December 12 Saturday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Charles J. Langdon.
Dear Charley:
This is to acknowledge receipt of check for $25 (Atlantic Gas coupon) received by today’s mail. Miss Lyon will attend to Jean’s draft when she gets back from New York this evening from a day’s erranding. She will know what to do. (I protect myself from having to do things myself by always being able to plead that I don’t know how.)
Oh, sometimes it would be better if I did know how, damn it all to damnation! I had only just time enough to taxicab around & look in on H. H., Julie, Clara, & Mary Rogers & one of my small girl-pets; & as I did not think to telephone beforehand I caught nobody at home but Mary. I am ever so sorry I missed you & Ida—an accident which could easily & happily have happened the other way, for I had an old young-girl friend along to help me do my visiting, & I waited ten minutes in the Plaza-lobby while she called on an aunt there. / With lots of love to you all— … [MTP]. Note: Sam evidently made a day-trip into NYC, either this day or the day before. Since his Dec. 11 to Clara seems to answer either a non-extant letter or questions raised during a quick visit, it seems more plausible that the NYC trip took place on Dec. 11, especially since he had guests arriving this day, Dec. 12. In his Dec. 19 To Rogers, Sam referred to the “flying trip” to NYC as “a week or two ago,” so it may have been earlier than Dec. 12.
Isabel Lyon’s journal: Margaret Blackmer & her mother came today. Margaret looked sad & pathetic & delicate, & as Mrs. Blackmer & I are going up to bed at 10:30, she drew me into her room to tell me that Mr. Blackmer is to be married next month, & the knowledge of it has been saddening to Margaret. Mrs. B’s life has been a tragedy with that man for a husband. For 10 she has lived with him, for the children’s sake, knowing that he was untrue to her, & now for Margaret’s sake she has divorced him [MTP: IVL TS 83]. Note: Henry Myron Blackmer (1869-1962), tycoon who got rich financing railroads in Colorado.
Sam wrote to New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad asking that the #240 leaving NY at 3:32 p.m. might stop at Redding. Sam’s letter is not extant but referred to in the Railroad’s reply of Dec. 14.
Grace Moffett Lauring, working on a Moffett genealogy, wrote from Swampscott, Mass. to ask Sam about his late nephew and any information about Moffett’s family [MTP]. Note: “Ans Dec 15 MLH”
New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad per A.B. Smith wrote to Sam about his letter of Dec. 9 requesting a flag stop at Redding for the 3:32 train, which he admitted was often late and that making a stop at Redding would not help, but he had a man investigating possibilities [MTP].