Marie Curie

Childhood

The family

On November 7 in 1867 a girl was born in Warszaw during the Russian occupation of Poland. Her father´s name was Wladyslaw Sklodowski and he was a professor and lecturer of physics and mathematics of a boy school in Warszaw. Her mother, Bronsitwa Boguska, was a very intelligent, musical and beautiful woman of noble birth. She had been working as a headmaster of a girl school until she got the children. The little girl was named Marya Salomea Sklodowska and she was the youngest of five siblings. Her siblings were Sophie 7 years, Joseph 4 years, Bronislawa 3 years and Helena 1½ years. Since they are very fond of nicknames in Poland, the children were called "Zosya", "Jozyo", "Bronya" and "Hela". The favourite child Marya got more nicknames than the others. Mostly she was called "Manya", but her mother also called her "Maniusia" and "Anciupecio" in a bland way the times she wanted to show her some more tenderness.

Her mother went ill

Mrs Sklodowska got tuberculosis right after Manya came into the world. She never told the children this. She was always afraid that she would pass her illness on to the children, so the greatest tenderness she could show them was a gentle endearment on their hair, but mostly she tried to stay away from them. However she often played the piano and sang some or read and told stories for them. Little Manya loved these moments when she could huddle herself up by her mothers feet and close her eyes and listen. The illness also caused that Mrs Sklodowska could not return to her profession, so in order to manage financially she even sew the shoes for the family by herself. Besides this they also rented out room for students, to make the economy last longer.

Learn easily

The older siblings were always reading their homework out loud and Manya picked up french and mathematics as well as geography and history that way,  despite she was only  3 - 4 years old. When her sister Bronya as a seven-year tried to stumble through a text, the little four-year old Manya took the book and read fluently on. The family went almost frightened and when Manya noticed this she was scared and very unhappy and she was sobbing out: " Sorry! I did not do it on purpose, it was just so very easy! " In order to prevent Manya to be too premature her parents tried to occupy her with boisterous play and outings, not allowing her so much time for reading books, but when she gets her small moments of reading she becomes absorbed in the books and cant notice anything else. Therefore the other children thinks of her as strange and they often tease her while she is reading. Once they built a pyramid of chairs behind her and collapsed them with a  deafening crash. Manya did not notice anything until a chair bumped against her. All she said was:" That´s silly. "

The school and Russian supervisors

When Manya was ready for school she started in the private school of Miss Sikorska. The name of her teacher was Antonine Tupalska. Due to the Russian occupation the children was not allowed to learn anything in Polish. But despite it was forbidden, her teacher was teaching the girls Polish and Polish history on the sly. Because of this Manya felt she had special faith in her teacher. The students had to know how to speak flawless Russian and they had to know the Russian history perfectly too. This was checked at regular intervals by an inspector by the name Hornberg. Since Miss Tupalska knew that Manya could everything so well, she was the one who always got interrogated. After each examination Manya would weep in the arms of Miss Tupalska.

Losing a sister and her mother

In 1876   Zosya and Bronya got typhoid, while her mother slowly was fading away in the TB. Zosya died, but Bronya slowly recovered. Two years later, on May 9 1878 , Mrs Sklodowska is taking farewell to her beloved family and dies. This was very tough for Manya and she gets a deep depression for a long amount of time. Bronya is now responsible for the household and despite this she graduates as the best student. Bronya has dreams about being able to study further to become a physician, but since women are not allowed at the university in Moskow she finds herself to be a  homedaughter and takes care about her father and her siblings. Manya starts to study in Kraków and graduates in 1883 , and she is also graduating as the best student. At the breaking-up she got a medal of gold and the minister of education from the czar held a speach dedicated to her. As a reward she got a Russian book. But Manya knew from who she had got her knowledge. It was not from the Russian teachers in the upper secondary school. If it had not been for the reading her father had done from books of chemistry, physics, Greek, Latin, Russian, Polish, French, German and English for his children during the weekends, she would almost know nothing, as far as she was concerned. Thats one of the reasons why Manya adored her father.

Author: Katrin Nilsson