(12-12-2017 06:02 PM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote:  

(12-12-2017 03:00 PM)kerry Wrote:  

(12-12-2017 02:37 PM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote:  

(12-12-2017 01:35 PM)kerry Wrote:  

(12-12-2017 12:27 PM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote:  [quote='kerry' pid='67883' dateline='1509813168']
I thought the book was excellent. It's weird and not for everybody, but the overall message and its presentation were really impressive, in my opinion.

I read a newspaper interview with Rev. N. W. Miner's daughter, and it included a letter in which he visited the Lincolns in 1862 and was told to go look at Willie's body, and did so. So it seems possible Lincoln himself could have done so.

I also found this - On July 17, 1865, the National Baptist published correspondence from Springfield noting that Willie was embalmed “so handsomely that the President had it twice disinterred to look upon it.”

I attached it - it's from genealogybank.com

Thanks!

You're welcome - I'd forgot I'd posted this until you quoted it -- the most direct reference is the National Baptist One. On April 25, 1865, the Indianapolis Sentinel also reported Lincoln had the body disinterred twice to look up it. Unfortunately I can't figure out where I got the National Baptist reference - the way I wrote it, I probably looked at the actual issue, but now I can't find it.

It seems that the original quote was in the New York World, and the National Baptist copied it.

https://books.google.com/books?id=F6HB7q8M9TIC&pg=PA262&lpg=PA262&dq=so+handsomely+that+the+President+had+it+twice+disinterred+to+look+upon+it.&source=bl&ots=2OKsmxBIF-&sig=IdCopWb51higlDcagm6sdlwsO5c&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjB57LuyYXYAhVhm-AKHc_ABGwQ6AEILjAB#v=onepage&q=so%20handsomely%20that%20the%20President%20had%20it%20twice%20disinterred%20to​%20look%20upon%20it.&f=false

(12-12-2017 11:24 AM)kerry Wrote:  

(12-12-2017 05:12 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(12-11-2017 09:47 PM)kerry Wrote:  I found this on newspapers.com. On 27 March 1862, the Daily Intelligencer reported “Mrs. Edwards, the sister of Mrs. Lincoln, had a narrow escape last week. She visited the Oak Hill Cemetery, in company with some friends, for the purpose of gazing on the lifeless remains of "little 'Willie." While in conversation with Dr. Brown, a few feet from the vault, two Minie musket balls passed within a few inches of her head. They were apparently fired from an encampment over a mile distant.” As embalming was new, it was apparently a thing.

I definitely recommend this book, but it is written in a very odd way that may be hard for some people to connect with. I've yet to meet another person who has read it, despite it getting all this attention and prizes.

(12-12-2017 05:05 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Lincoln here?
http://www.bardomuseum.tn/index.php?lang=en&option=com_content&Itemid=59

Kerry, Eva, everyone - has anybody come across solid proof that Lincoln himself visited the tomb twice (as claimed in Twenty Days) to look upon Willie? Many Lincoln books do not carry this story at all, and as far as I can tell, the ones that do (such as Twenty Days) have no footnotes. What is the authentic source for the story?

There's no authentic source that I've found for Lincoln himself. I'm just pointing out that it wasn't considered as weird as it sounds now, as the Lincolns encouraged visitors to go look. It wasn't considered as showing a lack of faith, as Miner did it. Either way, the book is by no means intended to be a historical record; it is very metaphorical, and about larger issues. Half the Lincoln-related quotes are real, half are fabricated, but it is well done. It's about humanity more than Lincoln. He's not in a lot of the book. Lincoln is not aware of any of the spirits, so he's not really in the Bardo (come to think of it, the title is a bit weird), but they are aware of him. Each character basically represents a person held back by something, and explains why, and that chorus of lost souls builds in an interesting way.

(12-13-2017 04:47 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  I think the Victorian era dealt much differently from ours with dead and deceased, and a lot thereof (like photography with corpses) we find near insane today was considered normal or legitimate back then.

(12-13-2017 09:42 AM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote:  But that's not a postmortem photo, although it is commonly misidentified as one. Posing stands like the one this gentleman is leaning against were used to help living people stay still. Sadly, there is a lot of bad information on the Internet about postmortem photos. Here's some good information:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/victorian-post-mortem-photographs

And people still take photos of the dead today. There are volunteers in hospitals who will take photos of stillborn infants for their parents. My family has a photo of my grandfather in his coffin from 1975.

(12-13-2017 09:42 AM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote:  But that's not a postmortem photo, although it is commonly misidentified as one.

(12-13-2017 04:47 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  

(12-12-2017 11:24 AM)kerry Wrote:  

(12-12-2017 05:12 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(12-11-2017 09:47 PM)kerry Wrote:  I found this on newspapers.com. On 27 March 1862, the Daily Intelligencer reported “Mrs. Edwards, the sister of Mrs. Lincoln, had a narrow escape last week. She visited the Oak Hill Cemetery, in company with some friends, for the purpose of gazing on the lifeless remains of "little 'Willie." While in conversation with Dr. Brown, a few feet from the vault, two Minie musket balls passed within a few inches of her head. They were apparently fired from an encampment over a mile distant.” As embalming was new, it was apparently a thing.

I definitely recommend this book, but it is written in a very odd way that may be hard for some people to connect with. I've yet to meet another person who has read it, despite it getting all this attention and prizes.

(12-12-2017 05:05 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Lincoln here?
http://www.bardomuseum.tn/index.php?lang=en&option=com_content&Itemid=59

Kerry, Eva, everyone - has anybody come across solid proof that Lincoln himself visited the tomb twice (as claimed in Twenty Days) to look upon Willie? Many Lincoln books do not carry this story at all, and as far as I can tell, the ones that do (such as Twenty Days) have no footnotes. What is the authentic source for the story?

There's no authentic source that I've found for Lincoln himself. I'm just pointing out that it wasn't considered as weird as it sounds now, as the Lincolns encouraged visitors to go look. It wasn't considered as showing a lack of faith, as Miner did it. Either way, the book is by no means intended to be a historical record; it is very metaphorical, and about larger issues. Half the Lincoln-related quotes are real, half are fabricated, but it is well done. It's about humanity more than Lincoln. He's not in a lot of the book. Lincoln is not aware of any of the spirits, so he's not really in the Bardo (come to think of it, the title is a bit weird), but they are aware of him. Each character basically represents a person held back by something, and explains why, and that chorus of lost souls builds in an interesting way.

What does it mean "he's not really in the Bardo (come to think of it, the title is a bit weird)"? (I don't know any Bardo but the Tunisian museum, so I do fond the title weird.)

I think the Victorian era dealt much differently from ours with dead and deceased, and a lot thereof (like photography with corpses) we find near insane today was considered normal or legitimate back then.

(12-13-2017 02:29 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Kerry, have you (or any other members) read this novel? I had a vague idea of "bardo" from a college class fifty years ago on comparative religions, so my first thought was, "How is that related to Lincoln?" I then began to read comments and reviews online. It appears that readers either love it or hate it - or are trapped in their own purgatory trying to figure out what the author is attempting to portray.