Sam Clemens

We visited his house today. You may know him better as Mark Twain. He had a beautiful home in Hartford CT. TM will be posting pics of the outside. AS usual you can't take pics inside the house. He, his wife, Olivia and their 3 girls lived there for 17 years that he called the happiest time of his life. Most of his books were written there.
In order to impress, nearly all the ceilings and walls were hand-stenciled. The dining room was stenciled to look like embossed leather, and believe me it did. The library (we would say family room) was the cosiest room in the house. Yes it was large, but just felt inviting. There is a conservatory just off the library where he and the girls played jungle a lot. The butler, George, also played with them.
George was a Negro they hired to wash windows one day. They liked him so much, he became their butler. He and Sam became fast friends and George was like part of the family. The story goes that one day Olivia fired him (seems he, like Sam, was given to "white lies"). However, the next morning he was there with the other staff for the day's instruction. He told Olivia that they couldn't get thru one day without him, so he just saved her the trouble of sending for him.
In the master bedroom is a very ornate bed. The head and foot boards are so large and ornate that the queen size bed actually looks small. Sam and Olivia bought it thinking it was an antique and paid a whopping $200.00 for it. When he had it appraised, he was told that it had been manufactured roughly 2 months before he bought it. After that, they made the bed so that they woke up in the mornings looking at the headboard. He said if he paid that much money, he was going to get the most out of it.
The children's room was adorable, as the wallpaper was based on "Froggie goes a-courtin".
Next to their room was what had been intended as Sam's study; but he found being so close to the children was distracting. There was a need for a school room, so that is what it became.
On the 3rd floor was the billiard room that doubled as Sam's work area. He had his desk put in a corner so that he could not look out the windows and be distracted. Also off the billiard room is a nice balcony. It is said that when Sam did not want to see visitors, he would go onto the balcony so that George could tell people that Mr. Clemens just stepped out. Seems Olivia got on to him for lying. Also she did not like his smoking. I would have to agree with her! No less than 22 cigars a day! He never quit.
We saw on the internet that the house and museum were air conditioned so Momma Traveler went with us. Unfortunately, they did not have the house cool when we got there. MT got so hot that TM had to take her over to the museum and get her a drink so she could cool off. This meant that he missed the top 2 floors. As we were exiting the house, I asked the guide if there was a way TM could finish the tour; meaning could he join another tour. Mark, our wonderful guide, offered to take him thru the house, not a real tour but he could see all the rooms. That was so nice of him, especially since it was his lunch hour. So Traveling Man did get to see the whole house even if he didn't get all the stories that went along with it. Therefore at lunch I regiled both of them with my superior knowledge of the life of Sam Clemens.
And just in case you didn't know, Sam was born in 1835 just as Haley's Comet crossed the sky. He also died as Haley' comet crossed the sky at age 76.
We had lunch at Panera and headed back to the cool trailer and the happy traveling dog. The heat wave is still on us.
God Bless