In his old age, Twain filled his desire for grandchildren by forming friendships with young girls between the ages of 10 and 16. He maintained correspondence with girls he met during his travels abroad, often inviting them and their families to visit his home. Twain called these young girls “Angelfish,” after a beautiful fish he saw in Bermuda; he gave them each a lapel pin of a colorful angelfish to signify their membership in his “Aquarium Club.” Their letters included conversations on mutual interests, often literary or of the arts.

During the construction of his country home in Redding, Connecticut, Twain had planned on calling the home his “Autobiography House.” When he moved in and began organizing his club more formally and hosting meetings, Twain changed the name to “Innocence at Home,” in honor of the young girls. He made the billiard room the club’s official headquarters and gave various parts of the house piscine nicknames, such as “the Fish-Market.” Rules drafted for the club listed membership qualifications, names of current members, and guidelines for regular correspondence; Twain threatened to suspend any girl who went three months without writing to him. After Twain’s daughter, Clara, returned home from Europe in 1908 she demanded that Twain change the name of the house to “Stormfield” because she did not approve of his relationships with the young girls.

From 1906 until he died, Twain admitted more than a dozen girls to the club. His correspondence and visits with them helped him avoid the loneliness that often surrounded him after members of his own family had died or embarked on separate careers.

Isabel Lyon, Clemens’s secretary, often helped chaperone the young women and facilitated their visits. After accompanying Clemens to Bermuda in April 1908 she recorded in her journal:

He has his aquarium of little girls and they are all angelfish, while he wears a flying fish scarf pin, though he says he is a shad. Off he goes with a flash when he sees a new pair of slim little legs appear and if the little girl wears butterfly bows of ribbon on the back of her head then his delirium is complete. (Hoffmann, p. 104)

Some Angelfish

Twain met Helen Allen in Bermuda in 1908 and she became one of Twain’s angelfish. The Allen family were friends of Twain’s, and they offered Twain their house in Bermuda as a place to stay whenever he came to visit. Helen’s name is in the guestbook for Stormfield, marking a trip made there in October of 1909.

Twain met Frances Nunnally aboard the S. S. Minneapolis as he sailed to England in 1907 to accept his honorary doctorate from Oxford University. When he returned to the United States, he invited Frances and her mother to visit him in New York. They continued correspondence as she went to school, and in 1908 Twain mailed her an angelfish pin. Frances also visited Stormfield in September 1908. On June 9, 1909 Clemens delivered his final public speech at Nunnally’s graduation from St. Timothy’s.

Twain met angelfish Irene Gerken in Bermuda on his second trip to the island in January 1908. One of their activities was riding the donkey cart around the island, which Twain did with other angelfish that visited him in Bermuda. They also liked to play billiards together.