Living in happy and quiet retirement in an attractive bungalow at No. 1182 West Thirty-first street, is Helen Truman (Coleman,) one of the greatest favorites of the American stage and one of the few now living who witnessed the assassination of President Lincoln at Ford's Theater, Washington, April 14, 1865.
    Speaking of the tragic hours following the pistol shot that meant the martyrdom of one of the most potent figures in world history, Helen Truman, now the wife of Frank Wynkoop, himself a prominent actor of the early period, said:
    "We were playing 'Our American Cousin.' It was toward the close of the second act, and I had just left the stage to prepare for the next scene when the sound of a shot reached my ears and I hurried back to see Laura Keene, the leading lady of the company, entering the box of the President and, regardless of her gown, she raised his head to her lap and held him there while first-aid remedies were hastily given.
    "The scene seared itself into my brain. With all the members of the company it was all that was discussed for days, weeks, even months. Pandemonium, screams, cries and curses filled the air as Booth was seen rushing across the stage to the rear, brandishing a huge knife, with which he attempted to murder Col. Rathbone, one of the members of the Presidential party.
    "'I have avenged the South; I have avenged the South,' shouted Booth as he ran across the stage, escaping from the rear entrance. Outside waiting for him and holding his horse was Ed Spangler, a scene shifter, who was one of those implicated in the plot which later resulted in his being sent to prison.

    "I have never been able to understand Booth's attitude. He was so genial, so affable and beloved by all who knew him. But he was not a southerner. His father was an English Jew, and, until the night of the tragedy none of us who knew him intimately would believe he had any strong feeling toward either side in the terrific conflict of the Civil War. The Christmas before the tragedy was the last time, so far as I know, that Booth gave a large dinner following his usual custom he gave an annual Christmas dinner and his genial affability made the evening memorable. As it preceded the tragedy of April by so short a time, It is necessarily one of my most vivid recollections of those stirring times.
    "On the night of the assassination Booth, who made the finest Romeo ever played at Grover's or any eastern theater, had been going about the theater as usual and no significance whatever was attached to his presence. As I went on the stage and saw him standing back of the President's box, he bowed to me. The thought flitted across my mind that his being there was singular, but dismissed it in my work a moment later. It was not until the shots rang out that I realized the meaning of his presence there.

    "Of Mr. Lincoln, one of the noblest kindest-hearted men I ever knew, my memories are of the tenderest. I had

personal knowledge, of the bigness and kindness of his heart, when my brother, who was running a blockade, was captured, tried and sentenced to death. His English partner escaped from the clutches of the law. Twice mother and I went to Mr. Lincoln. Very gently he told us he would do what he could, and later gave mother a passport into Norfolk. Notwithstanding his intervention, Gen. Wolff, who was in charge of the prison, refused us admittance without gold, and took from us every available heirloom and possession that had not already been seized by the might, but not by the right, of war.
    "For me, the terrible tragedy had, therefore, much of a personal note of grief. It was months before any of us was restored to the usual mental poise, and I never played in 'Our American Cousin' again."
    "At the time, John Wilkes Booth was paying marked attention to Kittie Blanchard, one of the noted stars of the day, who was playing at Canterbury's. Booth was desperately in love with Miss Blanchard, who was one of the loveliest characters I have ever known. The news of the awful affair completely unnerved Kittie, who steadfastly refused to believe it, and was heartbroken by the tragedy and the events which followed it. It was months before she was able to appear on the stage again, in one of the year's popular plays, in Louisville. Afterward, Miss Blanchard became the wife of McKee Rankin, the noted actor, and died only a few years ago.
    "Besides my grateful remembrances of the kindness of President Lincoln at the time of the troubles in our family, among the most cherished are the favors shown us by Gen. Grant while we were in Memphis. The northern soldiers had visited us and want certainly followed in their wake. On our going to Gen. Grant he said: 'We are here to fight for the flag; not to fight women and children.' A guard was furnished us and we were not molested again."

    Of her own brilliant stage career Mrs. Wynkoop was more reluctant to speak.
    "Starvation drove me to the stage when I was a girl of 14," she said. "Mother was a Methodist, exceedingly strong in her convictions, and loathed the theater. But with our men fighting for our cause, it became necessary for us to live, and the stage, which was one of the hardest professions in those days, seemed the only answer to the troublesome problems of daily life that we were facing.
    I worked very hard and was rewarded by many calls to the different theaters that Mr. Ford controlled in the East. Maggie Mitchell and Lotta Crabtree--the beloved early-day favorite of San Francisco and the East--were personal friends of mine, and I played with them many times.
    "After my marriage to Mr. Wynkoop, himself an author and playwright, I eventually gave up my stage career.
    Fourteen years ago we left New York and came to Los Angeles to live. We have been here ever since, glorying in the unmatchable climate and beauty of Southern California, sometimes meeting the few friends left of the old days when we knew and loved Lincoln and many times played, at his request, the popular plays of that period."
    Mrs. Wynkoop, or Helen Truman, as she was known during her stage career, has had a number of near tragedies touch her life. A few years after the assassination of President Lincoln, while she was playing at the Holiday-street Theater, Baltimore, the St. Nicholas Hotel, where she was stopping, was destroyed by fire. Miss Truman had been ill and her absence was not discovered until the building was enveloped in flames and every one else had been rescued. When she was finally taken from the building, her feet were terribly burned, and all her belongings, including jewels, wardrobe and money, were lost.
    Three years ago, in the Vineyard Junction accident on the Pacific Electric, she was severely injured, narrowly escaping with her life. Both hips were dislocated and her spine was injured, and she has not entirely recovered.

Source:

Unknown, "Memories, On Stage When Lincoln Died," The Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, Monday, 21 February 1916, pp. II1, II2.