Marie Curie

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  16 July 1895

Today, I am getting married. It has been four years since I moved out of Bronya’s house and started living on my own. Since then, I have finished my master’s degree in physics and math, and met Pierre my soon-to-be-husband. My love for science and my search for lab space have brought us together. Last year in the spring time, I mentioned my need for lab space to a physicist friend of mine. He told me that his colleague Pierre Curie might be able to help me. However, I discovered when meeting Pierre that his own lab space was inadequate. Meeting him did not provide me lab space but it changed both of our individual lives immensely. I eventually found the lab space I was looking for at the Municipal School. Meanwhile, our relationship with Pierre turned into love. Now, we are going to get married with a simple civil ceremony. We both don’t want a religious service. I lost my faith when my devout Roman Catholic mom died very young. Pierre is the son of non-practicing Protestants so he doesn’t have faith either. We won’t exchange rings and I won’t wear a bridal gown. I will be wearing a dark blue outfit. I’m very excited about getting married even though it will be an unconventional wedding.

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     17 November 1897           

I have been a mother for a while now. I have a daughter named Irene. Pierre’s father was the one who delivered her. However, only a few weeks after Irene’s birth Pierre’s father lost his wife to breast cancer. He moved in with us after that. So, we turned into a family of four. We had to hire a servant to do the chores of our expanded family. I remain in charge of Irene’s care. I record every stage of her development with the care that I use to keep track of my experimental work. But, I also continue my research. Pierre continues his research as well. Pierre’s father babysits Irene when we both have to work. I am so glad that Irene’s grandfather is here to look after her. I know he loves her tenderly and I also know that Irene brightens up his life. Even with Pierre’s father and a servant to help us, we don’t have any place for worldly relations in our lives. We are both fully devoted to our family and our studies. We see few friends some co-workers and that is about it. We sometimes see Pierre’s family however, I am separated from my family as my sister, Bronya left Paris to live in Poland with her husband. Even though, I don’t get to relax or sleep in most of the time, I like the way I am living right now. I know that I can work the best with this balanced and organized way of living.

                                                                                                          

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 5 January 1898

As I mentioned in my previous journal my life is in order now. So, it is time for me to choose a topic for my doctoral research. No woman has yet been awarded a doctorate in science. An unmarried German woman‘s doctoral research was at advanced stage but that was the closest any woman got to getting a doctorate in science. The best option for me right now is to research on uranium rays. I got this idea from two recent discoveries by other scientists. About six months after we got married, a German physicist named Wilhelm Roentgen discovered a kind of ray that could travel through flesh and yield photographs of bones. Roentgen called these X-Rays, X standing for unknown. The second one is the discovery is Henri Becquerel’s. Only a few months after Roentgen’s discovery Becquerel, who is a French physicist, reported to the French Academy of Sciences that uranium rays emitted rays that would fog a photographic plate. He had found this accidentally. Despite his discovery the scientific community continued to focus on the X-rays. The ignored uranium rays appeal to me since I won’t have a long bibliography of published papers to look through, I can begin experimental work immediately. I think I am going to go with uranium rays. It is a big decision; I hope I won’t regret it.