Sunday, May 23, 2010

Carl Sandburg in Galesburg, Illinois

This is the birth home of Carl Sandburg, poet, and biographer of Abraham Lincoln. He was born and lived for many years in Galesburg, Illinois. This city is also the home of another famous American--Nancy Reagan. She and Ronald, long before they met walked these streets and didn't even know it. Amazing what you learn!!!
Remembrance Rock is where his ashes are interred. His wife and daughters also have their ashes interred under this rock. It's a beautiful garden behind the house and there are stepping stones around it with quotations from some of his most notable poems etched in them.

This was the kitchen of his birth place. Most of the things in this home were owned by his family. They may not have been in this home at the time he was born, but they still belonged to his family, which was interesting to see.


This was one of his guitars. Another thing I didn't know about him before I went to his home was that he was quite a folk song singer. In fact, he collected a whole book of folk songs while he was traveling the railroad as a hobo. He spent a lot of years collecting them and put them into one book. He even gave some concerts, not like we know concerts, but it was amazing to learn the skills this man had.



They had about thirty magazine covers on which Carl Sandburg was pictured. The amazing thing to me was that he had not submitted his work for publication initially, it was his wife. She was the one who received all the rejection letters. What I wonder is how the publishers felt after they realized who they had turned down.




This is a picture in the visitor's center of Carl Sandburg adressing a joint session of Congress. I didn't know he was a socialist. I'm surprised they didn't have a picture of him before the McCarthy committee. Anyway, notice the president of the Senate, then Vice-President Richard Nixon.





This is his old Remington typewriter. I think that's the kind of typewriter I had when I was growing up and I wasn't born nearly as long ago as he was. Little did I know our typewriter was an antique. But my old Apple IIe is an antique now.






The many faces of Carl Sandburg. This was a picture hanging in the main entryway of the visitor's center. The visitor's center is a home that is older than his by about 5 years and is about twice the size. They showed an interview with him and Edward R. Murrow as you enter and then you can look at the memorabilia and the orginial home.







3 comments:

Ryan Cowley said...

Julie used to teach at Carl Sandburg Elementary! Small world!

Bressler Bunch said...

Man! I got on to leave a comment that I used to teach at that school and dang Becky beat me to it! Don't steal my comments! : )

Mr C said...

Good information about Carl Sandburg. I didn't know a lot of that. I did know that Julie taught at Carl Sandburg Elementary. Now it seem so fitting to name a school after him!