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| Students from Columbus Elementary School in Glendale, Calif. doug kim/special to the christian science monitor |
How one man brings Abe Lincoln to life
J.P. Wammack is one of hundreds of people who put on public presentations of the 16th president at schools, libraries, and other venues.
from the April 11, 2008 edition
Page 2 of 3
No wonder. Wammack has been doing his top-hat routine for seven years now, and the coattails in his family are figurative as well as literal: His father, H.M. Wammack, was a Lincoln presenter for 15 years.
After being widowed at 54, H.M. Wammack memorized poems "to keep his mind off tragedy," J.P. says. Soon, he moved on to Lincoln's speeches. Someone asked him to dress as Lincoln and speak at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Los Angeles. He commissioned a Lincoln-style coat and tie, and found a hat that J.P. still wears. He changed his license plate to HM ABE, and after years of driving Cadillacs, he bought – what else? – a Lincoln Continental. When father and son – both history buffs, both insurance salesmen, and a tennis duo – drove around, H.M. Wammack practiced his speeches in the car.
Then in February 2001, health problems prevented H.M. Wammack from giving his annual talk at Forest Lawn. J.P. Wammack filled in. He gave the Gettysburg address three times that day, with Lincoln's words tucked into his top hat just in case – a pragmatic nod to the 16th president, who kept his own speeches in his hat. Between addresses, children swarmed Wammack in the foyer. "They treated me like a celebrity," he recalls. "Their mothers took my picture. I was hooked."
Wammack now seems accustomed to the faux familiarity of celebrity. Strangers make Lincoln jokes everywhere we go. "You're supposed to be splitting logs, not moving tables!" one fan calls out at Wild Thyme.
But for Lincoln presenters, the appeal isn't just in a gleeful crowd. It's about the man himself – his humble roots, his singular character, his pragmatic eloquence. Before reciting the Gettysburg Address for second-graders, Wammack often tells them that the next 272 words are among the most important in history. The first 20 times he gave Lincoln's Farewell Address, Wammack nearly cried.
Still, the Lincoln thespians find a mixed reception among Lincoln scholars in academe. While many biographers welcome the knowledge of Lincoln the presenters share, some worry the line between homage and caricature blurs if Lincoln's words become lost in top hats and coattails. "The fact that [Lincoln] was tall and had a beard – these are relatively surface things about him," says William Lee Miller, a political ethicist at the University of Virginia and author of "Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography."
Wammack, for his part, refuses to address groups that "just want a Lincoln to stand around and smile." He and other ALP members are passionate about their own study of Lincoln and his personal narrative. He "was the ultimate American self-made man," says Dean Dorrell, an ALP vice president. "He led himself to the peak of what he could become, and he brought the country along with him."
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