To Mary E. (Mollie) Clemens and Jane Lampton Clemens
30 August 1877 • Elmira, N.Y.
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 01476)

Elmira, Aug. 30.

My Dear Mollie:

I write for Livy, who has her hands full getting ready to leave for Hartford on the 4th.

Livy thinks your health & strength are a bar to your attempting the new house.

She says your energy & capacity are amply sufficient to enable you to succeed, & succeed handsomely; but, considering the bar above mentioned, she would advise rather against the new enterprise than in favor of it.

She says, If you got such an establishment on your hands & then fell sick—what then?

[unknown amount of text torn away]

out. I believe you could take the new house & make run it ably & make money out of it if you have a fair degree of strength—but when I reflect that with $42 a month from me, & $50 from Orion earned in a but like Livy I doubt if you have these.1

[unknown amount of text torn away]2

[in top left margin: P. S. I wrote 5 pages, Mollie, but tore up 3⅓. S L C]

With love from us,

Samℓ.

Dear Ma—If you don’t quit tearing around with the other young people, you will make yourself sick, sure. However, we are glad you are having such a good time, & hope it will continue.3 Why don’t you want to go to George Hawes’s?4 Livy & I & the children send love.

[Yrs] Son

Samℓ.

Mrs. O. Clemens | Care Orion Clemens, Esq | Keokuk | Iowa [on flap:] slc [postmarked:] elmira n.y. sep 1 11am

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

Click to add citation to My Citations.

1By 24 August 1877 Orion and Mollie had at least two boarders at their home in Keokuk, and were expecting two more. The “new enterprise” was apparently a plan to rent a larger house to expand the business (JLC to Samuel Moffett and Annie Webster, 23 and 24 Aug 1877, CU-MARK). The concerns about Mollie’s health were justified: Orion reported on 9 December that “Mollie is sick in bed, with a physician in attendance—dyspe[p]sia, neuralgia, rheumatism, heart disease—sick stomach and racking pains, head to foot, bad cold and cold and hot by turns,” but the next day (in the same letter) he provided a reassuring postscript: “Mollie is better, and is up” (OC to SLC, 9 and 10 Dec 1877, CU-MARK). Orion and Mollie still had boarders in October, but evidently had not relocated.

Click to add citation to My Citations.

2Clemens tore away the top third of both the second and third pages, creating gaps in the text at two separate points.

Click to add citation to My Citations.

3Jane Clemens was still visiting Keokuk. She remained there until 29 October 1877, when she started back to her home in Fredonia, New York (OC to SLC, 29 Oct 1877, CU-MARK).

Click to add citation to My Citations.

4George A. Hawes (1811–91), the nephew of Jane Clemens’s brother-in-law, John Quarles, lived in Hannibal, Missouri, where he was president of the Farmers’ and Merchants’ Bank (Holcombe 1884, 953; Bacon 1990, 345, 347; MTBus, 72).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, CU-MARK.

Previous publication:

MicroPUL, reel 1.

Provenance:

See Moffett Collection in Description of Provenance.

Emendations and textual notes:

Yrs • [sic]