SERIALIZATION OF “REBEL WITH A CAUSE: MARK TWAIN’S HIDDEN MEMOIRS” -- CHAPTER 59 (of 78)
Death of Jane Lampton Clemens (1890)
Chapter 59
Death of Jane Lampton Clemens (1890)
My mother, Jane Lampton Clemens, died in Keokuk, Iowa, late on October 27th, 1890. She lived to be almost 88 years old. I attribute her longevity to her spirit.
She had a slender, small body but a large heart—a heart so large that everybody’s grief and everybody’s joys found welcome in it and hospitable accommodation.
That is the greatest difference I find between my mother and the rest of the people whom I have known: Others feel a strong interest in a few things, whereas to the very day of her death she felt a strong interest in the whole world and everything and everybody in it. In all her life she never knew such a thing as a half-hearted interest in affairs and people, or an interest which drew a line and left out certain affairs and was indifferent to certain people. She was the most warm-hearted and understanding person I’ve ever known. She would come to the defense of anyone, and always found something good in them to praise.
The invalid who takes a strenuous and indestructible interest in everything and everybody but himself, and to whom a dull moment is an unknown thing and an impossibility, is a formidable adversary for disease and a hard invalid to vanquish. I am certain that it was this feature of my mother’s make-up that carried her so far toward ninety.
Although to an ignorant and uninterested observer she might appear to be unlettered and ordinary, my mother was the most glib and eloquent speaker I’ve ever known. Though slenderly educated, she could convey thoughts through speech in a most appealing way. She was a master yarn-spinner. My mother could tell tales, and keep everyone spellbound by them. I learned from her. I learned from listening to her, and watching. Watching not only her as she spoke, but watching her listeners, too. I wanted to know: What moved them? What set them on the edge of their seats? I incorporated the intelligence gathered in this way in the telling of my own tales.
My mother was a true counterpart to my father in the literal sense of the word—in almost all ways, they were complete opposites.
It is said that opposites attract, but in their case, although my father was certainly attracted to my mother, she only accepted him after previously rejecting him, and then out of spite towards another.
She finally told me of this in 1886, almost forty years after my father’s death, when I was visiting her in Keokuk.
“I will tell you a secret,” she began. “When I was eighteen, a young medical student named Barrett lived in Columbia eighteen miles away and he used to ride over to see me. This continued for some time. I loved him with my whole heart and I knew that he felt the same toward me, though no words had been spoken. He was too bashful to speak, he could not do it. Everybody supposed we were engaged, took it for granted we were, but we were not. By and by there was to be a party in the neighboring town, and he wrote my uncle telling him his feelings and asking him to drive me over in his buggy and let him drive me back, so that he might have the opportunity to propose. My uncle should have done as he was asked, without explaining anything to me, but instead he read me the letter and then, of course, I could not go, and did not. He left the country presently and I, to stop the clacking tongues and to show him that I did not care, married in a pet. In all these sixty-four years I have not seen him since. I saw in a paper that he was going to attend that Old Settler’s Convention. Only three hours before we reached that hotel, he had been standing there!”
What she was talking about was a gathering of old settlers that was to be held in an Iowa town, not far from Keokuk, where she was living with my brother Orion and sister-in-law Mollie.
When my mother saw in the paper that Dr. Barrett was to attend, she made her way there, even at the age of 82, but when she arrived and asked after him at the hotel, she was told that he had returned to St. Louis that morning. My mother did not remain there. She immediately turned right around and returned to Keokuk. She had been brooding over this silently for several days when I visited her and she told me what I have reported above.
Think of her carrying that pathetic burden in her old heart sixty-four years, and no human being ever suspecting it!
This incident helps to explain why I seldom if ever saw my parents express affection for each other. In fact, the only time I ever saw them kiss was on the event of my brother Ben’s death, in 1842.
It should not be understood by this that our household was a scene of acrimony. No, my parents were always kind to each other, and polite. Yet, there was a distinct lack of effusive warmth between them. Perhaps my father knew he was second choice.
Notwithstanding that, my parents still had several children together, and did the best they could to furnish us a good life.
As for traits inherited from my parents, I derived much more of these from my mother than from my father. I certainly got my humor from my mother, because my father had none whatsoever.
My facility of speech, including the debility of my very slow drawl—which my mother called “Sammy’s long talk”—I got that from her, too.
EDITOR’S NOTES: In describing his mother, you can see where Twain got many of his own traits. For example, he wrote the following of his autobiographical dictations:
If I should talk to the stenographer two hours a day for a hundred years I should still never be able to set down a tenth part of the things which have interested me in my lifetime.
And speaking of his mother, he wrote:
She was capable with her tongue to the last—especially when a meanness or an injustice roused her spirit.
Also, he wrote of her:
When her pity or her indignation was stirred by hurt or shame inflicted upon some defenseless person or creature, she was the most eloquent person I have heard speak. It was seldom eloquence of a fiery or violent sort, but gentle, pitying, persuasive, appealing; and so genuine and so nobly and simply worded and so touchingly uttered, that many times I have seen it win the reluctant and splendid applause of tears.
Many similarities between Twain and his mother can also be detected in this description of Jane Clemens written by her granddaughter, Annie Moffett (Pamela's daughter):
Jane Clemens adored parades ... She was a good mixer and loved company ... She loved spectacles and gaiety ... She loved red and wanted everything in her room red ... She was always ready to talk ... She was a great embroiderer of her tales ... She did not like housekeeping or doing any disagreeable work if she could get out of it ... In politics she was very liberal.
***
Twain’s mother was the model for the protagonist’s “Aunt Polly” in Tom Sawyer.
***
When Twain’s mother mentioned “Columbia” while recounting her thwarted girlhood romance, she was not talking about the city in Missouri, but rather the one in her native State of Kentucky.
***
In 1891, Twain wrote The American Claimant, a wacky and zany “sequel” to The Gilded Age, which featured his maternal uncle James Lampton in the guise of Mulberry Sellers.
You can listen to this chapter here.
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
Blackbird Crow Raven’s “Rebel With A Cause: Mark Twain’s Hidden Memoirs” is being serialized in this space on substack every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; it is also available in its entirety from here.