Efforts to Save the Becky Thatcher House

The Mark Twain Museum in Hannibal, Missouri, hoped throngs of summer tourists would help spread the word about its urgent efforts to save the Becky Thatcher House. Even though downtown Hannibal remained dry this spring while many other towns along the Mississippi flooded, enough visitors shied away that peak summer attendance at Samuel Clemens' boyhood home is down about 30 percent. That's hampered efforts to raise money to restore the little wood-frame house Twain enthusiasts desperately want to protect. The wood-frame house needs immediate work to repair sagging rafters, foundation and floor problems, and termite damage.

Museum officials are asking everyone from schoolchildren to fans of Twain's writings around the world to help them bring in $250,000 by this fall, if possible. That's only part of the projected cost for all needed repairs. Built in the 19th century, the Becky Thatcher Home was the home of Laura Hawkins, Twain's muse for his famed character Becky in "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer." Regina Faden, executive director of the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum, said of Hawkins, "She was famous in town; people knew her as Becky Thatcher." Over the years, the building contained everything from a restaurant to a book shop. The museum bought the property from private owners in 2001. (KSPR)