Is Clara Clemens Dead or Still Alive? Clara Clemens Birthday and Date of Death

Clara Clemens Death

Clara passed away on November 19, 1962 at the age of 88 in San Diego, California, United States.

Clara Clemens Birthday and Date of Death

Clara Clemens was born on June 8, 1874 and died on November 19, 1962. Clara was 88 years old at the time of death.

Birthday: June 8, 1874
Date of Death: November 19, 1962
Age at Death: 88

Clara Clemens - Biography

Clara Langhorne Clemens Samossoud, formerly Clara Langhorne Clemens Gabrilowitsch (June 8, 1874 – November 19, 1962), was a daughter of Samuel Clemens, who wrote as Mark Twain. She was a contralto concert singer and, as her father's only surviving child, managed his estate and guarded his legacy after his death. She was married twice—first to Ossip Gabrilowitsch, then (after Gabrilowitsch's death) to Jacques Samossoud. She wrote biographies of Gabrilowitsch and of her father. In her later life she became a Christian Scientist.
At 10:00am on December 20, 1908, Clemens went for a sleigh ride with Russian concert pianist Ossip Gabrilowitsch, who was staying with her father at his residence, Innocence at Home, in Redding. The horse was spooked by a flapping newspaper and bolted, causing driver Gabrilowitsch to lose control. At the top of a hill, near a 50-foot (15 m) drop, the sleigh overturned, throwing Clemens out. Gabrilowitsch saved both Clemens and the horse from plunging over the edge, spraining an ankle from his exertions. He returned Clemens to home, unharmed except for the shock of the accident. Twain biographer Michael Shelden doubted the truth of this heroic tale and supplied a motive for why the story might have been planted in the press, namely, to quiet rumors that Clara was having an affair with Charles E. Wark, her former accompanist, a married man.

Clemens had been introduced to Gabrilowitsch in 1899 in Vienna by Theodor Leschetizky, who was also training Gabrilowitsch. At noon on October 6, 1909, she married Gabrilowitsch in the drawing room at Stormfield, the Clemens home, with her father's friend, Rev. Dr. Joseph H. Twitchell, presiding.) Her father said that the engagement was not new, having been "made and dissolved twice six years ago." He also said that the marriage was sudden because Gabrilowitsch had just recovered from a surgical operation he had undergone in the summer and they were about to head off to their new house in Berlin where he would begin his European season.
On April 21, 1910, Samuel Clemens died, having left his estate to be equally divided by his surviving daughters in a will dated August 17, 1909. His daughter Jean Clemens had drowned in the bathtub on December 24, 1909 after having an epileptic seizure. Thus Clara inherited the entire estate, which provided for quarterly payments of interest to keep it "free from any control or interference from any husband she may have." On July 9, Clara announced that she was giving nearly the entire library of her father, comprising nearly 2,500 books, to the Mark Twain Free Library.