July 22 Friday – In Tyringham, Mass. Sam wrote to Mr. Van Dreele. “I & my stricken family hold ourselves under the deepest obligations to you. You removed the difficulties which beset our mournful home-coming, & made our way smooth & untroubled. We cannot thank you enough, but we do thank you most cordially” [MTP].

Sam’s notebook: “Clara, sick, heart-broken, unrestful, returned to New York with Katy, to rest a while with Miss Dr. Parry. / [Horiz. Line separator] / Katy (Leary) was with Susy when she died, in ’96; & with Livy when she died. She has been in our service 23 years” [NB 47 TS 16]. Note: Dr. Angenette Parry. Clara Clemens, who had arrived in Lee on July 16, left for New York and Dr. Angenette Parry’s sanatorium at 177 E. 69 St. Isabel Lyon’s Journal: “the strain of living here has been too great. She cannot stand the sounds in the tiny house” [Hill 96-7]. Note: Hill suggests, in the way of biographers, that “The strong probability is that the sound she could stand the least was her father’s voice.” Such things may be counted among the assumptions and leaps of biographers, but strictly speaking they cannot be documented; they do sell books, however.

James Woodworth wrote from San Francisco a letter of condolence to Sam, and a remembrance of hearing the call “Mark Twain! Mark Twain!” on the Mississippi when he was only seven back in 1836, which would have made him 75 at this time [MTP].