Carl and Lillian Sandburg
Photograph by Edward Steichen

These two people were kindred spirits and shared many of the same values and dreams. Mr. Carl Sandburg and Miss Lilian Stechen were married after a six month courtship of letters. Theirs was a long marriage that ended with Sandburg’s death 59 ½ years later. Carl Sandburg wrote in a letter to his wife in 1908, "I would rather be a poem like you than write poems. I would rather embody the big things as you do than carve or paint or write them. You inspire art-& that's living!"
Paper. H 25.4, W 29.1 cm
Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site, CARL 222