Did Vinnie Ream visit the White House daily for 5 months?

[LincolnMan]

I love these kind of mysteries! But there sure are a lot of them.

[RJNorton]

I think this is her bust of Abraham Lincoln.

I believe that is the photo that does not show on my screen from here.

The photo I am most used to seeing is here.

Do these two busts look the same? I am a little confused. My eyes are aging...

[Eva Elisabeth]

(02-05-2017 08:53 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  I think this is her bust of Abraham Lincoln.

I believe that is the photo that does not show on my screen from here.

The photo I am most used to seeing is here.

Do these two busts look the same? I am a little confused. My eyes are aging...

Roger, I'm afraid my eyes even see less as this is what the second link shows:
   
The first and third links both show this picture, which is the one I'm used to see, too:
   

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(02-05-2017 06:57 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Eva, I used a book I have entitled Vinnie Ream - The Story of the Girl Who Sculptured Lincoln by Gordon Langley Hall.

Hall references a diary when he writes, "She graphically described in her diary the half-hourly visits she paid to the White House during the next five months."

So I just assumed she had a diary.

Thanks, Roger. The following you quoted above does sound there was/is such a diary:

"In her diary Vinnie writes, 'His favorite son, Willie, had just died and this had been the greatest personal loss in his life. I made him think of Willie and he often said so and as often wept...was at the window watching for Willie, for he had always watched the boy playing every afternoon at that window. Sometimes great tears rolled down his cheeks'."

It does sound like written on the very day experienced.

To me the existence of such a diary would make the entire difference to credibility. If no diary, just a later interview, I would cast doubts and blame it on time expanding memory and on wish being father to her thoughts/memory.

If V.R. did write such a diary on the very same days incidents took place and worded like above I see no reason for her to make such up. The existence of a contemporary bust seems another indication.

Unfortunately if this is the author one cannot contact her anymore to inquire about the diary's existence and whereabouts:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawn_Langley_Simmons

[RJNorton]

Eva, here is the photo that page identifies as Vinnie Ream's bust of Lincoln:

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thanks, Roger. The busts don't look the same to me (in any case this one's clothing is unfinished compared to the other). It doesn't resemble Lincoln very well to me at all while the other does. Of course, it's difficult to compare the two due to being views from different angels. It there any information on the size of the busts? That would tell.
Strange the bust is smiling and has cheerful eyes while V.R. claimed Abraham Lincoln himself often crying.

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The eyes and hair of the two busts don't seem the same to me. In the commonly known photo it looks like the bust looks down with the lids partly narrowing the eyes, and the "frontal" hair hangs down, too."frontal". The hair of the smiling bust seems to go straight back, not down.

[RJNorton]

My eyes are seeing the same as you, Eva.

The Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection page says the Ream bust in their possession has these measurements:

Measurements: overall: 30 in x 13 in x 9 1/2 in

[Eva Elisabeth]

(02-05-2017 10:28 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  My eyes are seeing the same as you, Eva.

The Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection page says the Ream bust in their possession has these measurements:

Measurements: overall: 30 in x 13 in x 9 1/2 in

Then these are different busts as it cannot be in the Capitol Rotunda at the same time:
https://www.whitehousehistory.org/photos/photo-17
(The site showed the photo of her and the bust when I copied the link. Somehow bit doesn't show the photo anymore when I follow my own link.)

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Please go here:
http://vinnieream.com/

[RJNorton]

Eva, the web page here says that the bust in the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection is an early version of her final bust. That would explain the difference our eyes were seeing.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thanks - I'm sorry, I misunderstood.

[ELCore]

(02-05-2017 06:57 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Hall references a diary when he writes, "She graphically described in her diary the half-hourly visits she paid to the White House during the next five months."

Is this statement, Roger, your source for the thread title, Did Vinnie Ream visit the White House daily for 5 months?

I am wondering, because it does not say daily. Might she not have made weekly, or even less frequent, visits?

[RJNorton]

Good question, Lane. I think I am in a definite minority here in this thread; I just find it somewhat suspect that a 17-year-old girl was able to come in some sort of "side door" to sit with Abraham Lincoln in his office without Mary ever having a clue over the course of five months (and without mention by Hay, Nicolay, or any White House personnel at all).

I also wonder why there is no mention of Tad in her memories. Tad, I believe, was known to often interrupt his father whether he was alone or in meetings. It seems a little strange to me that Tad would not have seen her and told Mary that a pretty young girl was making a bust in Lincoln's office. Yet all Vinnie ever mentions is Willie and his death 2 1/2 to 3 years previous without mentioning Tad a single time.

Because of what others have posted I am more "convinced" (it happened) than I was when I began the thread, but I am afraid I still wonder if she couldn't have actually worked elsewhere using a photo. I agree with Eva that if Vinnie had a diary the story becomes more believable.

And, yes, the accounts I've seen use the term "daily." Here are a couple of her statements:

"When I knew him and spent half an hour daily with him while modeling my statue"

"I came for half an hour every day"

Those quotes came from here.

[Eva Elisabeth]

I agree she could have made the statues by using a photo, I just thought the statues would add credibility to a diary, not just alone by itself.
I'd even go so far to say she used a photo for the second one rather than for the first one (which to me look like completely different approaches to me, not one a version of the other.)

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According to this site (well worth reading):
http://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encycl...-1847-1914
the "Hoxie Family Papers...,Library of Congress, Washington, D.C....contain her diaries, scrapbooks, photographs of her sculpture and newspaper clippings". So obviously there is a diary, yet this diary quote from the same site sounds as if the diary was written much later:

"Ream, who was 17 by then, appealed to her friend Rollins to help her arrange to sketch the president while he worked at his desk in the executive mansion. According to her diary, she was allowed to have half-hour sittings with Lincoln for five months: 'I was a mere slip of a child, weighing less than ninety pounds and the contrast between the rawboned man and me was indeed great.'"

[James S. Rollins was a congressman, "who had admired her drawings at Christian College".]

[ReignetteC]

I had the occasion to review some of Vinnie Ream's papers (currently housed at the Library of Congress). The following should be of interest:


The Sunday Star published its interview with Vinnie Ream Hoxie on February 9, 1913. At the time, she was 65. Here is an excerpt:

I came for half an hour every day. I was the merest slip of a child, weighing less than ninety pounds, and the contrast between the raw-boned man and me was indeed great. I sat demurely in my corner and begged Mr. Lincoln not to allow me to disturb him. It seemed that he used this half-hour as a time for relaxation, for he always left instructions that no one was to be admitted during that time.

In all the months that I had my daily half-hour with Lincoln the order that we were not to be interrupted was broken but twice, and in each of these interruptions the breach was strangely illustrative of the character of the man. The first person who intruded upon the rest hour was a woman of middle age. She was the mother of a boy who had worn the gray and who had been captured and was in the old Capitol prison. . . . The second woman was young and pretty, and she blushed when she started, falteringly, to state her mission. The president anticipated her request, and said that he knew by her blushes that she wanted to see a sweetheart, and granted her request in advance.

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Ream had a studio in the basement of the Capitol building c. 1866. On May 31, 1866, she wrote to John H. Rice, the chairman of the committee on public buildings.

Feeling assured that it would meet with the expectations, and approbations of the American [illegible] to have a marble life-sized figure of Abraham Lincoln placed by Congress in the National Capitol, I respectfully solicit the influence of your committee [illegible], and I submit my modest bust of Mr. Lincoln as a specimen of my work. Respectfully, Vinnie Ream

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On July 28, 1866, the 39th Congress jointly commissioned Vinnie Ream to “execute a life-size model and statue of the late President Abraham Lincoln" and appropriated $10,000 for the task. (The agreement included the payment of $5000 on her completion of the life-size model in plaster; the other $5000 upon delivery of the statue.)

Before the vote, Senator Charles Sumner vocally expressed his displeasure. She cannot do it!” he declared. “I am bound to express a confident opinion that this candidate is not competent.”

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James Rollins (at the time a former U.S. Congressman from Missouri) "introduced" Vinnie Ream to Mrs. Lincoln by letter dated August 22, 1866:

I take the liberty of introducing to you, Miss Vinnie Ream at present of this city, formerly of Missouri. She is a young lady of exquisite genius, and of rare and beautiful accomplishments. Congress recently extended her with the important commission of making a life-size statue of your illustrious and lamented husband, intended for the national Capitol. I must madam, if it is not asking too much of you, when I request of you to extend to her whatever aid you can as she prepares with her sacred work. Commending Miss Ream to your kindly offices, I have the honor to be, with high regard, your obedient servant James S. Rollins.

[Susan Higginbotham]

I got Edward Cooper's biography of Vinnie Ream in the mail yesterday. It gives an additional, earlier, source for her account of visiting Lincoln, this 1894 book:

https://archive.org/stream/congressofwom...earch/Ream

Cooper does refer to journals that Ream kept in later years, but not to any kept during the war.

[ReignetteC]

Thanks for the link, Susan.

Months ago, I had the opportunity to review Ream's papers at the LOC. I reviewed my files today and found two pieces of correspondence that lend further support to the mystery (thanks, Roger, for raising it). They are as follows:

1. On July 6, 1866, James Rollins wrote the following to Ream; the letter is among her papers:

I was very much gratified to learn that there was a prospect of Congress making an appropriation of $10,000 to enable you to execute a life-size statue of our illustrious and lamented President Lincoln. . . . Your bust of Mr. Lincoln is for the best which I have seen of him; it is indeed an almost perfect work of art.

Further, Rollins writes that he has known Ream since she was "a bright and promising little girl"; he refers to the obstacles Ream and her family faced in Missouri, encourages her not to be discouraged, and asks to be remembered to her "Pa and Ma." Though his letter says nothing about Ream visiting Lincoln.

2. Ream's papers include a copy of a statement from the sculptor Clark Mills. Under date of June 15, 1868, he writes the following:

It has been reported this Vinnie Ream is using a head of Mr. Lincoln, sculpted by me, on the statue she is making of Mr. Lincoln, and whereas the statement is untrue. This falsehood started [illegble] for the purpose of injuring her. I herewith declare that it is her own work and modeled by herself in clay, and I deny the statements that have reported otherwise.

Again, no reference to Lincoln sitting for Ream.