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Subject:
From:
Rivka Swenson <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 18 Feb 1998 13:55:08 -0500
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A further note on Nina, SLC's granddaughetr (Clara's child):

Thanks, all, for getting me intersted in the subject in the first place.

To add to Barbara Schmidt's report, here's this, from Laura E.
Skandera-Trombley's _Mark Twain in the Company of Women_ (U of Penn Press,
1994):

"Nina Clemens Gabrilowitsch was born on August 18, 1910, four monthes
after Clemens's death on April 21, 1910; her father, Ossip Gabrilowitsch,
was internationally famous as a pianist and conductor.  Reared primarily
by nannies, Nina was in her teens before her mother informed her of her
grandfather's identity.  Nina was a beautiful little girl who grew up
wihtout much sense of purpose.  By the time Nina grew to adulthood she
suffered from drug and alcohol addiction and mental illness.  For a time
she was a patient at the California State Psychiatric Hospital in
Camrillo.  Clara, unable to deal with the severity of her daughter's
medical and mental problems, entrusted her faithful secretary, Phyllis
Harrington, with Nina'a care.  By the end of Clara's life, daughter and
mother were irreconcilably estranged.  Nina committed suicide in 1966 in a
hotel room off Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California, four years after
her mother's death" (192-93).

--a footnote credits Marianne J. Curling, Curator at the Mark Twain
Memorial in Hartford, Connecticut with providing this info on Nina'a
childhood.

I note some similarities between Clara's treatment of Nina and SLC's
treatment of, say, Jean.

Rivka Swenson

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