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July 14 Thursday – Livy’s funeral was held in Elmira [July 19 to Collins]. The New York Times reported , July 15, p.7:

Mark Twain’s Wife Buried.

ELMIRA, N.Y., July 14.—The home of Gen. Charles J. Langdon witnessed the gathering of a large number this afternoon to pay their last respects to the memory of his sister, Mrs. Samuel L. Clemens, who died in Italy. Burial was in Woodlawn Cemetery. With Mr. Clemens were his two daughters, Misses Clara and Janet [sic] Clemens.

Sam described the funeral scene at Langdon’s home in a July 21 letter to Thomas R. Lounsbury:

Joe Twichell married us in Elmira 34 years ago, in her father’s house, & on the spot were she stood as a happy young bride then, she lay in her coffin seven days ago, & over it Twichell spread his hands in benediction & farewell, & in a breaking voice commended her spirit to the peace of God.

Sam’s notebook: “Funeral private in the home of Livy’s young maidenhood. Where she stood as a bride 34 years ago, there her coffin rested; & over it the same voice that had made her a wife then, committed her departed spirit to God, now. / [Horiz. Line separator] / Returned in the car to New York at night” [MTB 1222; NB 47 TS 16]. Note: Sam likely would have arrived late in N.Y., where he took again his rooms at the Wolcott Hotel. The Clemens girls and Teresa went on to Gilder’s summer house in Lee, Mass. by July 16.

A photograph of Clemens taken by Isabel Lyon the day of Livy’s funeral is in the Berg collection, NY Public Library, and was viewed online in the Morgan Library & Museum’s exhibition, Oct. 25, 2010.

Eleanor V. Hutton (Mrs. Laurence Hutton) wrote from Boston to Sam.

I am thinking of you constantly these days. I hope you are all well—and that you may find some restful place for the summer. I left Princeton yesterday—and today wish I was back there again—somehow I did not feel half so lonely when I had all of Laurence’s [belongings] about me—I did not feel that he was far away. Now I realize the loneliness of my life without him. There is no use trying to tell you how I sympathize with you—words mean so little—if you ever feel like coming to Princeton I wish you would [MTP].

 

Day By Day Acknowledgment

Mark Twain Day By Day was originally a print reference, meticulously created by David Fears, who has generously made this work available, via the Center for Mark Twain Studies, as a digital edition.