One of my aunts had a furniture store in Illinois…
her husband, my uncle, had a junk yard, which she hated,
He told me long ago that one time before I was born,
he took a big old oak rocker from his junkyard and put it in her furniture store window.
He said he didn’t want to just give it away at a junkyard price…. but she had a fit.
Until, that is, he turned it over and showed her where “A. Lincoln” was burned into the bottom of the seat.
Well, like everybody in Illinois she knew Abraham Lincoln had owned a rocking chair….
She put $2,000 on the chair and called the local newspaper…
Those were more innocent days…..the pictures made it as far as the Chicago papers before Lincoln historians started to cry “fraud.”
That part seems true, cos he showed me the clippings.
He said he then called the local paper and admitted he used my cousin’s wood-burning tool to write the name.
It was a “joke.”
Ha ha.
Today he’d never get away with it….
but back then everybody just laughed…..
A few tourists came to see the fake Lincoln chair……
and supposedly some rich guy gave him $500 for it anyway,
cos he liked the story…….
Though truthfully, my uncle told a lot of stories…
and that last part might be one of them.
One of my aunts had a furniture store in Illinois…
her husband, my uncle, had a junk yard, which she hated,
He told me long ago that one time before I was born,
he took a big old oak rocker from his junkyard and put it in her furniture store window.
He said he didn’t want to just give it away at a junkyard price…. but she had a fit.
Until, that is, he turned it over and showed her where “A. Lincoln” was burned into the bottom of the seat.
Well, like everybody in Illinois she knew Abraham Lincoln had owned a rocking chair….
She put $2,000 on the chair and called the local newspaper…
Those were more innocent days…..the pictures made it as far as the Chicago papers before Lincoln historians started to cry “fraud.”
That part seems true, cos he showed me the clippings.
He said he then called the local paper and admitted he used my cousin’s wood-burning tool to write the name.
It was a “joke.”
Ha ha.
Today he’d never get away with it….
but back then everybody just laughed…..
A few tourists came to see the fake Lincoln chair……
and supposedly some rich guy gave him $500 for it anyway,
cos he liked the story…….
Though truthfully, my uncle told a lot of stories…
and that last part might be one of them.