A Picture of Freedom : Lincoln Postcard That Kept a Child’s Hope Alive Inspires Prize Essay

Michelle Caswell has grown up on stories of her mother’s dreary childhood in postwar communist Bulgaria. But it was not until last fall that the high school senior heard the tale about the Lincoln postcard.

Michelle, a 17-year-old from Orem, Utah, had decided to enter an essay contest with a $2,500 scholarship prize. The subject was that tried and true one, assigned to legions of students of every generation: What Abraham Lincoln meant to her and America.

It turns out that in the Caswell family, Lincoln is considerably more than just a faded face on a penny. Instead of groaning at the thought of helping her daughter with a patriotic essay, Julia Caswell exclaimed: “Oh my God! I need to talk to you,” and sat Michelle down for a two-hour tete-a-tete. By the time it was over, Michelle was in tears, but she knew what she was going to write about.

“Julia’s first-grade teacher had visited the United States,” Michelle wrote in the four-paragraph essay. “He gave each child a picture (postcard) of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. This teacher was arrested the next day; but Julia kept her picture of Mr. Lincoln and carried it with her always.”

For a little girl straining for a freedom denied her homeland, the Lincoln image became a consolation and inspiration.

“When Julia’s head would throb with pain from studying, or fear from worshiping in a Greek Orthodox church, Julia would pull out her small picture and cry. She told Mr. Lincoln of all her troubles, and promised to come to him one day. Many nights Julia fell asleep in her tears, clutching the small photograph.”

On Friday, Julia Caswell flashed a proud smile as she and her husband, Tom, listened to their daughter read her winning essay at the Huntington Library in San Marino, standing at the entrance of one of the largest exhibitions ever devoted to the life and achievements of Lincoln. The Caswells had indeed come to Lincoln.

The contest judges said that as soon as they read Michelle’s essay, none of the other 5,000 entries stood a chance. They gave her praise, a $2,500 check and a private tour of the exhibit of letters, documents and personal possessions.

The teen-ager speaks with the fervor of a first-generation American, brimming with disdain for a communism that no longer exists. “Anytime I hear anything about communism I get upset and mad,” Michelle said shortly after receiving her check, awarded by the Farmers Insurance Group of Companies, which sponsored the contest in conjunction with the Huntington exhibit. She will spend the money on her first year at Brigham Young University.

Although Julia Caswell has written an unpublished book about growing up in Bulgaria and had recounted countless episodes of her childhood, she had not talked about the Lincoln postcard. It was, she explained Friday, very personal, and only when the essay contest arose did she feel it was time to speak of it.

She remembers that her mother told her to give the postcard back to her teachers. “She said, ‘We will get in trouble.’ I kept it under my pillow,” said Caswell, who teaches Bulgarian at a training center for Mormon missionaries. “There were a lot of things I needed to share and the little Lincoln card was what I shared them with.”

She fantasized that the long-dead President would emancipate her country and whispered things to him that she dared tell no one.

She managed to escape Bulgaria with her family when she was 16 and came to the United States in 1966 on a scholarship to Brigham Young.

She left the Lincoln postcard in Bulgaria.