https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/ Fri, 03 Apr 2026 23:19:27 +0000 MyBB https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5156.html Sun, 29 Mar 2026 21:36:10 +0000 https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5156.html
Mr. John Dillion (an Irish nationalist leader who protested the British response to the 1916 Easter Rising. ) May 11 1916 House of Commons

" ... there has been no rebellion or insurrection put down with so much blood and so much savagery as the recent insurrection in Ireland. Go back to the history of any insurrection in any modern civilised country. Take the great rebellion in America, which lasted for three years, and which had not one tithe of the excuse which these Sinn Feiners could advance. A million men lost their lives and a vast amount of property was destroyed. When the insurrection was over I do not think Abraham Lincoln executed one single man, and by that one act of clemency he did an enormous work of good for the whole of the country. "

Mr Dillon obviously made some minor errors , but his point was that Lincoln made a good decision by not executing many Confederates after winning the War.]]>
Mr. John Dillion (an Irish nationalist leader who protested the British response to the 1916 Easter Rising. ) May 11 1916 House of Commons

" ... there has been no rebellion or insurrection put down with so much blood and so much savagery as the recent insurrection in Ireland. Go back to the history of any insurrection in any modern civilised country. Take the great rebellion in America, which lasted for three years, and which had not one tithe of the excuse which these Sinn Feiners could advance. A million men lost their lives and a vast amount of property was destroyed. When the insurrection was over I do not think Abraham Lincoln executed one single man, and by that one act of clemency he did an enormous work of good for the whole of the country. "

Mr Dillon obviously made some minor errors , but his point was that Lincoln made a good decision by not executing many Confederates after winning the War.]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5132.html Wed, 31 Dec 2025 19:25:48 +0000 https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5132.html
The main reason though I want to post a message is that I feel guilty for not noticing something...
Most of us I'm sure access various public sites and forums. Almost all have one thing in common. Adverts and cookies (which often result in unwanted emails).
As far as I'm aware Roger's Symposium is free of these.... and of course 'free' in the sense of no financial charge.
In this day and age it's refreshing to access a site like this .... ( in a way, I hate to remind Roger of this .... just think how much you could be making if you allow adverts and charge a fee for access !!!)

So a big Thank You to Roger.]]>
The main reason though I want to post a message is that I feel guilty for not noticing something...
Most of us I'm sure access various public sites and forums. Almost all have one thing in common. Adverts and cookies (which often result in unwanted emails).
As far as I'm aware Roger's Symposium is free of these.... and of course 'free' in the sense of no financial charge.
In this day and age it's refreshing to access a site like this .... ( in a way, I hate to remind Roger of this .... just think how much you could be making if you allow adverts and charge a fee for access !!!)

So a big Thank You to Roger.]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5131.html Thu, 25 Dec 2025 16:07:10 +0000 https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5131.html https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5130.html Tue, 23 Dec 2025 02:33:10 +0000 https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5130.html I was poking around today and saw this piece that I've never seen before. Looks sketchy, but I thought I'd pass it along...

https://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/774...House-1950]]> I was poking around today and saw this piece that I've never seen before. Looks sketchy, but I thought I'd pass it along...

https://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/774...House-1950]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5116.html Fri, 24 Oct 2025 00:42:40 +0000 https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5116.html
Is the correct spelling of Thomas Pendel's middle name Franses or Francis?

I have seen both spellings, but have not yet found any clarifying information on census records, etc.

(This unusual question pertains to a research project, and I wish to ensure accuracy. Thanks! )]]>
Is the correct spelling of Thomas Pendel's middle name Franses or Francis?

I have seen both spellings, but have not yet found any clarifying information on census records, etc.

(This unusual question pertains to a research project, and I wish to ensure accuracy. Thanks! )]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5112.html Wed, 15 Oct 2025 17:36:27 +0000 https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5112.html https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5107.html Sat, 27 Sep 2025 23:03:43 +0000 https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5107.html
https://danielloftus.substack.com/p/fact-and-fiction]]>
https://danielloftus.substack.com/p/fact-and-fiction]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5066.html Sat, 31 May 2025 18:01:08 +0000 https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5066.html
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/civil-wa...e-believed]]>
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/civil-wa...e-believed]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5032.html Sat, 15 Feb 2025 13:40:46 +0000 https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5032.html https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5020.html Mon, 27 Jan 2025 20:06:39 +0000 https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5020.html https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5015.html Wed, 25 Dec 2024 16:53:35 +0000 https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5015.html
Best
Rob

The most pleasant memory Tarbell held from childhood—which evolved into her adulthood—was Christmas. The Christmases in Rouseville started in the shanty and, like the shanty, held less-than-happy memories for the young Ida. “[B]ack in the little shanty…there was nothing but nuts and candy and my mother and father promising ‘Just wait, just wait and the day will come.’”

When the family moved to the Rouseville hillside, Christmas became an exhilarating time for Ida. In an unpublished article titled “The Christmas That Meant Most to Me,” Tarbell recalled that at age seven, things turned around just after the move. The article is a fascinating journey into Ida’s young mind. She fictionalized parts of it, naming her “most ‘nintimate’ (sic) friend” Bobbie instead of Laura Siegel, with whom Ida surreptitiously read the Police Gazette.

Bobbie/Laura was invited into the Tarbell home to show off the presents she received and to have dinner with the Tarbells. For two hours, the girls compared the presents that Santa had left behind. While Tarbell did not remember everything she received, she remembered a muff and a tippet. “How many years that stuff was to go in and out of the fur chest, treasured long after its usefulness was over, because of its connection with the Christmas that meant most to me,” Tarbell wrote.

After comparing gifts, the pair settled into what Tarbell termed “delicious relaxation” and began discussing the various mysteries of life. The conversation turned to Santa. “Now, we were seven…and there was a dawn of knowingness in us,” Tarbell wrote. “As we talked there grew a sense in both of us that this splendid Santa Claus enjoyed more human cooperation than one of his rank would be supposed to need.” Soon, the pair thought, “What if it was mother? What if it was father?”

Who else, Tarbell wondered, would have known how much she wanted a muff or how much Bobbie/Laura wanted her own party dress? As the evidence mounted, the pair recalled locked drawers, a closed parlor, the “sternness with which peeping was treated” and the mini-sermons each received about unabated curiosity. When the afternoon Christmas dinner was on the table, Ida and Laura revealed to Franklin and Esther that they had figured out that Santa was a myth. “We know! We know! It’s you! It’s you! You are Santa Claus!”

Ida recalled Esther’s “half frightened eyes, alarm struggling with amusement—would I hold her guilty? I can see her seeking help in my father’s steady gaze. He understood. Here was no wound—only joyful exultation.” Immediately, at least in Tarbell’s later telling, she saw the importance of learning this secret. It made the relationship with her parents even more special. “It was they—the dearest ones in the world who had been playing this wonderful game,” Ida wrote.

Ida’s elation at the time stemmed from the presents like the muff, but she soon realized that what gave the day meaning was the bond that came from the closeness her family exhibited not only during the holidays but throughout the year. “It was the time, [Esther] told us, when men and women and boys and girls all over the world, who had taken the Christ Child for their leader, secretly and joyfully planned on a certain day, in memory of Him, to make others happy,” Tarbell wrote. “She and father loved above all to make us happy, but now we knew the game we were expected to play…to pass on happiness.”

The Titusville Christmases solidified that expectation. Although the family never had a creche until long after Franklin and Esther died (Ida told Ada McCormick that her parents “would have considered it papist”) as Ida, Will, and Sarah grew older, each was expected to take responsibility for parts of the family’s Christmas dinner including food and decorations. November saw the making of mincemeat, plum pudding, and fruit cakes. Beginning in December, further aspects of the dinner came together. “You seeded the raisins, you picked the meat out of the nuts, you chopped the citron. When the mince meat was done you felt you were represented in every jar,” Ida wrote.

The turkey selection superseded all else. When the regular family butcher once sold the Tarbells a tough turkey, they refused to buy their bird from him, preferring to go into the countryside to select one. “We were really acquainted with that turkey before it came into the house,” Tarbell wrote. “And when it came, so plump, so yellow and tender, you were not allowed to touch it, only to look at it as it lay in the big pan.” Every year, Ida wondered if the family stove would hold the bird. Every year, it did. With the bird chosen, the question of stuffing arose. Would it be plain stuffing or made with oysters or chestnuts? As much thought went into that as the selection of the turkey.

When all the food was on the table, the doors to the dining room were opened. “My father always asked a blessing on our food, but the blessing he asked at Christmas had a special quality, a choke of grateful emotion in his voice as he thanked the Lord for that which we were about to partake,” Tarbell recalled. Once the meal was finished and the dishes were cleaned, the family gathered together with nuts, raisins, and candy and sat around the house talking over the things that affected life in Titusville and life in the Tarbell household.
]]>
Best
Rob

The most pleasant memory Tarbell held from childhood—which evolved into her adulthood—was Christmas. The Christmases in Rouseville started in the shanty and, like the shanty, held less-than-happy memories for the young Ida. “[B]ack in the little shanty…there was nothing but nuts and candy and my mother and father promising ‘Just wait, just wait and the day will come.’”

When the family moved to the Rouseville hillside, Christmas became an exhilarating time for Ida. In an unpublished article titled “The Christmas That Meant Most to Me,” Tarbell recalled that at age seven, things turned around just after the move. The article is a fascinating journey into Ida’s young mind. She fictionalized parts of it, naming her “most ‘nintimate’ (sic) friend” Bobbie instead of Laura Siegel, with whom Ida surreptitiously read the Police Gazette.

Bobbie/Laura was invited into the Tarbell home to show off the presents she received and to have dinner with the Tarbells. For two hours, the girls compared the presents that Santa had left behind. While Tarbell did not remember everything she received, she remembered a muff and a tippet. “How many years that stuff was to go in and out of the fur chest, treasured long after its usefulness was over, because of its connection with the Christmas that meant most to me,” Tarbell wrote.

After comparing gifts, the pair settled into what Tarbell termed “delicious relaxation” and began discussing the various mysteries of life. The conversation turned to Santa. “Now, we were seven…and there was a dawn of knowingness in us,” Tarbell wrote. “As we talked there grew a sense in both of us that this splendid Santa Claus enjoyed more human cooperation than one of his rank would be supposed to need.” Soon, the pair thought, “What if it was mother? What if it was father?”

Who else, Tarbell wondered, would have known how much she wanted a muff or how much Bobbie/Laura wanted her own party dress? As the evidence mounted, the pair recalled locked drawers, a closed parlor, the “sternness with which peeping was treated” and the mini-sermons each received about unabated curiosity. When the afternoon Christmas dinner was on the table, Ida and Laura revealed to Franklin and Esther that they had figured out that Santa was a myth. “We know! We know! It’s you! It’s you! You are Santa Claus!”

Ida recalled Esther’s “half frightened eyes, alarm struggling with amusement—would I hold her guilty? I can see her seeking help in my father’s steady gaze. He understood. Here was no wound—only joyful exultation.” Immediately, at least in Tarbell’s later telling, she saw the importance of learning this secret. It made the relationship with her parents even more special. “It was they—the dearest ones in the world who had been playing this wonderful game,” Ida wrote.

Ida’s elation at the time stemmed from the presents like the muff, but she soon realized that what gave the day meaning was the bond that came from the closeness her family exhibited not only during the holidays but throughout the year. “It was the time, [Esther] told us, when men and women and boys and girls all over the world, who had taken the Christ Child for their leader, secretly and joyfully planned on a certain day, in memory of Him, to make others happy,” Tarbell wrote. “She and father loved above all to make us happy, but now we knew the game we were expected to play…to pass on happiness.”

The Titusville Christmases solidified that expectation. Although the family never had a creche until long after Franklin and Esther died (Ida told Ada McCormick that her parents “would have considered it papist”) as Ida, Will, and Sarah grew older, each was expected to take responsibility for parts of the family’s Christmas dinner including food and decorations. November saw the making of mincemeat, plum pudding, and fruit cakes. Beginning in December, further aspects of the dinner came together. “You seeded the raisins, you picked the meat out of the nuts, you chopped the citron. When the mince meat was done you felt you were represented in every jar,” Ida wrote.

The turkey selection superseded all else. When the regular family butcher once sold the Tarbells a tough turkey, they refused to buy their bird from him, preferring to go into the countryside to select one. “We were really acquainted with that turkey before it came into the house,” Tarbell wrote. “And when it came, so plump, so yellow and tender, you were not allowed to touch it, only to look at it as it lay in the big pan.” Every year, Ida wondered if the family stove would hold the bird. Every year, it did. With the bird chosen, the question of stuffing arose. Would it be plain stuffing or made with oysters or chestnuts? As much thought went into that as the selection of the turkey.

When all the food was on the table, the doors to the dining room were opened. “My father always asked a blessing on our food, but the blessing he asked at Christmas had a special quality, a choke of grateful emotion in his voice as he thanked the Lord for that which we were about to partake,” Tarbell recalled. Once the meal was finished and the dishes were cleaned, the family gathered together with nuts, raisins, and candy and sat around the house talking over the things that affected life in Titusville and life in the Tarbell household.
]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5012.html Wed, 04 Dec 2024 21:13:03 +0000 https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5012.html
Best
Rob]]>
Best
Rob]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5011.html Thu, 28 Nov 2024 14:45:59 +0000 https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5011.html https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5000.html Mon, 07 Oct 2024 15:11:50 +0000 https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5000.html especially Roger and Vickie.]]> especially Roger and Vickie.]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4993.html Thu, 19 Sep 2024 11:00:04 +0000 https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4993.html https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4991.html Fri, 13 Sep 2024 11:27:21 +0000 https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4991.html
It's currently 7:15 AM, Eastern Standard Time
The above statistic is not an infrequent occurrence
The most users online at one time was 1,631 on 06-21-2024 at 06:58 PM
This is from the bottom of home page of the forum, Board Statistics.

Seems to me there are a lot of people looking for answers about values and leadership, honesty and integrity.

Roger deserves a lot of credit for this web site which is a valuable resource.
Thanks Roger
]]>
It's currently 7:15 AM, Eastern Standard Time
The above statistic is not an infrequent occurrence
The most users online at one time was 1,631 on 06-21-2024 at 06:58 PM
This is from the bottom of home page of the forum, Board Statistics.

Seems to me there are a lot of people looking for answers about values and leadership, honesty and integrity.

Roger deserves a lot of credit for this web site which is a valuable resource.
Thanks Roger
]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4989.html Mon, 09 Sep 2024 18:26:13 +0000 https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4989.html

February 19, 2024

When Lincoln was born in 1809, the United States was only 22 years old—the Constitution having been ratified in 1788. There were still Americans living who had fought in the Revolution—and Lincoln knew them or knew of them. These revolutionaries had witnessed the creation of a new system of government based not on kings, queens, and aristocrats but on the idea that men could rule themselves with a system of laws. To Lincoln and his contemporaries, America was a unique experiment—a republic based on a constitution with a president, congress, and judiciary. Had the southern states been allowed to leave the Union to create a slave-based Confederacy, the Union would have been shattered. Lincoln’s great achievement was preserving the Union—as he lived among the Americans who had been a part of the Revolution, understood what it had achieved, and did not want to see it destroyed.]]>

February 19, 2024

When Lincoln was born in 1809, the United States was only 22 years old—the Constitution having been ratified in 1788. There were still Americans living who had fought in the Revolution—and Lincoln knew them or knew of them. These revolutionaries had witnessed the creation of a new system of government based not on kings, queens, and aristocrats but on the idea that men could rule themselves with a system of laws. To Lincoln and his contemporaries, America was a unique experiment—a republic based on a constitution with a president, congress, and judiciary. Had the southern states been allowed to leave the Union to create a slave-based Confederacy, the Union would have been shattered. Lincoln’s great achievement was preserving the Union—as he lived among the Americans who had been a part of the Revolution, understood what it had achieved, and did not want to see it destroyed.]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4985.html Wed, 14 Aug 2024 19:57:44 +0000 https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4985.html

https://www.ydr.com/story/opinion/column...780682007/]]>

https://www.ydr.com/story/opinion/column...780682007/]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4981.html Wed, 07 Aug 2024 05:11:16 +0000 https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4981.html
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/t...180984817/]]>
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/t...180984817/]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4964.html Sun, 12 May 2024 10:40:35 +0000 https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4964.html