My Years with Ludwig von Mises.pdf - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

did many good things. She was president of the Institute for the
Blind and gave much of her time to it.
Professor Hayek told me that while he was attending Lu's seminar
in Vienna, Lu sometimes invited him to his house for lunch or
dinner. The long table was always set immaculately, Lu sitting at
one side and opposite him, Mrs. von Mises. "She never spoke a
word," said Professor Hayek. "She never participated in the conversation,
but one always felt she was there. When the coffee was
served she quietly got up and left the dining room."
She must have been a woman of distinction, otherwise she could
not have brought up two sons, both of them distinguished scholars.
The only one for whom Lu's mother was said to have shown
some affection was Richard, her second son. This might explain
why the two brothers never were really close to each other. This
situation changed though, after Lu and I were married.
I met Richard in Geneva in 1939, and I liked him immediately.
There was a certain charm about him. He had the same unpretentious
manner of speech that Lu had. When Lu and I came to the
United States in 1940, Richard, who was then professor of aviation
and mathematics at Harvard, immediately arranged a lecture for
Lu and never failed to come and see us whenever he was in New
York, sometimes two or three times a month. I saw him for the last
time in 1953; Lu was in California lecturing when Richard arrived
from Zurich. A friend of his, the famous Professor Hermann Nissen
of Zurich, had advised an immediate and·urgent cancer operation.
But Richard refused to have it done, returned to the States,
and a few weeks later died in Cambridge.
I never really understood why Lu stayed with his mother until
he left for Geneva. There was no financial reason for it. The only
explanation I could find was that his mother's household was running
smoothly-their two maids had been with them for about
twenty years-and Lu could come and go whenever it pleased him
and could concentrate on his work without being disturbed. There
certainly was no inner need for him to stay with her.
The First World War, as much as he hated the loss of time, was a
duty Lu had to fulfill-and not for a minute would he ever have
disregarded it. On the first day of the war he had to travel to
Premyzl to meet his regiment. He foresaw the consequences of the
war for Austria and for the wQrld; he lost almost five years of his
life and his work; but he never complained. The last two years in
the Carpathians, those icy winter days, brought real suffering and
hardship to everyone. Often they did not even have water to wash.
For some time in the mountains Lu had as a comrade in arms his
second cousin, Dr. Strisower, an army doctor, who also had the
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