Who is this lady?

[Steve Whitlock]

(07-03-2021 12:24 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Thank you. I just did not think Stanton would allow this or do it himself. I thought he would be protective of the remains, but I know it was often done in that era.

Roger,

Last one, I promise, but this is as much for me as you. I can't trust my memory these days and have to provide proof for things I 'seem to recall'.

Speaking of Mr. Stanton we have from the Smithsonian Magazine:

"Lock of Lincoln’s Hair

Within an hour after the assassination, Mary Lincoln summoned Mary Jane Welles to the Petersen House. Mary Jane, the wife of Navy Secretary Gideon Welles, was one of Mary’s few friends in Washington. They had bonded over shared sadness: In 1862, Mary Jane had helped nurse 11-year-old Willie Lincoln until he died of typhoid fever; the next year, the Welleses lost their 3-year-old son to diphtheria. On the morning of April 15, Lincoln’s death room emptied of mourners (including Gideon Welles) save one: War Secretary Edwin M. Stanton, whom Lincoln called his “Mars, God of War.” Stanton was an imperious and widely feared cabinet secretary, but he had loved the president, and the assassination was for him a profound personal tragedy. Alone with his fallen chief, Stanton cut a generous lock of the president’s hair and sealed it in a plain white envelope. He knew who deserved the memento. After signing his name on the envelope, he addressed it “For Mrs. Welles.” When she received it later that day, she inscribed the envelope in pencil in her own small, neat hand: “Lock of Mr. Lincoln’s hair April 15, 1865, M.J.W.”

She mounted the lock in an oval gold frame, along with dried flowers she collected from Lincoln’s coffin at the April 19 White House funeral. The card securing the relics in place behind their glass cover was calligraphed to testify that they were “Sacred to the Memory of Abraham Lincoln 16th President of the United States.” This isn’t the only surviving lock of Lincoln’s hair. Mary Lincoln claimed one, as did several of the doctors present at the Petersen House or his autopsy. Others were purloined from Lincoln’s head, and one wonders how he made it to the grave with any hair at all. But the Stanton/Welles lock, with its unparalleled provenance and interwoven tales of love and loss, is perhaps the most evocative one of all."

If you want to read the whole article go here: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/t...180954331/