MYSTERY SOLVED! Turns out Mrs. Margaret O'Herron Sinninger was a scammer! She didn't become Mrs. Sinninger until 1914 when she married George Sinninger in Springfield. Hickey's comments in the Lincoln Home Furnishings report stating that she was a good friend of Robert Lincoln really threw a curve ball in tracking her down.
I recently contacted Gwen Thompson, Director of Mary Todd Lincoln House. She solved the mystery. Here's what Gwen found.
"It seems pretty clear that Mrs. Sinninger was a fake. In many reports she goes by Miss O'Herron, her maiden name. "
"Mystery solved. Just sent you a bunch of links about Margaret being a fake. Hickey didn't know any more than us. He wasn't alive then. He was just repeating the story. (Although he got it wrong. Margaret claimed Lincoln was a friend of her fathers.)"
https://archive.org/details/lincolnsgettysbulinc_20
https://archive.org/stream/curiosrelicsf...6_djvu.txt
http://www.mywebtimes.com/life/cradle-co...53c54.html
http://www.mywebtimes.com/life/the-strea...l?mode=jqm
Makes for an interesting story as well as a good lesson on sources. Hickey was curator of a major Lincoln collection as well as a respected Lincoln historian, yet he put his stamp of approval on Mrs. Sinninger's claims and even got that wrong by stating that she was a good friend of Robert Lincoln's.
I searched for connections with Robert Lincoln and had Mrs. Sinninger in the wrong time period. Because of Hickey's validation of the objects in the Lincoln Home Furnishings Report, I assumed they existed and were credible. Mr. Hickey was a great man in the Lincoln world and I very much appreciate his contribution to Lincoln Studies. No one is perfect . Margaret Sinninger was a scammer of the first order.
What I learned from all this is that "assumption is the mother of all screw-ups!"
Mary & Lincoln back together Christmas 1841?
