Fay marker relief - Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, IL - Abraham Lincoln on Waymarking.com

Full Lincoln quotation is : “I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God.”

The website listed below provides a great article on Fay titled "Herbert Wells Fay was ambassador to the world at Lincoln’s Tomb"

Excerpt - "If you had visited Lincoln’s Tomb during the 1920s through the 1940s, you most likely would have been warmly greeted by Herbert Wells Fay who was as much a fixture at the tomb as the massive granite marker which bore Lincoln’s name. For 28 years, Fay was the tomb custodian, historian, archivist, tour guide and ambassador to visitors from across the world that came to pay respects to the slain president. When he retired in 1948 at age 89, he boasted that 4 million visitors had signed the guest register at the tomb during his tenure.

In addition to being a gracious host at the tomb, Fay was a relentless, life-long collector of Lincoln related items, amassing an estimated 2 million historically significant photographs and artifacts valued in 1945 at a quarter million dollars. In the 1990s, a portion of the collection sold for $1.5 million.

Fay kept a large portion of his collection in a storage room at the tomb and not exactly to archival standards, apparently."

In this additional article: (visit link) it is pointed out that many did not care for Fay's pack rat tendencies and "A growing number of visitors disapproved of Fay's lectures and relic displays."

Nevertheless the quote and relief are beautiful.

Location Type: Grave Property Type: Public Location Notes: In Oak Ridge Cemetery, facing Lincoln's Tomb. URL for Additional Information: [Web Link] Date of Event: Not listed

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Date Logged Log   04/20/2016 petendot visited it