Albert Einstein grew up in a middle-class Jewish family. His father, Hermann Einstein, was a salesman and engineer who, with his brother, founded Elektrotechnische Fabrik J. Einstein & Cie, a company that manufactured electrical equipment in Munich, Germany. His mother, the former Pauline Koch, ran the family household. Einstein had one sister, Maja, born two years after him.
While in Zurich he met many students who would become loyal friends, such as Marcel Grossmann, and Michele Besso, with whom he enjoyed lengthy conversations about space and time. He also met his future wife, Mileva Maric. Einstein's relationship with Maric deepened, but his parents opposed the relationship due to her her Serbian background and Eastern Orthodox Christian religion. Einstein defied his parents and continued to see Maric. In January, 1902, the couple had a daughter, Lieserl, who either died of sickness or was given up for adoption; it is unkown as to what really happened to her. At this point, Albert Einstein probably reached the lowest point in his life. He could not marry Maric and support a family without a job, and his father's business had gone bankrupt. Desperate and unemployed, Einstein took lowly jobs tutoring children, but he was unable to hold on to any of them. A turning point came later in 1902, when the father of his lifelong friend, Marcel Grossman, recommended him for a position as a clerk in the Swiss patent office in Bern, Switzerland. Around this time, Einstein’s father became ill and just before he died, gave his blessing for him to marry. With a small but steady income, Einstein married Maric on Janurary 6, 1903. In May, 1904 they had their first son, Hans Albert. Their second son, Eduard, were born in 1910. |