Lincoln, Willie, and Mausoleums - History at Gawler's Funeral Home

Lincoln Group member Duane Hills, president of Gawler’s and Sons, will host a reception for a limited number of our members at the funeral home on June 28. This will be in-person only, no Zoom particiaption. Duane wrote a wonderful article in the Summer 2021 Lincolnian newsletter about the placement of Willie Lincoln’s body in the William Thomas Carroll mausoleum in the Georgetown Oak Hill Cemetery. Willie died from typhoid in 1862. Lincoln reportedly visited his son’s site of internment repeatedly. This inspired a bestselling novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders. Hills’s article documented his successful efforts to install a marker commemorating the historic internment of Willie’s remains in the mausoleum, where they stayed until removed to accompany his father's body on the train back to Springfield.

Gawler’s has more Lincoln connections. Duane Hills will relate stories of their connections in burying two of the Lincoln conspirators. They…