SD definitely got enough to eat. If not always what she wanted, i.e. the kind of food considered luxurious by FW - think of of those multi course meals with eleborately decorated pheasants you've surely seen in historical movies, or for that matter many sweets - but there was never a suggestion she was starved.
Yeah, I can't remember anyone saying she was starved by FW, either.
(The kids weren't starved in the sense of not getting enough food full stop, either.
This is something we've debated in salon before. On the one hand, both Wilhelmine and Fritz said they were starved. Ziebura also says AW says he and the other kids were often half-starved (but Ziebura doesn't believe in citing her sources). On the other hand, yeah, we have Fritz's weight and he was not underweight or skeletal or anything.
In the famous scene where Wilhelmine recounts her sister Friederike (the first one to get married) mouth off FW re: food, she has Friederike complain that the food was awful and unenjoyable, not that it wasn't there.
But in other places in the memoir, she does talk about not being given enough to eat, quantity-wise.
My own theory is that on a regular basis, the kids got enough to eat, to the point where they weren't underweight, but the times when they were deprived of food were really traumatic and loomed large in their memory. This is how trauma works. Plus Mom talking about how this food wasn't edible (by upper class people) and sending them secret food deliveries, etc.
she was in denial about being pregnant with Amalie
I remembered the scales at Königstein but had forgotten about this, but yes, now that you remind me, I remember. There's no way she was a skeleton in 1730.
Sadly for our desire to back Wilhelmine up, Løvenørn, like Guy-Dickens, is a massively partisan exaggerator. But I still think he counts as an independent source for Frau von Kamecke! (He's an independent second-hand source for Doris, but may go back to the same first-hand source. Guy-Dickens and Løvenørn are obviously not both independent first-hand sources who witnessed the evidence of her virginity.)
No, SD would not have been breastfeeding. Another thing Stratemann reports on is how Ferdinand's wetnurse was chosen from a variety of candidates in the spring of 1730, renember?
I also remembered this and was going to tell Cahn about it if you hadn't reminded her first! :D
Re: Løvenørn letters: Sep 10, 1730
Yeah, I can't remember anyone saying she was starved by FW, either.
(The kids weren't starved in the sense of not getting enough food full stop, either.
This is something we've debated in salon before. On the one hand, both Wilhelmine and Fritz said they were starved. Ziebura also says AW says he and the other kids were often half-starved (but Ziebura doesn't believe in citing her sources). On the other hand, yeah, we have Fritz's weight and he was not underweight or skeletal or anything.
In the famous scene where Wilhelmine recounts her sister Friederike (the first one to get married) mouth off FW re: food, she has Friederike complain that the food was awful and unenjoyable, not that it wasn't there.
But in other places in the memoir, she does talk about not being given enough to eat, quantity-wise.
My own theory is that on a regular basis, the kids got enough to eat, to the point where they weren't underweight, but the times when they were deprived of food were really traumatic and loomed large in their memory. This is how trauma works. Plus Mom talking about how this food wasn't edible (by upper class people) and sending them secret food deliveries, etc.
she was in denial about being pregnant with Amalie
I remembered the scales at Königstein but had forgotten about this, but yes, now that you remind me, I remember. There's no way she was a skeleton in 1730.
Sadly for our desire to back Wilhelmine up, Løvenørn, like Guy-Dickens, is a massively partisan exaggerator. But I still think he counts as an independent source for Frau von Kamecke! (He's an independent second-hand source for Doris, but may go back to the same first-hand source. Guy-Dickens and Løvenørn are obviously not both independent first-hand sources who witnessed the evidence of her virginity.)
No, SD would not have been breastfeeding. Another thing Stratemann reports on is how Ferdinand's wetnurse was chosen from a variety of candidates in the spring of 1730, renember?
I also remembered this and was going to tell Cahn about it if you hadn't reminded her first! :D