The day Larry Elliot’s wife, Mary, came home with that stovepipe hat, he thought she was kidding. They had read online about an annual Abraham Lincoln look-alike contest in Hodgenville, Kentucky, and she just loved the idea of him in costume.
But when Larry put the hat on and looked in the mirror, he had to admit, maybe she was on to something. Larry, an insurance agent from Louisville, was a dead ringer for the sixteenth president of the United States, Honest Abe.
Larry had always been an admirer of Lincoln, partly because both his family and Lincoln’s came from Hodgenville. On childhood visits to his grandparents’ house, Larry’s parents drove around the Hodgenville traffic circle, and he stared out the window, fixated on the statue of Lincoln in the middle.
Lincoln was larger than life, sitting comfortably in his bronze chair. Larry never forgot the sight of him looking down from that marble pedestal. Something about his strong, determined gaze gave Larry chills.
Why not give the contest a shot? The prize was, after all, a hundred dollars.
Larry showed up at the Hodgenville town square on the first weekend in October in his top hat, an overcoat, black pants and boots. He was underdressed and underprepared.
The 25 other contestants wore clothing that looked like it was actually made in the nineteenth century. They knew Lincoln’s speeches backward and forward. A crowd of thousands gawked as Larry stumbled through the speech he hadn’t written down.
“Vote for me and I’ll end slavery!” he finished. The three judges shook their heads.
Perhaps it was the memory of Lincoln’s steely gaze that made Larry commit to redeeming himself. He began studying the president seriously, reading his speeches, biographies and contemporary accounts. Lincoln’s second Inaugural Address and the Gettysburg Address captured Larry’s imagination and he learned them by heart.
What captivated him the most, however, were the stories about Lincoln’s faith. Especially the mysterious dreams that came to him at pivotal moments in his life.
He had one such dream in July 1861, as Union forces in western Virginia sought to break the Confederate lines. Lincoln saw himself on a boat sailing toward shore with a sense of urgency and a cool, refreshing ocean mist on his face.
The next day, General McClellan routed the Confederate Army at Rich Mountain. The connection was lost on Lincoln until he had the dream again in September. The very next day, the Union won a hard-fought victory at Carnifex Ferry. The dream came again and again, always before a major victory.
Lincoln believed the dreams were sent by God, assuring him that the course he’d set for the nation was the right one.
Not long before his death, Lincoln had another strange dream. He found himself walking down the stairs of the White House toward the East Room. There he saw a corpse on a bier covered by a cloth, amid mourners in black.
“Who is dead in the White House?” he asked.
“The president. He was assassinated,” came the solemn response. It was something that Lincoln would share with only his closest friends, his wife and his Cabinet members.
He did not take the sign lightly. He considered staying home from the performance at Ford’s Theatre that April night in 1865, but decided the Union needed to see that its president was unafraid. It cost him his life.
That faith, that determination, that sacrifice—Lincoln was so much more than a man in a stovepipe hat.
How could I ever think I could fill his shoes? Larry thought.
Then, in the quiet of the library, he stumbled on a discovery. He knew that Lincoln was tall, just like himself, but he didn’t know that Lincoln was six feet four and weighed 180 pounds, with a size 14 shoe—Larry’s exact measurements.
That wasn’t all. Lincoln and Mary Todd had four sons, just like Larry and his own Mary. Larry and Lincoln both counted the Bible as their favorite book, and neither went through a day without a whole pot of black coffee.
One day, Larry received a phone call from his aunt Doris, the genealogy buff. She sounded excited.
“I’ve done some research and found something important. Your great-great-great-great-grandmother Mary Brooks LaRue Enlow was there at Lincoln’s birth. What’s more, she was the midwife. That’s right. She ushered that baby into this world.”
Okay, this sounded too good to be true. Could Larry’s own family have played such an important role in Lincoln’s life?
Larry drove an hour south on Route 65 from Louisville to Hodgenville. There he met the retired county clerk of Hodgenville and caretaker of the Redhill Cemetery, who took Larry to the county records. Aunt Doris’s discovery was confirmed.
“There’s more,” the man said, peering at the crumbling, yellowed, oversized record book, “It looks as though her daughter was present. Larry, two of your family members were at Lincoln’s birth.”
Larry felt the chills he’d had when he first saw Lincoln’s statue as a young boy. Portraying Lincoln was more than a lark. It was a mission to keep his story alive.
Larry created a website and took acting lessons. He put his soul into his portrayal, vowing to educate the audience about Lincoln—his faith and principles, not just the familiar deeds recorded in history books.
At the next Hodgenville contest Larry won second place. By then he didn’t even care about the hundred-dollar prize.
After Larry retired from his insurance job, he devoted all his time to portraying Lincoln. Mary decided he wasn’t spending enough time with her, so she bought a black period dress, studied her role carefully, and became a Mary Todd portrayer.
Today she joins Larry on his trips to schools and museums. They are doing more than simply re-creating history; they are carrying on a family legacy. Bringing Lincoln into the world again.
