Destiny of the Republic - Candice Millard [134]
Thanks also go to Richard Tuske, director of the library for the New York City Bar; Anne Thacher, library director of the Stonington Historical Society; Dale Sauter, manuscript curator of the special collections department at East Carolina University; William Bushong at the White House Historical Association; Kathie Pohl, director of marketing and community relations for the City of Mentor; Mary Kramer at Lakeview Cemetery; Kathryn Murphy at the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf; and the staff of the Chicago Historical Society.
For help in understanding Garfield’s physical condition after the shooting and his autopsy report, I am very grateful to Dr. Paul Uhlig, who generously shared his time and exceptional knowledge. For advice on the science behind the induction balance, I would like to thank David Deatherage, an electrical engineer at Pearson Kent McKinley Raaf Engineers. For sending me a copy of his fine article about the medical aspects related to Garfield’s shooting, thanks go to Dr. Ibrahim Eltorai. I am also, and especially, deeply grateful to Dr. Dave Edmond Lounsbury, a brilliant internist who spent months answering my countless questions and pointing out details relating to Garfield’s condition and care that I had overlooked. Dave also read and reviewed every chapter in this book.
I would also like to thank those scholars who devoted many years of their lives to studying and writing about Garfield. I am grateful to Kenneth Ackerman for his compelling book Dark Horse, to Ira Rutkow for James A. Garfield in the American Presidents Series, and to John Shaw, both for his insightful biography of Lucretia Garfield and for his careful reading and editing of James and Lucretia’s letters to each other, which he compiled into a moving and illuminating book. I am indebted to Harry Garfield’s daughter, Lucretia Garfield Comer, who wrote Harry Garfield’s First Forty Years, and to Ruth Feis, Mollie Garfield’s daughter, author of Mollie Garfield in the White House, for their beautifully written books, which give the kind of insight into Garfield’s life that could come only from the members of his family. Finally, I am especially grateful to Alan Peskin, who, with his book Garfield, wrote what is, in my opinion, the definitive Garfield biography. I had the great pleasure to meet Alan in Cleveland, and he generously shared with me his own impressions of Garfield, after having spent a quarter of a century studying him.
Among the most enjoyable experiences I had while researching this book was the time I spent with several of Garfield’s descendants. There is no doubt in my mind that James Garfield would have been exceptionally proud of the fine family that grew out of his marriage to Lucretia. The president’s descendants—from great-grandchildren to great-great-great-grandchildren—were every bit as warm and kind as their famous forefather is remembered to have been. I would especially like to thank James A. Garfield III, known as Jay, who, along with his mother, Sally, and brother, Tom, generously invited me to a delicious, fascinating, and very fun family dinner. I will never forget their kindness and hospitality, or the wonderful stories they told. I am also very grateful to Rudolph Garfield, known as Bob, who shared with me details of his family’s history as well as memories of his grandfather James, who had been in the train station with his father, President Garfield, on that fateful day. I would also like to thank Wyatt Garfield, whom I interviewed over the phone, and Jill Driscoll, Mollie Garfield’s great-great-granddaughter, who kindly sent me a copy of the treatise that her father, a physician, wrote about the medical care Garfield received after the shooting.
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