Shook Hands With Lincoln

RETZ, HUMBERT

Posted By: Marilyn Holmes (email)
Date: 4/19/2010 at 21:00:56

The Grinnell Herald (Grinnell, Iowa) Feb. 25, 1930

SHOOK HANDS WITH LINCOLN

Mrs. Josephine Retz, a sister of Joseph Humbert, who lives on Route 4 near Grinnell, has a vivid recollection of Abraham Lincoln, dating from her girlhood days. An interview with her, accompanied by a picture, in the Minneapolis Journal of Feb. 12, Lincoln's Birthday, tells of the day long ago when she rode 15 miles into Ottawa, Ill., to hear the great Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas debate on the slavery question. Mrs. Retz will be 91 years old in April, but the memory of that experience is very vivid in her mind.

Lincoln spoke in a little park in Ottawa that summer day. The whole country side gathered to hear the debate. Before the speeches the town and country people staged a parade. The girls of French blood had a float upon which Mrs. Retz rode. Lincoln stood in the middle of it after being introduced to each girl and shaking hands with her. Mrs. Retz still remembers that handshake and the pleasant smile that accompanied it. She remembers little of the actual words of the debate but she recalls that her father, always a democrat before and afterwards, voted for Lincoln for president that year.

Mrs. Retz came to the United States from France when she was only five years old. The little family drove out 70 miles from Chicago into the country behind an ox team, stopping for the night at a country tavern. When they offered payment in the morning the inn keeper refused it, with the words, "LaFayette paid for this."

When Lincoln was assassinated Mrs. Retz' father took her to Chicago to see the funeral cortege on its way to Springfield. The whole country was in mourning. Chicago was hung with black and white and pictures of Lincoln were everywhere.

Mrs. Retz' husband also attended the Lincoln-Douglas debate at Ottawa but the two were not married until a year later. They moved to Iowa and Mrs. Retz has spent most of her life in this state. She was in Minneapolis to visit a daughter.

In the interview Mrs. Retz recalled many incidents of her pioneer life, telling particularly of Indian uprisings. She told of one time when all the people of the countryside fled into town for protection except one family. The Indians swooped down upon this family, killed the father and mother and carried off the two girls to a point near Dubuque. An old Indian chief helped the white men to recover the girls but could never return to his own people, who would have killed him. He remained with the white men for the rest of his life and Mrs. Retz often saw him during her girlhood. He was a great hero in the community.