Olivia Susan Clemens, called “Susy” by her family, was the second child and the oldest of three daughters. Born March 19, 1872, Susy was a baby when Langdon died, and after his death both parents doted on Susy. Their close attachment to her remained significant throughout her youth and young adulthood. She was a precocious child, and Clemens wrote that even as a small child she had big thoughts. Samuel and Olivia kept a record of many of the startling and humorous comments made by Susy and her younger sister, Clara, in a document called “The Children’s’ Record: A Record of the Small foolishnesses of Susie and ‘Bay’ Clemens August 1876 – 1885.” Susy grew to love writing, theater and music.

As a teenager Susy was prone to bouts of depression and other illness, which limited some of her activities. When she was 13, Susy began writing a biography of her father, incorporating family stories, letters he had written, articles about him, and her own thoughts about her father. Much of Susy’s writing is included in Mark Twain’s autobiographical writings, where he preserves her grammar and spelling and reflects on her version of events. The children entertained themselves and family friends with games of charades and acted out their favorite stories, so Susy wrote a play called The Love-Chase that she and her sisters and friends performed in the drawing room of the Hartford house.

Susy entered Bryn Mawr College outside of Philadelphia in the fall of 1890 and remained for one semester. During that time Susy was living apart from her parents and struggling with her own sense of self. She met and began a romantic relationship with a woman named Louise Brownell. Historians have speculated on the reasons for her departure from Bryn Mawr, but the strongest is probably that of being separated from her family during trying times. Both her grandmothers died that fall, and the girls were particularly close to Olivia’s mother. That emotional loss, and the family’s worsening financial status, are thought to be the main reasons Susy returned home.

The separation from Louise was difficult for Susy; she wrote Louise from Switzerland in October 1891 saying: “My darling I do love you so and I feel so separated from you. If you were here I would kiss you hard on that little place that tastes so good just on the right-hand side of your nose.” Louise kept all of Susy’s letters, which today are held at Hamilton College Library and scholar Linda Morris presented her research into Susy’s final years as one of the Mark Twain House & Museum’s Trouble Begins lectures.

Susy wrote to Lousie from Switzerland as the family spent the better part of 1891 to 1895 in Europe due to Samuel’s financial struggles. During this time, Susy concentrated her efforts on becoming an opera singer, unsuccessfully. When Clemens was forced to go on a round-the-world lecture tour in order to raise money and pay off his debts in the summer of 1895 Susy did not go. She remained in Elmira, New York with her mothers’ family and her youngest sister, Jean.

Before the family was reunited a year later, Susy fell ill with spinal meningitis and died at their Hartford home. Her mother and sister Clara were on-route to Hartford when Susy died August 18, 1896, at the age of 24. Her family never returned to the Hartford home to live, and it was sold in 1903.