Sam Clemens' older sister. Pamela was the second child of John and Jane Clemens, and Sam's only surviving sister. Eight years older than Sam, she cared for him with tenderness, patiently supervising his spiritual studies, and was clearly the model for Cousin Mary in Tom Sawyer. She was a kind-hearted child, with delicate health, and a good student who liked reading and music. During the 1840s, she became accomplished on piano and guitar and helped support the family by giving music lessons.

In 1851, Pamela married William Moffett. Formerly a Hannibal resident, he had become a successful merchant in Kentucky, and now lived in St. Louis, where the couple settled, having two children, Annie and Samuel.

When Sam Clemens left home in June 1853, he stayed with the Moffets while working as a printer in St. Louis, before heading east in late August for fifteen months. Jane Clemens moved in with her daughter in June 1855 after a period living with Orion, Sam and Henry in Muscatine, Iowa. Sam visited the Moffett's and his mother regularly during his steamboating years whenever his boat tarried at St. Louis. Pamela worked for the United States Sanitary Commission during the Civil War. The war-time disruption to commerce ruined her husbands business, and he died in 1865.

Both Pamela and Jane moved to Fredonia, N.Y., in 1870, to be nearer Sam, who had recently married and settled in nearby Buffalo.

Sam was staying in a cottage in Tyringham, Massachusetts, still grieving for Livy, when he learned of his sister's death in Greenwich, Connecticut, in 1904. They had maintained a warm and affectionate correspondence throughout their lives.

Pamela was named after her paternal grandmother, Pamela or Pamelia Goggin, and her name was pronounced stressing the middle syllable "Pa-mee-la." The family called her "Mela."

Pamela Ann Moffett