Elizabeth Keckley's "Behind the Scenes at the Lincoln White House

[L Verge]

(03-06-2015 10:49 AM)Thomas Kearney Wrote:  I remember learning at Wilson's Creek the Summer between 8th and 9th grade that Keckley's son was killed there. See I used the proper word for the sentence.

Excellent, Thomas, you're a quick learner! Stick with us die-hard teachers, and we'll have you speaking and writing like a pro in no time.

Lesson #2 from this post: Your sentence structure would be better using the following example - "During the summer between 8th and 9th grade I remember learning that Keckley’s son was killed at Wilson’s Creek." Also, you do not need to capitalize "Summer," and I believe that I am correct that Mrs. Keckly did not use the second "e" in her name.

Rich Smyth - Thank you for posting about her son and his early death. Folks, Rich is the one who had the patience to track down Mrs. Keckly's remains after her original burial place was bought by developers. We thought the records had been lost, but Rich tracked them down and finally found a cemetery official who was willing to do some searching in the files. He was the one who suggested that the Surratt Society take on the project of marking her grave for the second time.

So far as we can determine, her first gravestone was either carted off as debris by contractors, or "snitched" by someone who used gravestones to shore up their waterside property.

I would also like to put in a plug for Jennifer Fleischner's biography of "Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly." There have been several others also, but they were more historical novels than bios. I also found that David Rankin Barbee - whom many of us recognize as a rabid researcher on the Lincoln assassination - once posited that Elizabeth Keckly did not exist. After her death, Elizabeth suffered the further indignity of having not only her memoirs questioned, but whether or not she existed at all.

"In 1935, a journalist named David Rankin Barbee, stated that not only had Elizabeth Keckly not written her autobiography, but that she never existed at all. Barbee claimed that the abolitionist writer Jane Swisshelm was the true author and had written it to advance her abolitionist cause. Many people who read the article challenged his claim, and came forward citing personal and/or secondary acquaintance. In an effort to 'clarify' his erroneous statements, Barbee backtracked and said that it "was not that no such person as Elizabeth Keckly existed, but that "no such person as Elizabeth Keckley wrote the celebrated Lincoln book." Good save!