Background

Around 1996, the author noticed the Lincoln Pioneer Village was in disrepair. Several buildings were on the verge of collapse. It was then that he decided to preserve on web pages what remained of the Village. In 1998-99, his web development class started research on the Village and Abraham Lincoln's life in Spencer County. It was found that Lila Daniel had led an effort to preserve and reconstruct the Village with a series of grants. The results of that effort can be found by viewing the before and after photos on the Lincoln Pioneer Village web site at http://www.lincolnpioneervillage.org.

The author's wife did considerable research for the Village site and found the designer and construction supervisor of the Village was George Honig. Research and traveling around the Tri-state led us to one work of art after another. You can imagine one's surprise, when after 20 years of teaching in South Spencer High School, the author decided to take a closer look at the Lincoln head on the wall. Yes, it had Honig's name on it! It has been one surprise after another ever since.

Two things made us decide to create this web page--one was his tombstone. George Honig designed the stones for his parent's grave in the Rockport Catholic cemetery. An impressive sculpture is on the upright stone while large plates on the grave trace their heritage. Comparing that to the small stone marking George and Alda's grave in Mt. Zion cemetery was a shock. It even has the wrong year of his death engraved upon it.

The other item that was important in our decision was the listing for George Honig in Mantle Fielding's Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors and Engravers, 1986 and Biographies of American Artists Active from 1898-1947, 1985. Imagine our shock to find a nationally recognized artist from the small town of Rockport, Indiana. And yet, few people knew of him.

Our goal is to preserve his work on the Internet and to educate others in the fascinating life of George H. Honig.

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