October 12 Tuesday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Helen Schuyler Allen at the Hotel St. Andrew, N.Y.C.
Dear Helen, my married daughter has changed her plans, & I have word this morning that she will sail next Saturday. So I shall be here alone in an empty house, with both daughters away & nobody but myself to welcome you & your mother, for the doctor has barred me from traveling, so it will not do for me to go down & see my daughter off. She will have to run up here for the good-bying, instead, if she gets time. But I shall be here, dear, & glad to welcome you & do the best I can to make you & your mother comfortable & at home.
The trains are—thus:
1.18 p.m, (Saturdays), to BRANCHVILLE (It does not stop at Redding.) Returning: (Sundays,) only two trains.
8.08 am
6.13 p.m,
I hope you can come, dear. If you find you can will you please let me know, by letter or telegram, so that I can send to the station for you? Branchville is 3 1/2 miles from my house; it’s a wee little station, & there aren’t any cabs there.
But the country roads are beautiful, now, submerged in the autumn splendors. / With lots of love [MTP; not in MTAq].
Sam also wrote to Richard E. Johnston.
Dear Mr. Johnson: / I am as sorry as any one can be that my daughter Clara cannot meet those appointments, She is not here to speak for herself, but, as I understand the matter, it is this: The wedding was brought suddenly on, ahead of time, because Gabrilowitsch was leaving for Europe; and as the wound in his head (from the surgical operation of a month or two ago) was not yet healed; and he was weak from his long illness, the sudden marriage was decided upon in order that my daughter might go with him and continue to nurse him. They will spend two or three months in retirement in Italy, for rest and recuperation, by order of the physicians. Also by their order. Gabrilowitsch has cancelled his European engagements by cable. I am very, very sorry for these untoward things, but you see how they came about, and that neither you nor I could have helped it. / Sincerely yours, /... (MTP: Musical America, 23 Oct. 1909].
William Henry Bishop replied to Sam. “Your kind letter of medical advise just received. In consequence of it I feel better already. I beg to enclose my check for five dollars. I don’t want to put you in the painful portion of being found practicing without a license, so I adopt the happy afterthought of making this offering for your Redding Library.” Bishop was sailing to Naples on Nov. 6 with the wife [MTP].
The Chicago Daily Journal wrote to ask Sam if would “kindly send us the latest photo of yourself” [MTP].