Rosina “Rosa” Hay (c.1850-1920)
Rosina Hay was hired by the Clemenses when they moved into their Hartford home in 1874 as a nursemaid for Susy, age 2, and Clara, born that year. German-born Rosina had been living with her brother, a barber in Hartford in 1874, but the Clemenses actually met her two years earlier when they were summering at Fenwick Hall on the Connecticut shore. Olivia wrote to her sister-in-law, Mollie Clemens, about Rosina: “I have found a little German maid who is entirely accustomed to children and comes highly recommended…She was taking care of children in Fenwick when we were there.”
“Rosa,” as she was called, was held in high regard by the family. In his story “A Family Sketch,” Clemens recalled two instances in which Rosa saved the lives of girls when they were babies. First, an alcohol lamp heating a humidifier to treat her diphtheria caught Clara’s crib on fire, and Rosa took swift action and threw the burning bedding and mattress out the window, singeing her hands. In a similar incident, daughter Jean was rescued when a spark from the fireplace set her bedding alight.
Hay served as the German tutor for the Clemens children, and was instructed to speak to them in that language only. Clara reacted: “I wish God hadn’t made Rosa in German!” Clemens wrote of Rosa: “She had a smart sense of humor, an easy & cordial laugh which was catching, & a cheery spirit which pervaded the premises like an atmosphere. She had good sense, good courage, unusual presence of mind in seasons of danger, & a sound judgment in exercising it.”
Hay remained with the family until she married an Elmira farmer in 1883. Her husband, Horace Terwilliger, seems to have been a clerk in the New York State Assembly for a while, and Rosa worked for a lawyer in Buffalo. After his death, Rosa’s life ended sadly in suicide, as she threw herself over Niagara Falls.