If Nancy Hanks Came back as a ghost,

Nancy Hanks Lincoln was the mother of Abraham Lincoln and she died young, in 1818, when he was only nine years old.  This much I knew.  What I did not know was the later concern about her grave.  

Here is Wikipedia on her death.

Nancy's grave is located in what has been named the Pioneer Cemetery, also known as the Nancy Hanks Lincoln Cemetery.  Her headstone was purchased by P. E. Studebaker, an industrialist from South Bend, in 1878.  At least 20 unmarked and eight marked graves are at the site; Nancy Lincoln is buried next to Nancy Rusher Brooner, a neighbor who died a week before Nancy from milk sickness. Henry Brooner, Nancy Brooner's son and best childhood friend of Abraham Lincoln, later recalled, "I remember very distinctly that when Mrs. Lincoln's grave was filled, my father, Peter Brooner, extended his hand to Thomas Lincoln and said, 'We are brothers now', meaning that they were brothers in the same kind of sorrow. The bodies of my mother and Mrs. Lincoln were conveyed to their graves on sleds."  Her aunt and uncle Elizabeth (Hanks) and Thomas Sparrow, also her childhood caregivers, are buried nearby.  The cemetery is located on the grounds of the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, a National Historic Landmark District managed by the National Park Service in present-day Lincoln City, Indiana.

According to the National Parks Service:

In 1868, a Civil War veteran named William Q. Corbin visited the boyhood home of his former commander-in-chief. Corbin was dismayed by the unkempt appearance of Nancy Hanks Lincoln's gravesite and wrote a poem on the subject. His poem, published in the Rockport Journal in November 1868, was among the first known public accounts of the grave's condition.

Finally, in 1874, a Rockport businessman by the name of Joseph D. Armstrong erected a two-foot tall marker with Nancy Hanks Lincoln's name inscribed on it at the site. But by 1879, this marker had disappeared and the site was again overgrown with vegetation and almost inaccessible. A newspaper article reporting the neglect prompted Peter E. Studebaker, second vice-president of the Studebaker Carriage Company, to contact Rockport postmaster L. S. Gilkey with instructions to buy the best tombstone available for $50.00 and place it anonymously on the site. Another $50.00, solicited from the area residents, paid for an iron fence around the grave. 

Corbin's poem bringing attention to the issue:

The Neglected Grave of Lincoln's Mother

by William Q. Corbin

A wooded hill — a low sunk grave

Upon the hilltop hoary;

The Oak tree's branches o'er it wave;

Devoid of slab — no record save

Tradition's story.

And who the humble dead that here

So lonely sleeps,

And who, as year rolls after year,

In summer green or autumn sere,

Comes here and weeps.

So lone and dear, the forest wild

Unbroken seems,

We well might think some forest child,

Grown tired of hunt or war trail wild

Here lies and dreams.

But no, no red man of the west

Inhabits here;

These clods by wild beasts pressed

Now lie upon the moldered breast

Of one more dear

For Lincoln's mother here is laid,

Far from her son,

No long procession, no false parades

Of pride or place was here displayed,

No requiem sung.

No summer friends were crowded round

Her humble grave.

The summer breezes bore no sound

Save genuine grief, when this lone mound

Its echoes gave.

Her husband, and her children dear,

And neighbors rude,

Dressed in their hardy homespun gear,

Were all that gathered round her bier,

In this lone wood.

High-pile the marble above the breast

Of Chieftain slain;

While in the wild wood of the West,

In tomb by naught but Nature drest,

His mother is lain.

Her grave from art or homage free

Neglected lies;

And pride and pomp, and vanity,

From this lone grave must ever flee,

As mockeries.

A nation's grief and gratitude,

Bedecked his bier;

For her who sleeps in solitude,

In this lone grave in western wood,

Have ye no tear.

And shall the mother of the brave,

And true and good,

Lie thus neglected in a grave,

Unfit for menial, clown or knave,

In this drear wood?

Oh! Nation of the generous brave,

Be this your shame,

And let this grave without a name

No longer thus neglected be,

Beneath this forest tree.

In 1909, as part of the nation's centenary celebrations of Lincoln's birth, Harriett Monroe penned the following poem.  

Nancy Hanks 

by Harriet Monroe

Prairie child,

Brief as dew,

What winds of wonder

Nourished you?

Rolling plains

Of billowy green,

Far horizons,

Blue, serene;

Lofty skies

The slow clouds climb,

Where burning stars

Beat out the time:

These, and the dreams

Of fathers bold,

Baffled longings,

Hopes untold,

Gave to you

A heart of fire,

Love like deep waters,

Brave desire.

Ah, when youth's rapture

Went out in pain,

And all seemed over,

Was all in vain?

O soul obscure,

Whose wings life bound,

And soft death folded

Under the ground;

Wilding lady,

Still and true,

Who gave us Lincoln

And never knew:

To you at last

Our praise, our tears,

Love and a song

Through the nation’s years!

Mother of Lincoln,

Our tears, our praise;

A battle-flag

And the victor's bays!

In 1933, Rosemary and Stephen Vincent Benet published A Book of Americans which included a poem about Nancy Hanks Lincoln which became a popular reciter.

Nancy Hanks (1784-1818)

by Rosemary and Stephen Vincent Benet

If Nancy Hanks

Came back as a ghost,

Seeking news

Of what she loved most,

She'd ask first

"Where's my son?

What's happened to Abe?

What's he done?"

"Poor little Abe,

Left all alone

Except for Tom,

Who's a rolling stone;

He was only nine

The year I died.

I remember still

How hard he cried."

"Scraping along

In a little shack,

With hardly a shirt

To cover his back,

And a prairie wind

To blow him down,

Or pinching times

If he went to town."

"You wouldn't know

About my son?

Did he grow tall?

Did he have fun?

Did he learn to read?

Did he get to town?

Do you know his name?

Did he get on?"

Each of the three poems is distinct in mood from one another and yet all three cause the eyes to well up.