Friday, February 5, 2010

Sweet Mother of Abraham!


It's 1am and I have a terrible headache and can't sleep. I got up to check my email and figured I'd try to think of something to blog about. In my search, I found that today is Nancy Lincoln's birthday. She was born in 1784 in Virginia. You just might know her from her oh-somewhat-slightly famous son -- Abraham Lincoln. Maybe it's the headache or maybe I'm just weird, but here are some interesting facts about Nancy Lincoln ...

  • Nancy's maiden name was Hanks.
  • As a child, her mother took her on the famous Wilderness Road.
  • Nancy was skilled in needlework and sewing.
  • She had 3 children -- Sarah, Abraham, and Thomas.
  • Nancy died of "milk sickness" in 1818.
  • Nancy was only 34 when she died, Abraham was 9.
  • Abraham helped carve the pegs for his mother's coffin.
  • No authentic photos of Nancy Lincoln are known to exist.
  • Tom Hanks is a distant relative of Nancy Lincoln.
Another thing I found interesting is that in the movie Toy Story 2 when Jessie first meets Woody she yells out, "Sweet mother of Abraham Lincoln!" Very cool. I'll have to pay attention to that the next time I watch it.

7 comments:

  1. Nice little tribute to the mother of Abe. Hope you are feeling better.

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  2. The Toy Story line is the first thing that sprang into my mind when I read your blog post title.

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  3. Yay, sweet mother! Died too young!

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  4. At first I read "Nancy was killed in needlework and sewing." before realizing there was an s there. XD

    I remember her death and the coffin building from my history book! I just didn't know I remembered it until I re-read it... which makes me believe that all I read in school is still buried in my brain! It didn't evaporate into nothing like I thought it would. (math however... no hope there) :D

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  5. I love to read about lives of people. It brings history to life for me and fleshes out the earth shaking wars and political events in history books.

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  6. Very cool! I love all the facts that you dig up!

    Love the Toy Story connection! You Rawk Rena!!!!

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  7. I've always been interested in history. Very interesting!

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