Still going strong after 50 years

The Lincoln Society of Athens, Ohio, established in 1962, is still going strong after 50 years. In fact, all living members convened for a girlfriends' reunion in our hometown this past week, and I brought along Abraham Lincoln coffee mugs (found in the dark recesses of a country store at Seneca Rocks) this time. It is fitting and proper that the mugs, though made in China, were bought in West Virginia, because my home state is the only one in the union established by presidential order -- yes, the great man, himself -- at the end of the Civil War.

Having recently crawled out from under the rock that has weighed me down for over two years, I realized that I did not observe Lincoln's birthday this year, so at the end of September, my friend Bob drove off the beaten path so that I could visit Nancy Hanks' birthplace at a little outpost in the middle of nowhere. The cabin is a replica of what Lincoln's mother would have lived in, but make no mistake: Those women did not have it easy. Try living in such a tiny space with no conveniences like electricity, heat and running water, never mind the Internet and lattes at Starbucks, and you can see that raising young 'uns would be a challenge of staggering proportions. We're obviously going soft as a nation, most of us clinging to our material comforts, so it's no surprise to me that it's often only immigrants who are willing to work even half as hard as our foremothers did.

While I was there, I signed the guestbook on behalf of all of the members of the Lincoln Society of Athens, Ohio: Anne, Mary Ellen, Nanell, Irene, Suzi and Paula, as well as our dear, departed friend Patti.
 

And there in the cabin was the memorable quote from Abraham Lincoln: All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.

I'm just about sure that my own children will use that as their epitaph when the time comes.