Day Six

Inside of The Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum 1

マーク・トウェイン記念館の内部　１

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The inside of the museum was fairly dark. Its owner(s) might have thought that, that way, visitors could more easily concentrate on the photos and panels of the exhibition. And I think that consideration probably worked in case of me. I could capture Mark Twain's boyhood life in this small town in a very vivid and lively way.

The photo shows the very house where Sam Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, was born. According to the description board, he was born in Florida, Missouri, in 1835. Don't mix it up with that famous State of Florida. This Mark Twain's birthplace is a small lake town south of Hannibal, and is surrounded with huge corn fields. When he was born, there had already been two brothers and two sisters, all of whom had been born in Tennessee.

John Clemens, Mark Twain's father, almost always had serious financial problems and repeated moving, seeking a better place for improving his life. He obtained the atterney license when he worked at a law office in Columbia, Kentucky. After his marriage to Jane Lampton, the family moved to Gainsboro, Tennessee. They then moved to Jamestown, Tennessee, where Jane got pregnant with a boy, who was born to her after the family further moved to Florida, Missouri. That baby boy eventually became a great American writer with the pen name of Mark Twain.

At the time the Clemenses settled in Florida, there was a hope that this small settlement would be a hub for nearby farming business. Florida was a point where three creeks joined to the Red River that flows into the Mississippi after its 30 miles' trip. John, with other degnitaries of the town, made a company for shipping on the river. But this attempt failed because of frequent change of water levels of the river. Then, in August 1839, the beloved baby girl Margarette died, which made John decided to move yet again to a new promised land. The family moved to Hannibal in the same year.

The Clemenses first moved in on Main Street. However, in two years they had to leave Hill Street and repeated moving in the town. John Clemense had practiced law in Florida and was elected as justice of the peace in Hannibal, too. But that job brought only small money to the family. John could not get away from financial difficulties in his whole life.

In 1844 the Clemenses moved in a house on Hill Street, which now works as the Mark Twain Boyhood Home. Then in just two years they had to move in Dr. Grant's drugstore just across from the former house. John worked as a storekeeper while Jane cooked for Dr. Grant's family. John died next year at the age of 49. Mark Twain writes in his autobiography:

[His father] put his arm around my sister's neck and drew her down and kissed her. saying 'Let me die.'...I remember the death ratthe which swiftly followed those words, which were his last.

Day Six continues to the next page.

六日目は次のページに続きます。