<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">"TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE" MINISTRIES </font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Jim & Marie Watt</font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">PO Box </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">25116 – Federal Way</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">WA</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">98093-2116</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></span></b></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Tel: 253.874.4256 – Email: </font><a href="mailto:jmbetter@gmail.com"><font face="Times New Roman">jmbetter@gmail.com</font></a></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Web: </font><a href="http://www.2rbetter.org/"><font face="Times New Roman">www.2rbetter.org</font></a><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>-- </font></span></b><font face="Times New Roman"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">April 5, 2008</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></span></b></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">"HE LOVED ME TRULY" – </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Lincoln</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">'s Step-mother.</span></b></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">By Bernadine Bailey & Dorothy Walworth</font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">The Reader's Digest Association, Inc. (February 1945 issue)</font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">THE BRIDE rode with her husband on the high front seat of the jolting wagon. She was 31 years old, and, in 1819, that was middle-aged, for most pioneer women died early. It was a December day, cold for </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Kentucky</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">, and they were headed north toward forest country. "I reckon it'll be fine weather," she said, for she was the sort to make the best of things.</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Yesterday Tom had arrived on horseback, all the way from his </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Indiana</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> farm, at her house in </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Elizabethtown</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">. He had come straight to the point: "Miss Sally, I have no wife and you no husband. I came a-purpose to marry you. I knowed you from a girl and you knowed me from a boy. I've no time to lose. If you're willin', let it be done straight off."</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">That morning they had been married at the Methodist parsonage. The preacher wrote down that she, Sarah Bush Johnston, had been three years a widow and Tom's wife had died last winter. The horses and wagon Tom had borrowed waited outside. The wagon was piled high with her household goods, so that there was scarcely room for her three children. Tom had two children of his own; he hadn't told them he was bringing back a new mother. There was a shadow in her blue-gray eyes when she thought about that. Maybe they'd feel she didn't belong.</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">A raft ferried the wagon across the half-frozen </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Ohio River</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">. The air sharpened; the wheels sank to their hubs in snow. After five days they came to a log cabin in a small clearing on Little Pigeon River. It had no windows, and the door was only a deerskin-covered opening. A stick chimney plastered with clay ran up the outside.</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Tom hallooed and a little boy ran out of the door. He was thin as a scarecrow, and wore a ragged shirt and tattered deerskin pants. But it was the look in his eyes that went to Sarah's heart, although it was a look she couldn't put a name to. She got down from the wagon, opened her arms and folded him close.</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">"I reckon we'll be good friends," she said. "Howdy, Abe Lincoln."</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">She had never been in the wilderness before; she had known small-town comfort. This was a one-room cabin, with no real floor, only packed dirt. The bedstead was a makeshift of boards laid on sticks against the wall, with a mattress of loose cornhusks. The bedcovers were skins and cast-off clothing. Ten-year-old Abe and his 12-year-old sister had always slept on piles of leaves up in the loft, to which they climbed by pegs fastened to the wall. The furniture was some three-legged stools and a table axed smooth on top, bark side under. Dennis Hanks, an 18-year-old cousin of Tom's first wife, Nancy Hanks, was living with the family and had been trying to cook with the help of a Dutch oven, one battered pot, and a couple of iron spoons. Although she must have expected a place far better than this, all Sarah said was, "Tom, fetch me a load of firewood. I aim to heat some water."</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">This new stepmother with the rosy face and the bright curly hair wasted no time. As soon as the water steamed, she brought out of her own belongings a gourd full of homemade soap. Then, in front of the hot fire, she scrubbed Abe and his sister and combed their matted hair with her own clean shell comb. When the wagon was unpacked, little Abe, who had not said a word, ran his bony fingers over such wonderful things as a walnut bureau, a clothes chest, a loom and real chairs. And that night, when he went to bed in the loft, he did not find the leaves; she had thrown them outdoors. He had a feather mattress and a feather pillow, and enough blankets so he was warm all night.</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">In a couple of weeks, a body wouldn't have known the place. Sarah had what folks called "faculty"; she worked hard and she could make other people work, too. Even Tom, who meant well but was likely to let things slide. She never said he must do thus and so; she was too wise and too gentle. But somehow Tom found himself making a real door for the cabin and cutting a window, like she wanted. He put down a floor, chinked up the cracks between the logs, white-washed the inside walls. Abe couldn't get over how sightly it was. And she wove Abe shirts out of homespun cloth, coloring them with dye she steeped out of roots and barks. She made him deerskin breeches that really fitted, and moccasins, and a coonskin cap. She had a mirror and she rubbed it bright and held it up so's he could see himself – it was the first time he had ever seen himself – and he said, "Land o'Goshen, is that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">me</i>?"</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Sometimes, in the early mornings, when Sarah laid a new fire in the ashes, she got to thinking it was queer how things come about. When Tom Lincoln had courted her, 14 years ago, she had turned him down for Daniel Johnston. Tom had been 12 years married to Nancy Hanks, who died so sudden from the "Milk sick." And now, after all these years, Tom and she were together again, with his children and her children to feed and do for.</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">The cabin was 18 feet square and there were eight people under its flimsy roof. Sarah was taking what was left of two households, along with the orphan boy, Dennis Hanks. Somehow she must make them into a family of folks who loved each other; she wanted them to feel like they had always been together. There was plenty of chance for trouble, what with the two sets of young'uns who had never laid eyes on each other till now, and all the stories Abe and his sister had heard folks tell about stepmothers. Those first weeks, Sarah felt mighty anxious. Especially about Abe, though he did what she said and never answered her back. Once she saw him looking at her real serious when she was putting some johnnycake into the oven. "All my life I'm goin' to like johnnycake best," he said suddenly, and then scooted through the door. You couldn't figure Abe out. As Dennis said, "There's somethin' peculiarsome about Abe."</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Maybe, if it hadn't been for her, he wouldn't have lived to be a man. He had always grown so fast and never had enough to eat. But now, when he had eaten enough johnnycake and meat and potatoes that were cooked through and not just burned on top, he stopped looking so pinched and putty-color. And he wasn't so quiet any more. Now he had some flesh on his bones, he wasn't solemn. Why, he was fuller of fun than anybody. He learned to tell yarns, like his father, but he tried them out on Sarah first, and she laughed in the right places. She stood up for him, too, when he'd laugh out loud, all of a sudden, at things nobody else could understand, and Tom thought he was being sassy. "Abe's got a right to his own jokes," Sarah said.</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Sometimes Sarah thought, all to herself, that she loved Abe more than her own children. But she didn't really. It was just that she knew, deep down in her heart where she told nobody but God, that Abe was somebody special, who didn't belong to her but was hers to keep for a while.</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">When Abe was little, Tom hadn't minded his walking nine miles to the "blab school"<br><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>where the scholars learned their letters by saying them over and over out loud. But now Abe was older and stronger, Tom didn't see why he shouldn't stay home and chop down trees and cradle wheat or hire out to the neighbors for husking corn at 30 cents a day. Of course, he felt kind of proud when the neighbors came to have Abe write their letters with the pen he had made out of a buzzard's quill and the brier-root ink. But Abe was "reachin' too fur" when he kept reading books instead of clearing swamps; Tom told Abe you didn't need to know so almighty much to get along.</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">If Sarah hadn't taken Abe's part against his father, Abe wouldn't have got as much schooling as he did, though goodness knows it wasn't much. He learned, as the folks said, "by littles." But through the years she held out against Tom, no matter if Tom said she was plumb crazy.</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Abe would rather read than eat. He'd read in the morning, soon's it was light enough to see; he'd read in the evening when the chores were done; he'd read when he plowed, while the horse was resting at the end of the row. He walked 17 miles to borrow books from Lawyer Pitcher at Rockport. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Aesop's Fables. Robinson Crusoe. Pilgrim's Progress. Shakespeare. The Statutes of </i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Indiana</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">.</span></i><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> When his borrowed Weeks' <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Life of Washington</i> got rained on, he worked three full days to pay for it. Once he gave a man 50 cents for an old barrel and found Blackstone's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Commentaries</i> at the bottom of it, and you'd think he'd found a gold mine. He began reading late at night by the fire, and when Tom complained, Sarah said, "Leave the boy be." She always let him read until he quit of his own accord, and if he fell asleep there on the floor she would get a quilt and wrap it gently around him.</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">He did his ciphering on a board, and when the board got too black, he'd plane it off and start again. If he read something he liked a lot, he'd write it down. He was always writing, and was most always out of paper. He'd put charcoal marks on a board, for a sign of what he wanted to write, and when he got paper he'd copy it all down. And he'd read it out loud to Sarah by the fire, after Tom and the rest had gone to bed. "Did I make it plain?" he always asked her. It made her real proud when he asked her about his writing, and she answered him as well as anybody could who didn't know how to read or write.</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">They told each other things they told nobody else. He had dark spells when nobody but her could make him hear. Spells when he thought it was no use to hope and to plan. Abe needed a lot of encouraging.</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">In 1830, Tom decided to look for better farm land in </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Illinois</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">, and the family moved to </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Coles</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">County</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> on Goose Nest Prairie. There Abe helped his father build the two-room cabin where Sarah and Tom were to spend the rest of their lives. The place was hardly built when the day came that Sarah had foreseen, the day when Abe would leave home. He was a man grown, 22 years old, and he had a chance to clerk in Denton Offut's store over in New Salem. There was nothing more she could do for Abe; for the last time she had braved out Tom so's Abe could learn; for the last time she had kept the cabin quiet so's Abe could do his reading.</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">At first he came back often, and, later on, after he got to be a lawyer, he visited Goose Nest Prairie twice a year. Every time Sarah saw him, it seemed like his mind was bigger. Other folks' minds got to a place and then stopped, but Abe's kept on growing. He told her about his law cases, and, as time went on, he told her about his going to the state legislature and his marrying Mary Todd. After Tom died, in 1851, Abe saw to it that she didn't want for anything.</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">When she heard Abe was going to </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Charleston</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> for his fourth debate with Stephen A. Douglas, she went there, too, without saying a word to Abe. It would be enough – it had always been enough – just to watch him. She was one of the crowd on the street as the parade went by. There was a big float drawn by a yoke of oxen, carrying three men splitting rails, and a big sign, "Honest Abe, the Rail Splitter, the Ox Driver, the Giant Killer." Was that her Abe? And now here he came, riding in a shiny black carriage, and tipping his tall black hat right and left. Was that her Abe? She tried to make herself small, but he saw her and made the carriage stop. Then, right in front of everybody, he got out of the carriage and came over and put his arms around her and kissed her. Yes, that was her Abe.</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">She wasn't the crying kind, but she cried when he was elected President. Alone, where nobody could see her. In the winter of 1861, before he went to </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Washington</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">, he crossed the state to see her, coming by train and carriage in the mud and slush to say good-bye. He brought her a present, a length of black alpaca for a dress; it was too beautiful to put scissors into; after Abe went she'd just take it out and feel of it once in a while.</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Abe looked tired, and he had a lot on his mind, but they had a fine talk. Even when they were silent, they still said things to each other, and he still set store by what she thought. When he kissed her good-bye, he said he'd see her soon, but she knew somehow that she would not see him again.</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Four years later, they came and told her he was dead. The newspapers wrote the longest pieces about his real mother, and that was like it should be, but some folks came and asked her what sort of boy Abe had been. And she wanted to tell them, but it was hard to find the words. "Abe was a good boy," she said. "He never gave me a cross word or look. His mind and mine, what little I had, seemed to run together." And then she added, "He loved me truly, I think."</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Often, during the four years that remained to her, she would sit of an evening and think of Abe. Being a mother, she did not think about him as President, as the man about whom they sang, "We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand strong." She remembered him as a little boy. She was baking johnnycake for him; she was weaving him a shirt; she was covering him with a blanket when he had fallen asleep over his books, trying to keep him safe from the cold.</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Sarah Bush </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Lincoln</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> was buried beside her husband in </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Shiloh</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Cemetery</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">. Her death, on </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">December 10, 1869</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">, passed unnoticed by the nation. For many years she was not even mentioned by historians and biographers. Not until 1924 were the graves of Thomas and Sarah Bush </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Lincoln</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> marked with a suitable stone. More recently, their Goose Nest Prairie home site has been made into a state park, with a reproduction of the two-room cabin which Abraham Lincoln helped to build. And only in the last few years have Americans come to know that, when Abraham Lincoln said, "All that I am I owe to my angel mother," he was speaking of his stepmother.</span></i></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><u><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">NOTE:</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></b><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">So how does the above touch you? It shows a side of </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Lincoln</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> that is most real, and that meant much to him – to the depths of his being.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I trust it touched you as deeply as it touched me.</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Jim Watt</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><u><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">TO SUBSCRIBE – Please Email: </font><a href="mailto:jmbetter-subscribe@skagitattic.no-ip.org"><font face="Times New Roman">jmbetter-subscribe@skagitattic.no-ip.org</font></a></span></u></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><u><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><span style="TEXT-DECORATION: none"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></span></u></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><u><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">TO UNSUBSCRIBE – Please email: </font><a href="mailto:jmbetter-unsubscribe@skagitattic.no-ip.org"><font face="Times New Roman">jmbetter-unsubscribe@skagitattic.no-ip.org</font></a></span></u></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><u><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><span style="TEXT-DECORATION: none"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></span></u></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><u><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">FOR ARCHIVE ARTICLES – Web:</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> <a href="http://skagitattic.no-ip.org/pipermail/jmbetter/">http://skagitattic.no-ip.org/pipermail/jmbetter/</a> <u></u></span></b></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></b></p>