Santa Ana Man and Wife Convincing as Honest Abe and Mary Todd Lincoln

In a stop at a Costa Mesa coffee shop, Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln stunned the patrons, one of whom exclaimed, “My God, I can’t believe it!”

Actually, Kae Acres, 33, and Robert Acres, 50, of Santa Ana, usually make their appearances at charity events, churches, schools and hospitals, where they portray the presidential couple, wearing clothes of the Civil War era.

However, they like to stop at restaurants to get in the mood for their show.

“That’s how we prepare for an appearance,” said Kae Acres, who plays piano and sings “America the Beautiful” while her husband, wearing the familiar Lincoln top hat, recites the Gettysburg Address after talking about the history of the period.

“We both have to gear up for the show, and walking into a restaurant and seeing the looks on patrons’ faces is one way,” she said. “I also do a lot of pacing.”

Although they donate much of their time, “Someday we hope to make some money out of this,” said Robert Acres, a paint salesman. “I’m not conceited, but it’s a real thrill for me to have people stand and applaud and say I really did good.”

For a paid performance, they were recently given a $100 check made out to Mary Todd Lincoln. Their bank cashed it.

Acres believes he can help bring renewed togetherness to the country with his portrayal of Lincoln, who he thinks was the nation’s greatest President. “If we can perpetuate his memory, we can make people remember the good old days when patriotism meant something,” he said.

Acres is a pretty close version of the bearded 16th President. Like Lincoln, he has huge hands, stands 6 feet, 4 inches tall, and wears a size 14 shoe and a size 7 3/4 top hat.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m him when I’m all dressed up and wearing my top hat,” he said, while his wife added, “When he walks into a room, everything stops.”

Kae Acres isn’t as close a match of the First Lady “but I make myself look like her,” she said, noting that she splits her hair down the middle and lets it hang in the back, just as Lincoln’s wife did.

“She always wore low-cut dresses, but I don’t,” she added. Acres buys her dresses in thrift shops--unlike the real Mary Todd Lincoln, who was a compulsive shopper--and wears three bridal slips and a hoop under the dress when she appears in public.

“We used to rent the clothes, but it got to be real expensive,” she said. She is also thinking of inscribing “Love Is Eternal” on her wedding band, which was the inscription on Mary Todd Lincoln’s wedding band.

“I guess she loved her husband, and I love my husband, too. And you know there aren’t many women who can say they have a picture of their husband on a $5 bill.”

Dr. Seymour P. Kern of Orange certainly has an unusual way of attracting an audience to an annual seminar where he outlines the latest techniques in eye research: He holds a free dinner-dance with entertainment.

Kern, an ophthalmologist, expects to have 300 invited guests attend his party Saturday in Newport Beach, where he will wine and dine them and provide a band for dancing. The guests are all patients on whom he has performed eye surgery.

Teaching firefighters has its pitfalls. Ann Zanelli, 42, of Irvine, who recertifies them in emergency medical technology, has had her share of challenges.

For instance, she once gave a slide presentation on cardiopulmonary resuscitation techniques “and when I clicked the button to switch the slide, an image of a nude woman flashed on the screen,” she said. “Worse than that, they slipped in other slides that did not pertain to my lecture.”

Although she said the antics have subsided somewhat, she remembers a class in Huntington Beach when 300 firefighters got up and left.

“I think the longer guys are in the department, the more some of them resent having to be taught what they feel they already know,” said Zanelli, a nurse for 20 years who teaches one day a month at Newport Beach Fire Station No. 3. She is also an Orange Coast College instructor.

Since about 70% of calls to the Newport Beach Fire Department are for medical assistance, she said, “firefighters are frequently the first providers of medical aid,” which is why she thinks they need to update their medical skills.

Zanelli knows about firefighters and their quirks. She’s married to a fire captain.

“A sense of humor helps,” she said.

Acknowledgements--For the first time, the Western Medical Center/Anaheim volunteer services department has awarded $500 scholarships to students pursuing an education in the health field. The grants were given to Derek T. Spellman, 28, and Thomas J. Doyle, 28, both registered nurses and both of Santa Ana.