Glenbrooke News

If you missed Tell ME a Story (TELMAS) tonight, you missed one of the best yet.  Neighbor George Beitzel and his wife, Joan, spoke about the “Rubber Room” which had a lot of people scratching their heads wondering what it was all about prior to tonight.

George was a fantastic speaker who kept our rapt attention while he pointed out the way the “facts” of the assignation of President Lincoln were stretched.
Without cameras at either Ford’s Theater or Petersons Boarding house, artists were free to create the ‘death scene’ the way they wanted and blur the lines between fact and fiction.    Figures were added or subtracted at the will of the artist and the political correctness of the period regardless if they were actually in the room or town for that matter.

George had accurate dimensions of the boarding house room where Lincoln was taken and 9 hours later died.   The dimensions were taped onto the ballroom floor and chairs were placed approximately where they were by the bed.     The ‘historical’ pictures first published went from having a handful of people in the room to 47.  After his talk, some of the audience members tried to squeeze into the tiny spaced taped on the floor.

I left thinking,   “why didn’t I have any history teachers like George.”.  It felt like we traveled back time to explore the ever expanding ‘Rubber Room.”