MEETING MARK TWAIN (HIS BOOKS) IN A BROWNSVILLE THRIFT

(Ed',s Note: We noticed in the wake of our local election coverage that we had been remiss in noting that April 21 marked the 116th anniversary of the death of our favorite American author, Samuel Clemens, otherwise known by his nom de plume Mark Twain. Twain was never in our Rio Grande delta and his writing focused more in the delta of the Mississippi River. However, his writing touched readers in the USA ad around the world. Our encounter with Twain – or rather his works – took place right here in Brownsville, very close to our river. )  

By Juan Montoya

As we have noted in a previous post, sometimes one is surprised at what can be found in some of the local thrift shops.

In our case, it is books, some more than 100 years old.

One such find was the (incomplete) set of Mark Twain's Complete Works which we found in a small mama-y-papa thrift shop which used to be just off the alley across 11th Street from the late Ben Neece's old Crescent Moon Saloon.

Passing by the quaint little store, our eye caught the spines of some old books stacked under some knickknacks and asked the señora if we could see them. She, of course, agreed and removed the stuff that lay on top of the books.

To our surprise, they were part of a third printing of a set of Twain's works with the latest copyright dated 1913. We bought the lot at 50 cents apiece. The tomes included pristine copies of Twain's "Life on the Mississippi", "The Gilded Age", and "Following the Equator," among others. All these tomes set us back about $6.

Each of these has a facsimile of Twain's signature confirming that the books are authentic copies of his works.

We were excited at the find and returned to the segundita often to see if other literary treasures would appear because the lady said she had "a lot of old books" in storage and that she would bring them to the store. Unfortunately, her husband's health deteriorated and she had to close the business to tend to his illness.

Some of the books had never been read, since some of the pages had not been separated and two pages remained as one folded paper sheet. And later, when we were leafing through them, saw a hotel receipt that named a Brownsville man who was well known to local residents.

It was a hotel receipt issued to Jesse Sloss, who was named city manager in 1975, 11 years later. The receipt was from the Hotel Genova , which we learned is still one of the best in downtown Guadalajara. At 110 pesos a night, it was  bargain for Americans, since the exchange rate back then hovered between 8 to 12 pesos per U.S. dollar. The receipt states that four persons were in Sloss' party on September 8, 1964.

Sloss was well known in town and worked for years with the city as was his wife Tencha, a former Brownsville Herald reporter who was involved in the arts and had been a volunteer at the Brownsville Art League for over 50 years and then was the Administrative Director of the Brownsville Museum of Fine Arts. 

Tencha Sloss was related to many well-known families in town, including the Neeces, Saldivars, and Hinojosas , among others. Jesse died in 2001 and Tencha died in 2014.

The Twain books were a great find, but leaves us with the question of what Sloss was doing in Guadalajara in 1964 which remains – like an Ellery Queen novel – a mystery.