View Message

The Populace
UN: La Reina
LN: Lehrer
DH: Severin Ingolf (45)
DW: Wilhelmina Antje "Elma" (d. at 37)
-DS: Theodor Ingolf (19)
-DD: Franziska Helmina (17)
-DD: Jutte Christiane (16)
-DD: Maike Bettina (d. at 2)
-DS: Christoph Gottlieb (10)
-DD: Bettina Leonore (7)
-DS: Anton Wilhelm (d. at 1 week)
Rank: Scholar (Severin), Dressmaker (Elma)

---

Seven years later, the war has ended and the Lehrer family continued to live in their usual quiet state. Things had always went downhill since Elma's expulsion from the royal court, and it didn't stop there. Two years after Bettina's birth, Elma was pregnant again. But when she was out to buy household supplies with Jutte, an outraged horse decided to trample down the market, Elma included. In the resulting chaos, Elma gave birth prematurely while Jutte was sent to fetch her father. Elma and her newborn son Anton managed to get on for a short while, living under Severin and the older childrens' care, but Anton died after a week. Shortly after, Elma succumbed to her injuries.

---

Severin was devastated. Here he was, a scholar with little to do in a time of war and yet judged unfit to fight, with five children to look after. Theodor and Franziska were quickly sent off to be apprenticed to a trade. Franziska agreed to learn dress-making with one of her late mother's friends, but Theodor firmly insisted he wanted to stay and take care of blind Christoph. Severin finally worked out a compromise with his elder son: he will work half the time, while Jutte watches over Christoph, and then he can return to be with his brother after work. Severin took Bettina into his own hands, juggling the confusions of being a single father in an unfriendly time. He was pressured again and again to remarry, but Severin had no will to do so; it was Elma that he loved, after all these years. It has always been Elma, and he was unwilling to find another.

---

The years went by, and the family slowly began to get on their feet. Severin's writings, while never a true success, was enough for them to get by on. Theodor and Franziska thrived in their respective apprenticeships, and Jutte was devoted to her two younger siblings and in becoming a sort of replacement mother to them. Christoph made slow but sure progress in living with his disability, and Bettina grew to be a sweet, vivacious girl with her mother's personality. Just before her seventeenth birthday, Franziska came home with a happy news: a young gentleman who had wooed her for the past few months have decided to ask her hand in marriage!

---

And thus the Lehrers managed their recovery. Severin, a father of five, with his children, Theodor, Franziska, Jutte, Christoph, and Bettina. All was well.