Mileva died on 8/4/48 at the age of 72. Her obituary made no mention of her ex-husband. She was not mentioned in Einstein's biographies, and her role as Einstein's first wife and scientific collaborator was unknown to the public for decades.
Freida, Mileva and Albert's daughter-in-law, wrote a book about their lives that quoted from their love letters. The fiercely protective co-trustees of Albert's estate blocked its publication in 1958. In 1985, the Princeton Press initiated work on a 28-volume edition of The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. The editor discovered Albert and Mileva's granddaughter, who provided him with her mother's manuscript and the help needed to locate the love letters. Finally, when the first volume was published in 1987, it included 51 of the Einsteins' letters and Mileva was no longer invisible.
The account given above is based on the information in the Einsteins' love letters and readily available dates and historical accounts, woven together with an understanding of human emotions.
I was first introduced to Mileva Einstein through Jan Eliot's syndicated comic strip Stone Soup, on 11/20/05. http://www.stonesoupcartoons.com/ Reprints are available at http://www.amureprints.com
http://www.pbs.org/opb/einsteinswife/
http://compuserb.com/mileva02.htm
http://mileva-maric.iqnaut.net/
Meryl Ann Butler is an artist, author and educator.
MerylAnnB@aol.com
www.creativespirit.net/MabArt
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).