Mary & Lincoln back together Christmas 1841?

[Anita]

(02-01-2014 05:58 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Anita, did he ever get back to you? I am very curious about this. If Mary and Abraham were back together at Christmas 1841 it would mean a lot of books are wrong.

Sorry Roger, I forgot to post the upshot of research on this. James did get back to me.

It's a bit of a mystery. The Lincoln Home Furnishings report clearly mentions this item as being offered to the Chicago Historical Society and that Mrs. Sinninger was a good friend of Robert Lincoln. However a search of the collections at the Lincoln Library turned up none of the items Mrs. Sinninger identified.

Additionally I contacted Laine Dunham at Hildene and neither she nor James could find a connection between Mrs. Sinninger or Robert Lincoln. And yet the Lincoln Home Furnishings report states that in an interview with James Hickey, Curator of Lincoln Artifacts March 12, 1979 he said "Margaret Sinninger was a very good friend of Robert Lincoln."

Finally James asked the key question. "... The date ‘1841’ on a gifted photo album from AL to MT is very suspicious, I must say – were there photo albums at that early date?"

Here's my reply- "You make a good point about the date on the album. They didn't have daguerreotype studios in Springfield in 1841 much less albums, and dags were in cases, not albums."

I am still researching this. Anita