To Olivia Susan (Susy) Clemens
19 July 1877 • New York, N.Y.
(MS, correspondence card, in pencil: Sotheby’s,
New York, October 1996, UCCL 01455)
(SUPERSEDED)

slc

Susie dear,

Your doll is named Hallelujah Jennings. She early suffered a stroke of some sort, & since that day all efforts of the best physicians have failed to take the stiffening out of her [legs. They] say incessant bathing is the only thing that can give her eventual relief. Her child, Glory Ann Jennings, is sickly & must be b never be bathed. She cries a good deal in a quiet way, but if you pinch her face together you can vary the expression & make her smile, after a sickly fashion. Hosannah Maria’s child, (named Whoop-Jamboree), is similar. I send the children with their mothers. I kiss you all.

Papa.

Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

Description of Texts and Provenance

Copy-text:

MS, correspondence card, in pencil, collection of Victor and Irene Murr Jacobs, seen at Sotheby’s, New York, while awaiting sale in 1996.

Previous publication: LLMT, 202; Davis 1978 (bib00068), 4; Christie’s catalog, 17 May 1991, lot 90, partial publication; Sotheby’s catalog, 29 October 1996, no. 6904, lot 210, partial publication.

Provenance:The letter was among those which, in the 1950s, Clara Clemens Samossoud gave or sold to Chester L. Davis, Sr. After his death in 1987, it became part of the collection of Chester L. Davis, Jr. The letter was sold by Christie’s in 1991 to James Lowe, who in turn sold it to the Jacobses.

Emendations and textual notes:

legs. They • legs.—|They