May 27 Wednesday – Mary Mason Fairbanks had heard of the Clemens family’s departure to Europe and wrote from Omaha asking for news and addresses:

Do give me a parting wave of the hand as you sail out of the bay — (a word of adieu before you sail) — and may I not hope that some one of the Clemenses abroad will bottle up a leaf from their foreign journal and commit it to the sea? — perhaps the current will carry it into the Missouri river and wash it up on the shores of Omaha [MTMF 266]. Note: The Fairbanks had moved to Omaha with the loss of their ownership in the Cleveland newspaper.