Name |
Clemens, Mary E. (Mollie) (1834–1904) |
Short Biography |
Born Mary Eleanor Stotts in Sangamon County, Illinois, she married SLC’s brother Orion in Keokuk, Iowa, in 1854. Their only child, Jennie, was born there in 1855. In the early years of their marriage, while Orion tried to run printing businesses and start a law practice, the Clemenses lived in Muscatine and Keokuk, Iowa, and Memphis, Missouri. In 1861, Orion obtained an appointment as Secretary of the Nevada Territory; Mollie and Jennie joined him in Carson City in October 1862. Jennie died in February 1864 of spotted fever. The Clemenses returned to the East in 1866. Mollie suffered from ill health, and the couple lived modestly in boarding houses as Orion struggled to earn a living in newspaper work and as an inventor, author, chicken farmer, and lawyer. From the mid-1870s the Clemenses lived in Keokuk and were dependent on a pension from SLC. In 1882 Jane Lampton Clemens joined them, remaining until her death in 1890. The household increased to include several boarders. After Orion died in 1897, SLC continued his support until Mollie’s death in 1904. |