Here's a forgotten story about famous sculptor Larkin Goldsmith Mead, who you all know designed Lincoln’s Tomb. (Here are other Larkin Goldsmith Mead sculptures on Artnet.)

But here's a forgotten newspaper article from The Mendocino Democrat on Saturday March 21, 1874. Did the editor just embellish Larkin's inspiration, or did an angel really gift Larkin Mead with divine carving inspiration?

By the way, carving life-like sculptures in snow was commonplace back then, because most abstract art didn't exist. Happy faces and stick figures didn't exist, as well as comic strips. However, people who couldn't carve didn't know about happy Frosty The Snowman because Frosty was drawn more like Krampus back then. There wasn't even a default of three snow balls for a "snow figure" or snow-man back then. If coal wasn't available like in the city, blocks of wood or something was used for snow figures in the country. It's hard to find stones in the winter in the back of beyond when you only burn wood. Some snow figures were a column of "straight weirdness" with a carved head. But a good chunk of adult society was always ready to carve snow like they did in 1885 Montreal Ice Festival where they carved a 16-foot lion. We've lost the ability for the average person to carve the "Recording Angel", but can we please re-gain the ability for loving angels to contact us? People without opiates scream to the Creator in pain: WHERE ARE YOU?

Kids had a nasty habit back then of building snow-women on tracks with a real scarf and hat. Then the train has to stop and the story gets written up in the paper.

What's amazing about the newspaper in the middle 1800s is the fair and balanced stories. They weren't all tear-everything-down left-leaning. And letters to the editor were PRINTED!