The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1920-03-13

It seems to be the prevailing inn pression with many people that not | until quite recent years have Ameri- 1 can women accomplished anything worth while outside of the realm of housekeeping and school teaching. | To those who are under that inn pression, it will doubtless be an an agreeable surprise to learn that more than half century ago a young girl, still in her teens, was i given an order by the federal gov ernment for a statue of Abraham l Lincoln.
 1 Her name was Winnie Ream. This dainty little lass had the dis l tinction of being the first woman in America to be thus honored by the United States government. Her hfe-like statute of Lincoln is l one of the most attractive works of art in the capitol at Washington. It stands directly opposite the main en- i trance to the rotunda.
 1 The career of this most 1ovable i and highly talented woman was of l such a character as well calculated | to fire the ambition of every girl in | this country with the possibility of 1 accomplishing big things in life. No
 girl can read about the career of Vim 1 nie Iseam without absorbing inspira- | ton.
 When she began her daily visits to 1 the White House to make her study of the great President Miss Ream was
 only sixteen years old. Many years | later she described her experience in | these simple but heart touching
 words: "The opportunity I had to l study Abraham Lincoln was indeed
 unusual because of it's intimacy and 1 because of the unusual conditions 1 under which I saw him.
 l When knew him and spent half an hour daily with him while modelling 1 my statute, he was nearing that
 greatest of tragedies in American his tory, the assassination in the theatre.
 So I knew the ultimate man. I met
 him also as an impressionable young
 girl of sixteen, and the munitions
 of such a child as was are very apt l to be correct.
 ''The mind of that age is as plastic
 as clay and receives an impression ] as readily, and that impression is
 likely to harden and be permanently
 retained. At sixteen I was mature ! enough to grasp very we'll the char
 acter of the man. So I think I am in
 a position which gives me an advant-
 ave over almost any one else in the
 world with reference to personal i'm ! |.
 Lincoln had been painted and
 modelled before, and when friends
 of mine asked him to sit for me he
 dismissed them wearily until he was
 told that I was but an ambitious girl,
 poor and obscure. He granted me
 sittings for no other reason than that I was in need. Had been the great
 est sculptor in the world I am quite
 sure I would have been refused. 'I came for half an hour every day. I was the merest slip of q child weighing Jess than ninety pounds, and the contrast between the raw-boned man and me was indeed great. I sat demurely in my corner and begged
 MT. Lincoln not to allow me to dis turb him. It seemed that he used this half hour as a time for relaxa- ton. for he always left instructions that no one was to be admitted dur
 ing that time.
 'He seemed to find strange sort of companionship in being with me although we talked but little. His favorite son, Willie, had just died , and this had been the greatest per . sonal sorrow in a life that was most , 1 1y sorrowful. I made him think O Willie. He often said so and as ofter
 wept.
 'I thingk that history is particular ! 1y correct in writing Lincoln dowl as the man of sorrow. The one great , lasting, all dominating impression | that I have always carried of Lincoll . has been that of unfathomable sor a l row, and it was this that I tried t
 put into my statue. When he sa
 for me I believe that he let himsel | go and fell into the mood that wa! | ever within him, but against whicl . | he struggled. He never told a funn. e story to me. He rarely smiled. S T remember him especially in tw' ' l attitudes. The first of these was witl
 his great form slouched into the chai
 at his desk, his huge feet extended Q his head bowed on his chest, deepl 7 thoughtful. I think he was, durin , those moments following in mint ' some such thing as the operation o 1 the army of Grant against Richmond . l appraising the horrible sacrifices tha V every day brought upon the people o
 his nation, feeling that all the death
 that wisdom and forethought migh
 prevent would and should be laid a
 his door. He was hearing the cries 0
 suffering that were coming from tn ~ prisons and the sogs of the mother
 for sons lost like his own.
 ''The second attitude that he mos
 often assumed was by the windo1 o that looked out upon the Whit . House lawn. I always thought tha ,' when he stood by the window he wa - looking out for Willie, for he ha II watched the boy play many an after Ill noon from that very window. B wa
 as he stood by the window that tn
 great tears would course down hi s hollow cheeks and he would be force to dry them with his handkerchie: On two or three occasions he wa so broken with his grief that he san
 into chair by the window and weF -e aloud A, big, strong man broken b 1e grief is always a tragic thing to set c ( but never was there grief equal .- Lincoln's.
 ii t'In all the months that I had m i- daily half-hour with Lincoln the or der that we were not to be interrupt ed was broken but twice, and in eac
 of these Interruptions the breach wa
 strangely illustrative of the characte
 of the man. The first person who ir M truded upon the rest hour was a WIG
 man of middle age. She was tn
 mother of a boy who had worn tn Ut grey and who had been captured an at was in the old Capitol prison.