John Hoblit: Turn the Hearts of the Children IV (preview)

The December afternoon was unseasonably warm due to the El Niño phenomenon, and Monte had taken Brent's hammock and strung it up on the swing set. The hammock actually had been given to Brent by their oldest brother Doug, who had served a church mission in Brazil some years before. He was married and lived near their home in Las Vegas.
Monte was enjoying the warm sun, reading as was his usual pastime, the story of the life of Abraham Lincoln
"Come on Monte," Lynae whined, tugging at Monte's hand and pushing his book away with the other. All you have done on this Christmas vacation is read that book. What's so interesting in that book?"

"Leave me alone, Lynae." Monte gripped. "I said I'd come play with you later, but I didn't say I would entertain you the whole time. I just want to read and get some rest."

You could come on an adventure with us. You are always away when Brent and I go on adventures. You do know that we have been traveling through time and meeting our ancestors, don't you."

"Yeah, right." Monte said, pulling the book closer to his face to block out the sight of anything else.

"Abraham Lincoln, Volume 2 of 3, The War Years." Lynae read the title, "by Carl Sandberg," she continued, determined to get attention from this big brother she so seldom saw. "Brent! Help me get Monte out of the hammock. Let's take him on a family adventure with us."

Brent glanced at the cover of the book Monte was holding very tightly and very close to his face. Behind the book, Brent could see the grimace that he knew so well. Monte was not to be disturbed.

"Oh, Lynae, leave him alone. He probably doesn't even know that he is holding onto an element of our time travel." Brent lowered his voice to a conspiratorial tone, and said, as if only to Lynae, "He doesn't know that we could take that book and go right back to John Hoblit, l861."

Brent caught a movement from Monte in his peripheral vision, and noticed a loosening in his grip on the book. As if at a signal the two younger teens leaped on Monte in the hammock, the ropes holding it up broke and the three fell to a pile on the ground, which opened up and in a spinning whooshing sensation that Brent and Lynae had become familiar with; the laws of time and space suspended and the three found themselves in Springfield Illinois.

"John Hoblit kept the halfway house between Lincoln and Springfield. Abe Lincoln often stopped there on his trips between towns and was a good friend of the Hoblit family." Brent whispered, quoting from the Jacobs' genealogy history book. "That was written on one of the divider pages in great-grandma Grace Hoblit Jacobs’ book--in her own writing."
"That must be 'Uncle Sam” Look, he is walking with the cane Lincoln gave him when he was inaugurated as President. "
Millicent Seward walked into the room and greeted 'Uncle Sam',
"I don't want to lose this invitation to the inauguration. That was such a wonderful affair, in spite of the (describe inauguration and conflict in the country using Sandberg's book (2007 I knew there was a reason I have held on to the torn up paper back book) With Monte's help. . . . . )

(elaboration: Millicent Seward was a cousin to W. H. Seaward, Lincoln's secretary of State. Their father's were brothers. John and Millicent are buried in the old Clear Creek cemetery; John had donated the land for the cemetery he was the first to be buried in it. Many Larisons and Hoblits are buried there as well as in the Atlanta Cemetery." (The three siblings visit the cemetery, spending the time with John Hoblit’s family in that century.

John E. Hoblit was John Hoblits son. (include him as a child and his siblings in previous sketch.

'Grace Hoblit wrote of her paternal grandparents;

John E. Hoblit and Rachel C. Larison were married in l838 in Illinois. They had 8 children and raised seven to man and woman hood. Rachel became crippled and helpless and remained so for more than 30 years