Biography – Page 9 – Education Alliance

Updated: We Are Not Alone

Mar 11, 2013MelissaBiography, Classroom Help, Informative, Just For Fun

Published with Permission
Written by Katharine Trauger
http://katharinetrauger.wordpress.com

Turning her back on wealth and marriage, loving the poor, pioneering in statistical graphics…who was this famous home scholar?

As a young wife, you rise early to arrange the daily tasks for your large housekeeping staff. Your three-story home with over twenty fireplaces needs someone to see about all that fuel and the accompanying ash and dust. Then there is the approaching holiday in Italy—you must plan for all who will attend you during the trip, as well as for those who will stay behind with the estate.

You are Frances Smith Shore, or, you would have been. However, your husband’s great uncle willed him all his wealth if he would but carry on the elderly man’s name and coat of arms. Who could know how prophetic this name change would become in the life of one of your daughters? (more…)

Updated: We Are Not Alone

Mar 4, 2013MelissaBiography, Classroom Help, Informative, Just For Fun

Published with Permission
Written by Katharine Trauger
http://katharinetrauger.wordpress.com/

Half-orphaned at age ten, almost totally self-educated, successful lawyer…who was this famous home scholar?

“I have no wife and you, no husband. I came deliberately to marry you. I’ve known you from a girl and you’ve known me from a boy. I’ve no time to lose; and if you’re willing, let it be done straight off.”

Imagine such a proposal! Imagine accepting it and inheriting, in the bargain, two half-grown children to finish raising in addition to your own three. (more…)

Updated: We Are Not Alone

Feb 25, 2013MelissaBiography, Informative, Just For Fun

Published with Permission
Written by Katharine Trauger
katharinetrauger.wordpress.com

What would it be like to be the mother of one of the world’s greatest thinkers?

First, you live an uneventful life in pre-Nazi Germany, married to Herman, a mattress salesman. You, Pauline, stay busy setting up household repeatedly, as your husband’s businesses often change. He settles into electrochemical manufacturing and you move again, after your son is born.

Nothing about this birth or your heritage foreshadows your son’s greatness. In fact, your family worries that he might be slow-witted. When his sister, born two years later, passes him in speech skills, you join the others’ alarm.

Eventually he talks, hesitantly, and you learn to accept life with an odd child who has his own timetable. During the “why” stage of development, one of his favorite questions is, “Why do we hurry?” He does everything slowly and people notice. (more…)