To
Olivia Susan (Susy) Clemens
19 July 1877 • New York, N.Y. (MS, correspondence card, in pencil: Sotheby’s,
New York, October 1996, UCCL 01455)
(SUPERSEDED)
19 July 1877 • New York, N.Y. (MS, correspondence card, in pencil: Sotheby’s,
New York, October 1996, UCCL 01455)
(SUPERSEDED)
slc
Your doll is named Hallelujah Jennings. She early suffered a stroke of some sort, & since that day all efforts of the best physicians have failed to take the stiffening out of her legs. TheyⒶemendation say incessant bathing is the only thing that can give her eventual relief. Her child, Glory Ann Jennings, is sickly & must be b never be bathed. She cries a good deal in a quiet way, but if you pinch her face together you can vary the expression & make her smile, after a sickly fashion. Hosannah Maria’s child, (named Whoop-Jamboree), is similar. I send the children with their mothers. I kiss you all.
Emendations and Textual Notes
Ⓐ
legs. They ●
legs.— | They
LLMT , 202; Davis 1978 (bib00068), 4; Christie’s catalog, 17 May 1991, lot 90, partial publication; Sotheby’s catalog, 29 October 1996, no. 6904, lot 210, partial publication.
The letter was among those which, in the 1950s, Clara Clemens Samossoud gave or sold to Chester L. Davis, Sr. After his death in 1987, it became part of the collection of Chester L. Davis, Jr. The letter was sold by Christie’s in 1991 to James Lowe, who in turn sold it to the Jacobses.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.