Reformation Day: 7 lesser-known facts about Martin Luther
1. Two of his children died young
In 1525, the 42-year-old Martin Luther made the controversial decision to marry a 26-year-old runaway nun named Katharina von Bora, with the couple having six children.
Sadly, two of their offspring did not live to adulthood, with a daughter named Elizabeth dying within a year of being born while another daughter, Magdalena, died of illness at age 13.
“Farewell, dear little Madeleine, farewell! but we shall meet again. Thou shalt rise again; shalt shine as the stars, yes, like the sun,” Luther is recorded as having said at her funeral “I am joyful in spirit, but oh, how sad in the flesh! It is strange to know she is so happy in heaven, and yet to feel so sad!”
According to Christian Priesmeier, a modern descendant of Luther who spoke with NPR in 2017, approximately 5,000 people alive in the 21st century have the Reformation leader as an ancestor.
