Week 3- James Garfield Memorial at Lakeview Cemetery & his home, Lawnfield, Mentor

Have you ever wanted to go back in time, to feel like you are living in a house, and climbing the stairs and sitting on a chair and watching the people at the dinner table?

Well, that's exactly what it felt like at Lawnfield, President James Garfield's home in Mentor. the park ranger that led our tour was so enthusiastic and informative about the Garfield family and home, it seemed as though we got to know the President, his wife Lucretia, and their five children. We could picture them reading a book, running through the wide hallways
or greeting voters out on the sweeping front porch at the first ever "Front Porch Campaign."

Hundreds of people would take the train to Mentor, get off at the train depot that was built right at the edge of Garfield's farm, and walk a path through his farm fields to listen to his eloquent speeches. Candidates at this time thought it wasn't "presidential" to go to the people to campaign, so they came to him.

One of the things I love about this project is that it makes me want to learn so much more about this president who was assassinated and served less than a year in office. He was successful at a variety of occupations: college president, farmer, congressman, general.

Sometimes we Ohioans take for granted our state's title of "Mother of Presidents." President Garfield is an example of why we shouldn't. He had the potential to be a great president. It's
our loss that he wasn't given the chance

Some important numbers about President Garfield:

200- Number of days in office

80- Number of days he lingered after a gun shot wound by a disgruntled seeker of a diplomatic post. Medical experts believe he could have survived the injury had he had better care, even at that time.

5-Number of children he had. James served as Secretary of the Interior under T. Roosevelt. Abram attended M.I.T. and became an accomplished architect. Harry served as president of Williams College. Molly was the only daughter that survived childhood.

185-The number of acres of the original farm. Now just 8 acres, it was given to the Western

Reserve Historical Society in 1936 by the Garfield family. Over 80 percent of the furnishings are original.

350,00-The amount of money that was raised in a trust for Mrs. Garfield to use after her husband's death (would be over 5 million dollars in today's currency) There had been no provision made for Mary Todd Lincoln after Lincoln's assassination, so businessman Cyrus Field took it upon himself to help raise money for Lucretia.

29-Rooms in Lawnfield. Above is the Presidential library that Mrs. Garfield had built after her husband's death. It contains all of his papers and some of his extensive book collection. The rest are in many book shelves around the house. This is one of the things that made this visit so meaningful and authentic for me; to be able to see the books that were read, in the chair that he sat in, in the room that he used. It was an amazing way to bring history alive!

A solemn way to end my President Garfield visit was to his tomb and memorial at Lake view Cemetery.

Here's the tower that rises above the trees.

The front entrance. Isn't it majestic?

The view from the observation deck at the top of the monument. What an amazingly clear day to see downtown.

The statue of Garfield inside the monument. On the floor beneath, he and his wife are entombed in a crypt, and the ashes of Molly and her husband are kept there also. It was kind of spooky down there.

This summer project of visiting a museum-a-week is so fun! Can't wait to see where it takes me next week. Katy, Nate, boys and dogs are all here. I'll see if I can find something that would interest them.