by Bill Guida
Kenosha News

PLEASANT PRAIRIE - Knowing Abraham Lincoln's last words could have gotten Whittier Elementary School pupils a free ice cream cone Thursday night.

That is, if their parents took them up on a bet proposed by Homer Sewell, who portrayed Honest Abe for Whittier students earlier in the day, courtesy of the school's PTA.

Decked out in the trademark black tails, bow tie and on up to the authentic stovepipe hat like that worn by the 16th president, Sewell provided answers to all kinds of Lincoln trivia to children in grades 3-5.

He suggested few, if any parents would be able to name the play ("Our American Cousin") Lincoln and his wife has attended at Ford's Theater in Washington on April 14, 1865, the night he was shot by John Wilkes Booth.

Selecting four pupils from a group of third-grade classes, Sewell seated them in the same order as the Lincolns and their two guests (a Major Rathbone and his fiancee, Clara Harris, a senator's daughter) in the presidential box.

While peppering them with trivia, he reconstructed details of the assassination, Booth's temporary escape, the fate of the killer's conspirators and alleged conspirators.

Through it all, the irony of Sewell's Jasper, Ga., accent and "Y'all's" was lost on his youthful audience as he walked them through how Booth initiated his well-planned plot - Lincoln's soldier bodyguard John Parker left his post to get some coffee; Booth shot the president behind the

ear, severely slashed Rathbone with a knife, and leapt from the balcony shouting "Sic semper tyrannis." Latin for "Thus to all tyrants."

Earlier in the day, he encouraged pupils to respect their parents and teachers, stay away from drugs, turn off TV and read.

He said in an interview between presentations Thursday that he's had his "AbeMobile," a 28-foot mobile home, on the road for all but a week since June. By May, he'll have visited all 48 contiguous states. In summertime, he is featured at Mount Rushmore by the National Park Service.

Currently on a 31-state swing with his act, which mixes motivational talks with factual information, Sewell also visited Columbus Elementary School on Wednesday.

He first became interested in Lincoln and began to portray him in 1975 after visiting schools in Orlando, Fla., where he'd been invited to talk about the work he did in the White House, where he was assigned from 1965-67 as a switchboard operator with the U.S. Army.

"I stated growing a beard about the same time (in 1975), and the kids said I looked like Lincoln." Sewell said.

Diane Martinelli, Whittier's PTA program coordinator, said she chose Sewell's performance because it mixed history with fun, and she was impressed with how much pupils retained from their morning sessions when queried by Sewell in the afternoon.

Lincoln's last words? Apparently flustered by her husband taking hold of her hand in public, Mary asked him what people would think. His response: "It doesn't really matter."