These famous words originated with the good and lowly Abraham Lincoln: “All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.” His affection for his mother was very strong, and long after her death he would speak of her affectionately and tearfully. She was a woman five feet five inches in height, slender of figure, pale of complexion, sad of expression, and of a sensitive nature. Of a heroic nature, she yet shrank from the rude life around her. About two years after her removal from Kentucky to Indiana she died. “Abe” was then ten years old. She was buried under a tree near the cabin home, where little “Abe” would often betake himself and, sitting on her lonely grave, weep over his irreparable loss. Lincoln’s mother was buried in a green pine box made by his father. Although a boy of ten years at that time, it was through his efforts that a parson came all the way from Kentucky to Indiana three months later to preach the sermon and conduct the service. The child could not rest in peace till due honor had been done his dead mother. |