Don't Blow the Whistle!

Oi vey. Things are really messed up at the Lincoln Home these days. My supervisor (the lady who made Lincoln Home sound like a national forest) decided that the park did not have enough money to pay us holiday pay for working on MLK Jr. Day--after we had already worked that day. Wait, isn't that illegal? So, I was told to either take a day off (which I would get paid for) or else receive no holiday compensation. Wait, isn't that illegal too? So I took a day off but contacted our regional personnel issues lady to inform her of the situation since we currently do not have a real superintendent or anyone to regulate what Laura is doing. Laura then called me at home on my forced day off to tell me that, surprise! The park now magically had enough money to pay us for working the holiday. But then things got really sticky with the paid forced day off, etc., etc. Anyway, it turns out that Laura got in BIG trouble from region. And now I am in trouble too!!! Laura, our acting superintendent, and our acting supervisory ranger (who, I guess, all got some harsh words from region and all blamed each other for the mishap) are very upset with me for "going over their heads." Wait, how did they find out it was me who blew the whistle? There is something called the Whistleblower Protection Act. But it turns out that the lady I e-mailed at region sent an e-mail to our acting superintendent telling him that "a lady" at the Lincoln Home had contacted her about the holiday pay issue. Since I was the only female involved, they deduced that it was me. Thanks a lot, region lady. When I was confronted about why I went over the heads of my superiors, I was thinking in my mind: "Because I knew that none of you would do anything about it; and this is just one of many questionable things that has been going on here!" But I kept my mouth shut. I fear, however, that my chance of getting a permanent job at the Lincoln Home may now be in jeopardy--which, again, would be illegal if they didn't hire me as a permanent employee because of a whistleblower incident, but obviously no one is too concerned with what is/isn't legal. Which is funny since Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer!

29 and Doing Fine

Today is Greg's #29 Birthday--just one more year until the big 3-0! You may notice that something is missing from the picture with the birthday cake: candles. Unfortunately Greg has a nasty cold and had to spend his birthday at home feeling sick :-( So he didn't want to share his germs with me by blowing out candles. We decided that we'll wait until he is feeling better before we have his birthday dinner. The barking birthday card that Mom and Dad sent is a big hit with Greg and especially the dogs! They go crazy when we open the card and dogs start barking "Happy Birthday." It is sooooo funny.

Another member of our family has been a bit under the weather as well. Poor Tiger Lily had to get declawed on Monday. She was going crazy with her claws on our new carpet, and she also destroyed a chair of Greg's (luckily it was old and falling apart anyway), but we realized that before getting a new couch, Lily's claws would need to go. It was a very traumatic experience for Lily and for me though. Greg had to work on Monday, so I took Lily up to the vet in Petersburg by myself. She was NOT happy. Then I worried about her all day and all night. I took Tuesday off of work so that I could pick her up and be with her during the day, but I wasn't quite prepared for the situation I encountered at the vet that morning. I told the vet that I was there to pick up Tiger Lily, and she said, "Ooooh, yes, she is not happy with us." When we walked back to the kitty cage, Lily's ears were flat against her head and she was growling and hissing. The poor kitty was so scared. The vet left the room, and I talked to Lily for a few minutes. After a little while she realized that I was there to take her home, so instead of growling she started doing her said little "meow" cry. It was so sad! I wrapped her up in a blanket, and she gave the vet a nice good-bye hiss on the way out. She was very drowsy, and I set up a nice kitty condo for her in the guest bathroom. She just chilled in the bathtub/kitty bed with her new snuggle bear all day, and I was so relieved and happy when she started eating and purring. I think that she was just really scared and upset about having to stay overnight at the vet. Her little paws are very tender, but she's been walking around a bit today. She still sleeps a lot, but we think she's perking up. Poor Sweetie! She is so cute and cuddly. Right now she is sleeping on her back right next to me. Luckily she's been getting a lot of tuna fish and kitty treats--kind of like getting loads of ice cream when you get your tonsils out.

The Great Ghost Hunt

160 years ago today was a very sad day at the Lincoln Home. Little Eddie, the Lincoln's second son, died at 6:00 in the morning on February 1, 1850. He was just one month short of his fourth birthday. It is generally accepted today that Eddie was sick with tuberculosis. He had been sick for 52 long days before his death. Friends and family came to the home to comfort the grieving Abraham and Mary Lincoln. Robert was six years old and didn't fully comprehend what had happened to his little brother. There are accounts of Mary crying and pacing the house all afternoon. In such a nervous state, she started pulling one hair from her head at a time. Eddie's body would have been washed, dressed, and placed in a small coffin. Embalming wasn't really common yet, so they would have put herbs and flowers around the room to help with the smell. His funeral and burial took place the very next day. Unfortunately this was only the first of many losses the Lincolns would endure. So, on the 160th anniversary of such a sad event, a few of the rangers wanted to do a little paranormal investigating to see if we could make contact with any sorrowing spirits. I haven't finished going through all of the video and audio evidence we gathered, but we didn't really have any unusual experiences while we were in there. I did take the picture shown above, which has a weird thing there on the left side--it looks especially cool in the inverted picture. We thought we might have captured something in this picture, but then I was able to duplicate the picture several times, so it must just be some sort of reflection from the camera flash. It's still pretty cool looking though. I will be sure to let you all know if the audio and video data produces anything interesting. This is the second paranormal investigation Ranger David and I have done at the Lincoln Home. The last time was in November, and we had a couple of really crazy experiences. I didn't have my camera with me that day, but we did have a digital voice recorder. At one point I asked if whomever was there with us could knock on something. David and I were standing in the upstairs back hallway of the home, and we heard six very distinct knocks right behind David. It was insane! We even captured the whole sequence on the recorder. A little later that day we asked if whomever was with us could open or close a door. We clearly heard the broom closet door downstairs close (it hadn't been open when we had gone upstairs). The voice recorder picked that up too. Unfortunately we didn't have a video camera that day--so we were sure to have one focused on the broom closet door today. We didn't hear any door opening or closing today, but I still need to finish going through all of the video evidence we captured. So anyway, it is all quite intriguing. There is a lot of controversy surrounding paranormal activity, but I personally believe that in places where a lot of happiness or sadness was experienced, spirits can still have some sort of connection with that place.

Lincoln Home National Recreation Area?

So, apparently there is much more to Lincoln Home National Historic Site than meets the eye. It may appear at first glance to be a restored historic neighborhood in the middle of downtown Springfield, but according to the job description on usajobs.gov for seasonal park rangers at the Lincoln Home, it is much, much more. The job description talks about giving tours of the Lincoln Home, but then it says duties may also include "orienting hikers to conditions and equipment needs," hiking for "distances up to six miles a day," climbing and descending "steep inclines," and performing search and rescue, wildland fire fighting and other emergency response duties. I thought it also said something about back country patrols and trail management, but I couldn't find those phrases when I looked online this evening. Anyway, it sounds like a pretty intense job! Does it also include wrestling snakes?

Obviously there is no wildland fire fighting at the Lincoln Home. But, Laura, our Chief of Interpretation, forgot to delete the words from the generic park ranger job description she used as template for her job post. Oopsie doozy. That's pretty much how things roll at the Lincoln Home these days though. We're kind of in limbo without a permanent superintendent to provide direction and oversight.

Reflections on Lincoln

Get ready for the longest blog post ever! My mind has been swirling and exploding with Lincoln thoughts, and I needed an outlet for everything I’ve been thinking about. I spend a lot of time each day thinking and talking about the life and legacy of Abraham Lincoln. I sat down the other day and did a little math. Over the last ten months I have worked at Lincoln Home National Historic Site, I have given approximately 1,260 tours of the Lincoln Home to over 17,000 people from all over the world—which means I have spent over 500 hours in the home just giving tours. During the summer, on those days when we would take 1,700 visitors on tours, I would go home so completely exhausted that I didn’t think I could last another day as a park ranger at the Lincoln Home. But then I would think about why I do what I do, and I would take heart from the knowledge that I was telling the story of one of the most important men in history. Why is Abraham Lincoln so important? He led our nation through its most difficult time and forever changed the course of American history. He created a new, stronger America; and I only hope that people in our country today will not forget why Abraham Lincoln and so many soldiers died in the Civil War. They died so that we could enjoy the freedoms we have today—and we should never take those things for granted. As Lincoln said in the Gettysburg Address:

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave their last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.

It is important to remember that he wasn’t just talking about Union troops—he was talking about the Confederates too. On that note, I would like to share a few of my thoughts about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. Every day I try to make sense of why such a great American tragedy as the Civil War had to happen. I wonder how Abraham Lincoln had the courage and the foresight to make the difficult decisions he did. Here are some conclusions I have made:

Abraham Lincoln was a man with an impossible task. After being elected to be the 16th President of the United States in November 1860, he and his family remained at his home of seventeen years in Springfield, Illinois, for four months before heading off to Washington, D.C. During those four months, seven states seceded from the rest of the United States, laying the foundation for the Confederate States of America. So even before taking office, Abraham Lincoln faced a very big dilemma: should he allow the southern portion of his country leave, or should he assert his authority and try to keep his country together? It is hard to imagine the weight that rested upon his shoulders. Thankfully he was a strong and wise enough man to bear that burden and ultimately do what was best for his country—though the road he traveled was wrought with uncertainty, criticism, difficulty, and death.

Abraham Lincoln could have let the southern states form their own country; and then the Civil War may not have ever happened. Hundreds of thousands of men and women might not have died; and Lincoln himself might not have been killed. But Lincoln knew that the great experiment undertaken by our Founding Fathers was worth fighting for. If Lincoln let part of the country leave, then what would stop other states from leaving at some point as well? The United States had been founded by men who believed, against the norms of their time, that a democratic nation composed of sovereign states could exist under a central government “of the people and by the people.” If states could leave that nation at will, then the experiment would fail. It could be said that Abraham Lincoln finished what the Founding Fathers started—he ensured that their experiment would not fail. He solidified the United States as “one nation, under God.” As Lincoln stated, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” The price of keeping that figurative house together, however, was unimaginable, as was Abraham Lincoln’s role in the whole affair. He literally had to invade his own country and authorize his generals to fight against and, if need be, kill his fellow countrymen.

As the Civil War ensued and reports of casualties arrived at the White House, what did Lincoln think? Surely he wondered if he was doing the right thing—especially when newspapers throughout the north and south claimed that Lincoln was responsible for the deaths of each and every soldier. But it may not have been the dead that weighed heavily on Lincoln’s mind—it was probably the living. He saw, first hand, the devastation experienced by the South. People—his people—had their lives and fortunes ruined by the war. Lincoln also knew what it was like to lose a son. He had lost one back in Springfield, and another while at the White House. His sons, like the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who perished, were too young to die. How could one man deal with so much grief and guilt? Though Lincoln was not a particularly religious man prior to becoming President, he surely had to turn to God to help him understand and cope with the death and uncertainty that surrounded him.

Then there was the issue of slavery. Lincoln did not believe that one man had the right to own another, but when he first took office he planned to leave slavery alone where it already existed. But as the Civil War dragged on, the heart of the issues dividing the country became very clear. Those who believed that slavery should remain a legal institution were passionate in that belief; and those believed that slavery was inhumane were equally, if not more, passionate in their belief. As Lincoln said, he couldn’t see the country remaining together, half slave and half free—it would all become one way or the other. When Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, the hue of the Civil War changed in the North. Many Northern soldiers had simply been fighting to keep their country together, or to prevent a rebellion by the Southern states. But now they were essentially fighting to free the slaves. Some were fine with this, while others were not. Many men left the Union Army because they did not want to fight to free the slaves. Yet others, particularly African-American soldiers, then joined the army for the sole purpose of freeing the slaves. It could be assumed that Lincoln’s new purpose in bringing freedom to the slaves made it easier for him to deal with the death and devastation of war. But what about those Southern soldiers who weren’t fighting to keep slavery? Most of the Confederate Army was made up of farmers—not slave owners—but men who were fighting to protect their families and then homes. Lincoln surely understood the plight of the common Southern soldier, and it must have pained him to know that these men and their families were caught in between a political and moral battle that, except for the war’s proximity to their homes, never would have affected them.

People throughout the country begged Lincoln to put an end to the war. If he would just let the South leave, the killing could stop. But Lincoln knew that the country needed to be preserved. So he, along with the soldiers and citizens in both the north and south, persevered through four long years of war. In the end, approximately 620,000 Americans were dead. But with the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia on April 9, 1865, a weight was lifted from Abraham Lincoln’s shoulders—the killing could stop, and the country would be preserved. Mary Lincoln said that her husband finally seemed happy after five years of pain and uncertainty. Unfortunately one more casualty would be added to the list of Civil War dead. Abraham Lincoln’s happiness only lasted for five days. On April 14, 1865, he was shot by John Wilkes Booth and died the next morning. Abraham Lincoln had paid the ultimate price and given the “last full measure of devotion.” Just as Abraham Lincoln said of those who died at Gettysburg, it is important for us to make sure that Abraham Lincoln did not die in vain. We have a responsibility to remember Lincoln and all who participated in the Civil War, to preserve their memory, and to uphold the values for which they fought and died.

Sam R. Watkins, a Confederate soldier, may have summed it up best when he said: “But when we pass away, the impartial historian will render a true verdict, and a history will then be written in justification and vindication of those brave and noble boys who gave their all in fighting the battles of their homes, their country, and their God. The United States has no North, no South, no East, no West. We are one and undivided.”

May it forever remain so, and may we never forget our priceless heritage.