SAN DIEGO — I like to ask people, “What is the greatest or most exciting thing that happened in your life?” Some of the answers I received were startling and unexpected. I once asked a woman barber cutting my hair this question. In her reply she recalled a memorable event in her childhood long buried in the fog of life. After she finished her recollection, without stopping her scissors, she remarked, “I’m going to take another look at the path I’ve been traveling.”
Fortunately she finished her reminiscence when she did, otherwise I might have wound up with a G.I. buzz haircut. No one has ever asked me that question I’ve posed to others, but it brings to mind an experience I had in a post retirement four-month trip across the U.S,
After being privately toured around the battlefield of Gettysburg by the late President Eisenhower’s minister, my wife and I returned to take photos of the hotel where Abraham Lincoln stayed the night before he blessed the world with the greatest speech ever spoken since man first walked the Earth-The Gettysburg Address.
After photographing, she went across the street to a public telephone to call her daughter. (before cell phones). While waiting, I noticed a sign besides the entrance door to the hotel: “Lincoln’s Bedroom Museum upstairs.” Curious, I entered the two-story white, wood painted building. Inside, the walls were embellished with red-flocked Victorian wallpaper. I walked upstairs to the second floor, and entered an anteroom filled with books and pamphlets for sale. The only person in the room was a docent, to whom I paid $3.50 to see Lincoln’s bedroom. I was the only customer there, it being late in the day.
The docent ushered me into a small adjacent room which was dimly lit, the two window shades drawn. A dozen empty chairs were placed closely together in front of a three-foot polished wood railing. Beyond the railing was a large bed with a high back, carved wooden headboard. This bed was a replica of the original, now located in a museum. The remaining furniture is authentic and has never been removed from the room. A wooden dresser with a white marble top was against the back wall. On it sat a washbasin and water pitcher. A towel rack mounted on the wall had two white towels hung neatly on the cross bar. The only other furniture was a small, elliptical, stained wood table and a leather covered chair A kerosene lamp was perched on one end of the table. It was at this table, that Lincoln sat the night before his speech, and polished his sixth and final revision of the Gettysburg Address he gave the next day. The room remains exactly as it was after Lincoln departed and closed the door behind him. The hotel owners never let anyone rent the room again.
The docent started a 19-minute tape and left the room. I was alone with the spirit of that giant of humanity. As I listened to the story being told, I reached over the railing and placed my hands on the desk. It was the most humbling and privileged moment I have experienced in my life. When I came out of the room, and expressed my honored feelings to the docent, he told me it was exactly the same sentiment expressed by William Rehnquist, then Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, who had been in the room a few months before.
Lincoln was the second speaker that day. The platform on which he gave the speech was perched on a gentle sloping hill in the graveyard. Quite a sizable crowd gathered. Senator Stevens, a man famous for his booming oratories, gave the first speech. His voice carried to the very last row of the audience. He was given a tremendous ovation. Lincoln’s voice was nowhere near as powerful as the magnificent Stevens. People beyond the middle of the group had to strain to hear his words. Those who could hear the speech gave him a rousing ovation. However, the full effect of the speech was not realized until a week later. The newspaper reporters who were given a written copy of the speech wrote about it and it electrified the nation.
*
Ira Spector is a freelance writer based in San Diego