But on to her husband…
His writing career achieved significant notoriety shortly after the Second World War and grew throughout (and after) his lifetime. His poetry has been recited by school children for the last half century. His biography of Abraham Lincoln has been touted as a monumental achievement in Lincoln scholarship, and his under-valued prose is magnificent but often overlooked.
The Sandburg family moved to Flat Rock, North Carolina in 1845 and purchased the former summer home of Cristopher Memminger, who was to become the Secretary of the Treasury for the Confederate States. Sandburg always laughed at the thought of himself, a good socialist, living on a majestic estate once belonging to a man diametrically opposed to his own very liberal beliefs. But it was here that he spent the most productive period of his life writing, and actively engaging in social causes.
