Two Missouri Contemporaries: Mark Twain and John F. Lawder

I was just reading about the newly released autobiography of Mark Twain, and with these Missouri Lawders still on my mind, I noticed that Mark Twain and Papa's grandfather, JFL, were born only two years apart and died within 4 years of each other.  Twain in in his youth and early adulthood in Missouri and JFL there from his early 30s on.  [Here's a photo of MT in 1867; in that year, JFL had just moved to Pleasant Hill].  Twain was of course on the Mississippi River on the eastern border of Missouri, while JFL was in northwestern MO, closer to the Missouri River.  Don't you imagine that JFL would have read the works of Mark Twain?  Huck Finn? Twain was the most famous man in America in his day and the extra interest of following a local boy made good were sufficient reasons to think that an educated man such as JFL would have read Twain.  I can imagine that John's grandson (our Papa) read Twain as a boy as well....  Twain would have been a model for aspiring writers of the next generations such as young Don Lawder of Kansas City.  Both Twain's romance with the West (both did stints in Western mining although Papa's only lasted a week) and eventual move East to pursue and enjoy his career had parallels in Papa's life.  I'm not comparing Twain as a writer to any Lawders, just thinking about what those Lawders were reading and thinking.