cutout cookies and gingerbread houses. Now I enjoy to marvel at the latter. Our local newspaper presents a gingerbread house contest for kids every year and attacts the pedestrians in the city center by displaying the ca.300 results in their windows - traditional "Hänsel and Gretel" houses as well as such that match the annual Xmas play at the opera, Alice in Wonderland this year (and all little bakers in any case get tickets). Love the chesire cat...
       
Finally, the gingerbread houses reminded me of that, according to Carl Sandburg, A. Lincoln loved gingerbread cookies. This is a story he told in his in his debates with Stephen A. Douglas in 1858:

“When we lived in Indiana, once in a while my mother used to get some sorghum and ginger and make some gingerbread. It wasn’t often and it was our biggest treat. One day I smelled the gingerbread and came into the house to get my share while it was still hot. My mother had baked me three gingerbread men. I took them out under a hickory tree to eat them.

There was a family near us poorer than we were and their boy came along as I sat down. ‘Abe,’ he said, ‘gimme a man.’ I gave him one. He crammed it into his mouth in two bites and looked at me while I was biting the legs off my first one. ‘Abe, gimme that other’n.’ I wanted it myself, but I gave it to him and as it followed the first, I said to him, ‘You seem to like gingerbread.’ ‘Abe,’ he said, ‘I don’t s’pose anybody on earth likes gingerbread better’n I do — and gets less’n I do...’”

So, now what about a gingerbread White House, Lincoln Home or log cabin? And what about your confectionaries and stories?

Eva, I think my favorites were the Girl Scout Cookies, and most especially the Thin Mints. I think Abe would have loved 'em! I don't have any stories other than I cannot control myself when the Thin Mints are in the house. My wife doesn't understand the addiction.

I'm with you on the thin mints Roger. We put a box in the freezer and try to save them for a month or two.
I have found a decent substitute. They are pretty good.
http://www.dollargeneral.com/product/ind...d=43435816
Get free shipping with an order of $40 or more. Your wife will love that. The more you order, the more you save!

Thanks, Gene!