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September 18, 2008 -- Meet the von Kempelens

And here we finally get to meet the rest of the von Kempelen family. If Wolfgang seems rather more emotionally demonstrative towards his wife and kids than would be typical for a man of his era, it's because he'd already gone through so much loss by this point in his life. Anna is actually his second wife; his first marriage, to a noblewoman named Francziska Piani, lasted only two months. Francziska died of a stomach obstruction, and it's said that Wolfgang disappeared into his workshop for years out of grief, distracting himself by learning woodworking, clockmaking, and dozens of other skills that he would eventually use to build the automaton.

Five years after Francziska's death, he married Anna Maria Gobelius. Despite their best efforts, their first three children didn't survive infancy -- so Theresa and Karl must've been the apples of their parents' eyes.

Also, last panel: Guess who got daddy's nose?

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Here's one more really great link for the week, via Readcomics.org: The Chess Comic! Scott T., an elementary school teacher from New Brunswick, Canada has started a comic to teach people how to play chess. There are only nine up so far, but they're really cute and totally worth a look. Plus, it means there's more than one comic about chess out there, which is awesome.