With long lives today, knowing people who knew famous people sends tingles up the spine.
I wrote about one such connection in the post "Doctor treated both Revolutionary War soldier and people alive today."
Doing some late-night reading this week, I ran across two other examples within minutes of each other:
-- Lila Fourhman-Shaull's "A Walking Tour of Civil War-Era residents at Prospect Hill Cemetery" tells the story of Franklin Ginter. Ginter fought with the 87th Regiment, the premier York County unit, in the Civil War and was the last such veteran buried in York's Prospect Hill Cemetery. "One of his fondest memories was shaking hands with President Lincoln at the latter's inauguration," Fourhman-Shaull, Heritage Trust archivist, wrote.
So, consider this: No doubt some folks are alive today who shook hands with a soldier who shook hands with Abe.
--- Os Guinness' "The Call" tells about early church father Justin Martyr who marveled that some farmers in second-century Israel still used well-built plows made by a couple of Gallilean carpenters.
The craftsmen?
Joseph and Jesus.
Talk about tingles.
Ah Yes, I recently shook hands with the granddaughter of Franklin Ginter when I met her to do research for the book I'm working on. I got chills later when I thought about the fact that she sat in the lap of and was held by her grandfather who in turn had shaken hands with Abraham Lincoln.
They say we have 6 degrees or less of separation between ourself and anyone else on the planet, but we rarely think that there may be that same small degree of separation from those who lived 140 years ago and earlier.
he was my great great great great grandfather and i have info on him he was one of the gettysbergs soilder.