August 4 Tuesday – From Katy Leary’s memoirs:

By then we were getting letters that the family was nearing Europe, and the next thing we got a cable to come at once, to sail for London the following Saturday [see discrepancies of day of week, date for Aug. 5 notes], Susy, Jean, and I. Well, I hurried up to Elmira to get Jean ready. I left Susy at Mr. Warner’s. My! It was the hottest day we had that summer. Mr. and Mrs. Crane [Theo Crane died in 1889], Mr. Langdon, and Jean and myself went to New York the day before sailing [sail date according to Sam’s Aug. 5 letter to Howells was Aug. 5], then I went back to Hartford to bring Susy down and all the trunks. Mr. Langdon had the tickets and everything was ready. I went up to the Warners’ and I found Susy wasn’t feeling very well. She looked very bad…

So I hurried right off and I got Dr. Porter right away, and he said she was coming down with spinal meningitis. That evening [Aug. 4] she got very bad. I saw then she couldn’t travel. There was no chance of our sailing the next day, so I telephoned to Mr. Langdon to New York, where he was waiting for us, and told him Susy was sick. He cabled right away to her mother “Unavoidably delayed,” and that we would leave on the next steamer [Lawton 135-6]. Note: Powers gives Susan Crane as the sender of this cable, and that departure would be delayed to Aug. 12 [MT A Life 576].