President #16, Abraham Lincoln, d.4/15/1865, age 56.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: in addition to our annual road trips, my wife Anne and I have a twice-yearly tradition of spending our birthdays together on some new experience. Sometimes there’ll be a convention or special event fortuitously scheduled for the occasion; other times, we’ll take a short road trip somewhere we haven’t been before. The time spent together is the best birthday gift, every May for me and every October for her. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.
I’d rather not relive how we spent my birthday this year, but I’m more than happy to leap-frog past it to May 2023 and recount a much cheerier experience. Perhaps “cheerier” is the wrong word considering our first stop was a cemetery.
On past trips we’d visited the graves, tombs, mausoleums and virtual posthumous palaces of 24 American Presidents in varying accommodations and budgets. As our sole long-distance driver and a part-time retro-gamer, I’ve enjoyed those little jaunts so much that our 2018 road trip was planned as a literal fetch-quest to check off nine Presidents in a single cross-country loop. Nobody handed me a trophy at the end, but it’s fun to pretend they did.
One of the biggest names ever to grace the White House kept eluding us: Abraham Lincoln, planted a mere three hours away in Springfield, Illinois. We’d long assumed he would be the first stop on the itinerary of some other, longer vacation someday. Nearly twenty years into this marriage, it dawned on me Springfield is never on the way to anywhere. So I figured: let’s make his tomb a trip headliner of its very own, not a warm-up act on the road to Branson or whatever. History is technically more Anne’s fervent interest than mine, but we found plenty to do beyond reading wordy educational placards.
Mind you, most of what we did was Lincoln-centered. Many Midwest cities and towns lay claim to various eras of his life, but Springfield owns plenty of legitimate bona fides. It’s where he met Mary, bought their first house, based his law practice, gave his first major speech, and more, more, more. We’ve visited other Springfields in Ohio and in Massachusetts, but Illinois’ Springfield loves Lincoln like no other, and they’ve got a plethora of tourist attractions to express it. We didn’t quite get to all of them, but we checked out a fair number, as if we haven’t already posted enough Lincoln statues and busts throughout our previous travels.
The week leading up to our big overnighter was a bit more hectic than I would’ve liked. Beyond patiently finished our work weeks, we had to wait on a narrowly scheduled plumber visit to replace all the faucets in our house after years of unchecked hard-water damage (which we’ve also taken steps to rectify for the future, which was a different project altogether). Eventually we tucked away our real-world encumbrances and fled the house early on Friday, May 19th. Impatient folks that we are, the Lincoln Tomb was our very first stop.
Our destination lay inside Oak Ridge Cemetery, with tiny signs pointing the way.
As cemeteries with Presidents in them go, Oak Ridge was far more spacious and cultivated than others we’ve visited. His tomb has its own dedicated parking lot.
Just look for the giant obelisk atop a high hill.
The first Lincoln to greet you is recast from a head sculpted by Gutzon Borglum (the Mount Rushmore guy). The original is housed at the U.S. Capitol in DC.
Above and behind the giant Lincoln head is another Lincoln offering you a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation.
To one side of that Lincoln, brother fights brother in the Civil War.
Inside the memorial, a rotunda of hallways loops through dual anterooms and leads back to the main burial room. A few minutes after we arrived, a school bus pulled up and unleashed a gaggle of schoolkids on a field trip, who quickly clogged up the place. We shot around them the best we could. That’s what we get for visiting on a weekday during the school year, but I imagine every school in Illinois probably takes turns busing its kids here for historical object lessons.
His body is actually buried ten feet below this marble monument. Lining the back wall are seven state flags marking his various residences, as well as the American and Presidential flags.
On the wall is a quote from his Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, reportedly spoken at Lincoln’s deathbed.
Also interred on site are wife Mary Todd Lincoln…
…their sons Eddie and Willie, who each died of illness in childhood…
…as well as son Tad, who just barely reached adulthood before doing the same.
A marker for other brother Robert Todd Lincoln completes the set. As a Civil War veteran and U.S. Secretary of War under James Garfield and Chester Arthur, Robert was buried in Arlington National Cemetery per the wishes of his widow Mary.
Around the walls are plaques bearing transcripts of some of his more famous speeches, such as the farewell address he gave here in Springfield before moving out to DC.
Apropos of our aforementioned travels, the site is loaded with still more Lincoln statues inside, standing on guard in each of the anterooms.
A series of replicas of Lincoln statues in other states naturally includes the Lincoln Memorial as their centerpiece.
Replica of a statue in Chicago that we’ve apparently missed on our numerous Windy City expeditions.
Replica of a statue in Hodgenville, Kentucky.
Replica of Lincoln, Nebraska’s Lincoln Monument.
Another series of statues commemorates his ages and phases. Lincoln the Debater is an obvious, solid choice. The original stands in Freeport, IL.
Lincoln the Soldier recalls that time in 1832 when he fought in the Black Hawk War. The original statue is in Dixon, IL.
Lincoln the Ranger is a Lincoln Tomb exclusive design and likewise marks his short military service, which lasted all of 80 days at best.
Also a Tomb exclusive, Lincoln the Circuit Rider remembers the slightly older lawyer who often rode hundreds of miles from one courtroom to the next.
The photos don’t quite bear it out, but we felt so rushed that we ended up coming back here Saturday afternoon before we left town, just so we could retake a few of these without any grade-schoolers mobbing around us. Darn schoolkids, always needing their lessons about the Great Emancipator and whatnot.
To be continued! Other chapters in this special MCC miniseries:
Part 2: More Wars, More Memorials
Part 3: The Illinois State Capitol
Part 4: Around the Capitol Complex
Part 5: Generation X Belongs in a Museum
Part 6: Misc. Museum
Part 7: His Presidential Library & Museum
Part 8: The Lincoln Museum Minus Lincoln
Part 9: ‘Round Springfield
Part 10: Lincoln Home & Law & Gifts
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Wow! What a great entry of MCC! and my thanks to you, as always, for writing it up and sharing it with the world!
I bring to your attention a possible inadvertently doubled letter ‘e’ in the following sentence : “Beyond patiently finished our work weeks, wee had to wait on a narrowly scheduled plumber visit to replace all the faucets in our house after years of unchecked hard-water damage (which we’ve also taken steps to rectify for the future, which was a different project altogether).” And the word ‘tomb’ appears to be misspelled as ‘tmob’ in the caption beneath the third photograph.
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I’ve now edited both errors in the most apropos manner possible, with a chunk of coal on the back of a shovel. Much obliged!
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