Calling Mark Twain

I was skimming the NYT (online) headlines this morning and I came across this snippet:

                                                   

ON THIS DAY

On April 21, 1910, author Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, died in Redding, Conn.

• See this front page

Mark Twain was one of those great writers whom I've always admired- particularly many of his famous and witty quotes. So I decided to look up more about him, including how old he was when he died, what killed him- not to be morbid, but that is actually what I was initially looking for: death stats.

I started, of course with Googling him.  Wikipedia naturally had a nice, comprehensive piece on Mark Twain.

I quickly learned that he was 74 when he died.  Then I learned that he may have been 75.  There seems to be some discrepancy about this.

Then I did a quick comparison of him vs. me at my age:

• 33 when he met his wife, 35 when he got married (I was 31 and 34, respectively)
• first kid, a son, at 37 (I was 34)
• first important work, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, published about a week before he turned 30 (I've yet to produce an important work and I'm 38)
• Tom Sawyer was published when he was 41, Huck Finn when he was 49 (I've yet to complete -or begin- a Great American Novel), but at least I have some time here

and that's about as far as I got in trying to determine how far ahead and behind I am before my initial morbid thoughts took back over.  I started focusing on all of the death that surrounded one of America's great humorists.

Mark was sixth of seven children, only three of his siblings survived childhood.  His dad tragically died of pneumonia, when Mark was only 11.

His younger brother, Henry, was killed in a boat explosion when Henry was 20 (and Mark was 23). Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens, if you will) was grief stricken by Henry's death and never forgave himself for it because it was Mark/Sam who convinced Henry to work with him on the river, while Twain was trying to get his steamboat pilot license. Twain was by Henry's side when he died.

In a Twilight Zone sort of way, Twain had foreseen Henry's death in a detailed dream a month earlier, which inspired his interest in parapsychology.  Mark was an early member of the Society for Psychical Research.

His first year of marriage to Olivia was tough.  Olivia lost her father, Jervis, as well as a good friend (who actually died in their home about a month later). 

The next few years marriage were depressing as well.  Mark's firstborn son, Langdon, was premature and died of diphtheria at 19 months, in 1872. This put so much strain on Olivia that she contracted typhoid fever and nearly died herself. Because Langdon's diphtheria developed from a cold he got when he was with Twain, Twain blamed himself for the child's illness and rarely spoke of his son's death.

Then there seems to have been a relatively good period in Twain's life.  Children born, professional success, his daughter Susy was a talented writer.

Mark's mother died in 1890. 

His beloved and favorite daughter, Susy, contracted a sudden case of meningitis and died unexpectedly in 1896 when she was only 24. Twain and his family were devastated by Susy's death. His last living brother, Orion, died in December 1897.

In the last 10 years of his life, sickness and death of loved ones plagued him and he became quite depressed.

His beloved wife Olivia's health got progressively worse, especially after 1902. She was advised to keep a distance from Twain, and the couple went months without seeing each other during this illness. Finally, by the end of 1903, her doctors advised Livy to take up residence in the warm climate of Italy, prompting the family to move to a villa outside Florence. About six months later, in June 1904, she died at the villa. Twain's 31-year-old daughter Clara had a nervous breakdown following her mother's death, and spent a year in a sanatorium.

Twain's only surviving sibling, Pamela, also died in 1904.

His youngest daughter, Jean, was in constant need of medical attention throughout her life, and Twain was very protective of her. She never picked up a vocation or had a serious involvement with a man. Following her mother's death in 1904, Jean's epilepsy took a turn for the worse. She attempted to kill the family housekeeper twice, in 1905 and 1906. Over the next five years, she spent most of the time in sanitoriums.

One of his closest friends and confidants, Standard Oil executive Henry Rogers, died of a sudden heart attack in May 1909 and his youngest daughter, Jean, died on Christmas Eve, 1909 in Twain's bathtub following a seizure.

Only one daughter, Clara, survived him. He never got to meet his only granddaughter, Nina, she was born 4 months after his death.*

No wonder he was depressed.

He was born two weeks after the closest approach to Earth of Halley's Comet.

In 1909, Twain is quoted as saying:

“

I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'

”

His prediction was accurate—Twain died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910 in Redding, Connecticut, one day after the comet's closest approach to Earth.

Eerie that he was able to so closely predict his own death like that, as well as the death of his brother Henry. So.... Mark Twain, parapsychology believer, I'd sure like to talk with you. I could use your wit and humor in my life right about now and I'd like it very much if you paid me a visit.

We'll see if that works.  I'll keep you posted.

* Nina overdosed on barbituates in an L.A. motel room in 1966. She was Sam Clemens' last direct descendant descendant.