Marie Curie

Lonelyness

Deep grief

The grief was paralyzing Marie. She left her children away until everything practical was arranged for. Marie did not cry, she did not talk, she acted like a stiff doll. She hated the flowers of the spring and the sun. She only wanted to scream like an animal. A few weeks after the funeral Marie started writing letters to Pierre in her diary. The Minister of Education suggested that Marie and her children could have a widow´s pension from the government. This brought back a small spark of Marie´s bravery. She answered: " I am young enough to earn the living for me and my children ."

Professor at Sorbonne

At this point Marie Curie was appointed to take over the professorship at Sorbonne and to lecture in Pierre´s place. Nobody else had enough competence for this commission. Marie remembered a statement that Pierre once said when he was ill: " Whatever happens, even if you feel like a body that is deprived its soul, it is our duty to continue the work, despite everything! " Marie accepted the offer and she became the first female professor at Sorbonne. She sent her children to some relatives on the countryside and prepared herself all summer by reading the lecture notes from Pierre. She was completely dedicated to her work at Sorbonne. For her daughters sake she bought a house on the countryside and hired a governess. Pierre´s father came along too as a support for Marie and to help with the children. In the summer vacations she brought the children to Poland and she tought them Polish. Irène was very alike her mother and she got more and more interested in her mother´s work. Eve on the contrary did not like the laboratory at all, since it always seized her mother.

More grief

In 1909 Marie´s father in law went ill in pneumonia. Marie spent all her time off to take care for him for a whole year, but on february 25 in 1910 doctor Curie died. Marie was once again alone. By this time she was very worn out and she had almost no energy left.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the radium institute

In december 1911 Marie Curie received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. She brought Irène and her sister Bronya along to Stockholm. She dedicated the Nobel lecture to her Pierre. In spite of this distinction the year 1911 was tough on Marie. The newspapers wrote nasty articles about her and she was denied admission to the French Acadamy of Sciences because she was a woman! At the same time she heard that Poland was going to build a radium intitute in Warszaw. This made her happy, but she could not say yes to the offer about leading the project. Instead she started to organize and lead the project from Paris. Almost at the same time there was a laboratory built in Paris. It was going to be divided into two departments, one for research on radioactive elements conducted by Marie and one for biological research for treatment of cancer with radium, so-called Curie-therapy. When the institute in Warszaw was ready Marie went there to hold her inaugural speech. She met the superintendent of the old girlschool there, Mrs Sikorska, who she immediately recognized and she gave the moved old teacher a hug.

The friend Albert

During the summer in 1913 Marie and her daughters went on a hiking-trip and Albert Einstein joined the group together with his son. Marie and Albert were good friends since a couple of years. In july 1914 the institute in Paris was ready. Marie planted the seedlings and the trees by herself because she wanted things to look nice at the opening. The only thing missing now was the radium before they could start the activities. Marie was satisfied in spite of all her sorrows.

Author: Katrin Nilsson