"The Widow Lincoln" from the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection

[Linda Anderson]

http://www.lincolncollection.org/collect...w-lincoln/

[RJNorton]

That is a fascinating website, Linda. Thank you for posting. The site includes the very last photo of Tad Lincoln here.

[L Verge]

There is a play of this same name that is going to be performed during January and February of 2015 at Ford's Theatre.

[LincolnToddFan]

Thank you, Linda!

[LincolnMan]

(07-15-2014 03:02 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  That is a fascinating website, Linda. Thank you for posting. The site includes the very last photo of Tad Lincoln here.

Is it just me? Something odd in Tad's looks. Maybe the way his hair is parted.

[Gene C]

Tad was probably pretty sick when that photo was taken. If the date on the photo is correct, he died later that year.

[LincolnMan]

That had crossed my mind. Poor kid. Passed away way too young.

[RJNorton]

(07-16-2014 08:44 AM)Gene C Wrote:  Tad was probably pretty sick when that photo was taken. If the date on the photo is correct, he died later that year.

(07-16-2014 08:48 AM)LincolnMan Wrote:  That had crossed my mind. Poor kid. Passed away way too young.

The Lincoln Family Album (Harold Holzer and Mark Neely) indicates the photo was probably taken in the late spring/early summer of 1871. The authors describe Tad as "painfully thin" in talking about this final photo. Tad died in Chicago on July 15, 1871. The photo was taken in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, during a visit to the Harlans.

[LincolnToddFan]

(07-16-2014 08:48 AM)LincolnMan Wrote:  That had crossed my mind. Poor kid. Passed away way too young.

I wonder if he had remained in the U.S. instead of living in a cold, damp climate abroad would he have lived longer? It cannot have helped that he crossed the Atlantic and caught a bad cold. Tad seemed to have had chronic respiratory problems.

[L Verge]

I have always been shocked by his change of appearance from the round-faced, happy looking, little boy of 1865, to the gaunt, long-faced, young man six years later. Very sad.

How much later did it become pretty standard practice for people of means to send their tuberculosis patients to Arizon and Nevada territories to "dry up" their lungs? My great-uncle, the young Huntt infant that my great-grandparents were feeding at 1 am on the night of April 15, 1865, had tuberculosis in his twenties, and I have a great photo of him (in a sombrero) taken during his cures in Arizona.

[Eva Elisabeth]

(07-15-2014 03:02 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  That is a fascinating website, Linda. Thank you for posting. The site includes the very last photo of Tad Lincoln here.

I had thought this was the last one because he looks older to me (but the moustache is only pencilled into the photo):
http://www.lincolncollection.org/search/...item=22922

[LincolnToddFan]

Tad bears a passing resemblance to his late father in that last photo..the same long thin face with large nose and ears, skinny neck with protruding Adam's apple...

[RJNorton]

I am also curious about the penultimate photo of Tad. It was taken after Mary and Tad returned to the USA on May 11, 1871. They arrived in New York. I believe all books I've seen say the two stayed in New York for several days and then departed for Chicago. But the photo was taken in Washington by Julius Ulke. Yet I don't see any account that mentions a trip to Washington.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Roger, that struck me, too!!!