Stormfield - Day By Day

March 12 Saturday — In Hamilton, Bermuda Sam wrote to Clara Clemens Gabrilowitsch and Ossip Gabrilowitsch.

March 13 before — Robert J. Collier sent an engraved invitation for Sam to meet Theodore Roosevelt at breakfast on Saturday, Mar. 13 at noon at 752 Park Avenue, NYC [MTP].

March 13 Saturday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Mrs. Helen Kerr Blackmer at the Woman’s Club, N.Y.C. (Margaret Blackmer’s, mother).

Dear Mrs. Blackmer:

March 13 Sunday — In Hamilton, Bermuda Sam wrote to Dorothy Quick, who evidently had just been in Bermuda with her mother but had left on a family emergency.

March 14 Sunday - In Redding, Conn, Sam finished his Mar. 11 to daughter Clara. Note the change in tone and Sam’s resignation derived from the investigation:

PS.

Sunday, Mch 14.

Nothing is as it was. Everything is changed. Sentiment has been wholly eliminated. All things in this house are now upon a strictly business basis. All duties are strictly defined, under several written contracts, signed before a notary. [bottom third of page torn away to cancel]

March 15 Monday — In a note in the Ashcroft-Lyon MS, Clemens wrote, “About 15th took A[shcroft] to vault & removed signatures. He a smile.”

Ruth A. Dorms wrote on notepaper from “The Woman’s Club of Ansonia, Derby, and Shelton” (Conn.) to invite Sam to give an afternoon lecture [MTP].

March 16 Tuesday — Laura Hawkins Frazer wrote from Hannibal, Mo. to Sam that she thought her letter marking their old Hannibal schoolmates and friends had “miscarried.” She offered to send another. She also had heard through Mrs. Paine that Albert and Louisa Paine were enjoying their trip. Would Sam go to Bermuda again this year? She mentioned several clippings enclosed but these are not in the file [MTP].

March 16 Wednesday — Elinor Comstock wrote from NYC, trusting that Clemens wouldn’t mind including his name in her list of references for the formation of a new school in NY [MTP].

March 17 Wednesday — Sam recorded the last time he ever saw Ralph W. Ashcroft, and included Horace Hazen’s explanation of his note of “discharge”:

March 17 Thursday — In Hamilton, Bermuda Sam began a letter to Albert B. Paine in Redding, Conn. that he finished Mar, 18,

Dear Paine,

March 18 Thursday - Ralph W. Ashcroft and Isabel V. Lyon married [MTHHR 662n1]. The New York Times ran a squib on the marriage on p. 5:

Mark Twain’s Secretary to Wed.

Miss Isabel Van Kleeck Lyon, private secretary to Mark Twain, will be married tonight to Ralph Ashcroft, manager, of 24 Stone Street. They obtained a license at the City Clerk’s office yesterday. Mr. Ashcroft is a widower.

The Times ran a follow up squib on Mar. 19:

Mark Twain’s Secretary a Bride

March 18 Friday — In Hamilton, Bermuda Sam finished his Mar. 17 to Albert B. Paine in Redding, Conn. after receiving Paine’s Mar. 12 (not extant).

Yours of March 12th just received.

It will be best for you to make stable arrangements, horses & so forth according to your own jugdement without consulting with Clara in Germany I desire this.

I have crossed out what I wrote about a monthly allowance for Clara. I didn’t know she took so much money with her[.]

March 19 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to W.T. Hall.

I thank you very much for the clipping from the Atlantic [sic Atlanta] Evening News. I have waited these many years for you to hear me lecture, but now it is too late: I am taking my farewell of the platform three weeks hence. The hostiles say “But you are forgetting the gallows—” a joke which I am too proud & arrogant to notice [MTP].

Isabel Lyon’s journal:

Jean, 8:20  10:30

March 19 Friday — Von Beck Canfield wrote from Brooklyn to Sam.

Dear Sir:

March — The Virginia Railway and H.H. Rogers sent an invitation to a dinner for H.H. Rogers upon the completion of the Virginia Railway. Endorsed: “Accept formally. S.L.C.” [MTP; not in MTHHR).

Paul Thompson’s article “A Day with Mark Twain” ran in Burr McIntosh Monthly, p. 22-4. Tenney: “Superficial description of a visit to MT at his ‘Stormfield’ home in Redding, Connecticut; illustrated with two photographs of MT and two of the house” [48].

March 2 Tuesday — Andrew Chatto wrote to Sam. “I am sending for your kind acceptance an early copy of a drama on Joan of Arc’ which I hope may be of interest to you. It is written by a young friend of mine and I think it has merit” [MTP].

Miriam Sutro Price for Public Education Assoc., NYC wrote to ask Sam if he would “Join their association and help us in our work for public schools?” [MTP].

March 2 Wednesday — In Hamilton, Bermuda Sam wrote to Albert B. Paine in Redding, Conn.

Dear Paine: / We sent you a list of the checks but failed the one we finished with therefore we will rectify this blunder by making a new list & bringing it down to date.

March 20 Saturday — Sam’s new guestbook:

March 21 Sunday — Louis J. Keller wrote to ask Sam who made the “best bust or statue” of Twain, as he wanted to manufacture one [MTP]. Note: IVL: “There isn’t any ‘best’ bust of Mr. Clemens”

March 21 Monday — In Hamilton, Bermuda Sam wrote to Miss Sulamith Ish-Kishor.

Dear Miss Sulamith,

I think it is a remarkable dream for a girl of 13 to have dreamed, in fact for a person of any age to have dreamed, because it moves by regular grade and sequence from the beginning to the end, which is not the habit of dreams. I think your report of it is a good piece of work, a clear and effective statement of the vision.

March 22 Monday — In Redding, Conn. Sam replied to the Mar. 19 from John H. Johnston. “Messages like yours can never lose their value” [MTP: Swann Galleries catalog May 2, 1957, No. 468, Item 317]. °

March 22 Tuesday — Albert Bigelow Paine wrote from Redding to Clemens: “I went on yesterday & was advised by Freeman to buy ‘Am. Telephone & Teleg.’ At 140 & 141, a suggeston to which Loomis & Lark promptly agreed,” He bought 100 shares and wrote when the Harper money came they might want another 100 [MTP].

George Jay Gould and Edith M. Gould sent a wedding announcement and invitation at the wedding of their daughter Marjorie Gwynne on Apr. 19 [MP].

March 23 Tuesday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote an advertisement to the public for the Redding Times. Under a photo of Stormfield, Sam wrote, ‘“Mr. Sunderland built my house, & I can recommend him in the strongest terms, as a builder, to any who may need his services. / Mark Twain” [MTP]. Note: see prior entries on the Sunderlands, father & son.

March 23 Wednesday — Sophie Easton Woods wrote from St. Louis, Mo. to Sam: “I enjoyed your steamer letter so much, and it was so sweet of you to have written it. I will keep it always.... I did not see Captain Fraser, so I could not give him your message.... I am your loving little friend” [MTP].

March 24 Wednesday — In Redding, Conn, Sam replied to the Mar. 19 of Von Beck Canfield: “Mar 24— / Don’t think I ever put it on paper, but put it in a lecture years ago. He is the Moncoon—Kingman” [MTP] Note: for some reason the MTP dates this as “after 19 March” though Sam clearly dated it Mar. 24.

From the Mark Twain Library Association minutes, meeting at Stormfield:

March 24

March 24 Thursday — In Hamilton, Bermuda Sam wrote to Katharine Boland Clemens (Mrs. James Ross Clemens) in Redlands, Calif.

Dear Cousin Katherine:

I am grateful for the prayers of those good nuns, & for yours; they have already answered themselves, in giving me a deep pleasure.