Although it is an undesired tragedy that brings

us together I thank you all for being here today

to celebrate the life of Jacob Grimm and
commemorate the lasting impacts made by
him and his brother Wilhelm Grimm. As the
daughter of Wilhelm Grimm and the niece of
Jacob Grim I truly got to experience first hand
what amazing people they were. As a child I
regret taking advantage of the countless
capricious and cruel stories that strangely for
my age always managed to leave me intrigued.
I was completely oblivious to the fact not
everyone got to hear the same captivating
stories that my father and uncle had told me.
Little did I know the bewitching yet enchanting
tales would soon become some of the bestselling folklore and a milestone in writing
during the 18th century. Jacob Ludwig Carl
Grimm was born January 4, 1785, in Hanau,
Germany. He is the son of Philipp Wilhelm
Grimm and Dorothea Grimm. Just over a year
later Wilhelm Carl Grimm was born on February
24, 1786. Little did the world know what Jacob
and Wilhelm had to offer. When the Grimm
brothers were about 10 years old there father
died leaving the family in a great deal of
poverty and were introduced to even more
tragedy when 3 of their 7 siblings had also
passed. However the hardships did not
interfere with there future plans for success.

After schooling in Kassel both Jacob and

Wilhelm attended the University of Marburg
where there interest in folklore started to
spark. Jacob later became a librarian at Kassel
and and Gottingen which played a major part
in their fairy tail collection because it gave
them the scholarly background they needed.
My uncle Jacob and father hoped to make a
statement about the importance and value of
German culture thus began their journey of
being the first to collect and record folk tales
and study of linguistics. The Grimm brothers
were the most important of the early language
and folklore romantic historians. The first of the
many Brothers Grimm books was The Tales of
Children and Home, published in 1812 that
included Cinderella, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding
Hood, Snow White and several other fables.
They also had an impact on German language
publishing the first edition of German grammar
(Deutshe Grammatik) in 1819. Not only did the
brothers study the German language but were
working to document its relationship between
similar words of different languages and this
became known as Grimms Law. My father
married my mother Henriette Dorthea Wild in
1825. Along with the other great deal of
amazing things my father and uncle achieved
they worked on the German Lexicon, were
invited to Berlin by the king of Prussia, and

Jacob Grimm was elected into the Frankfurt

National Parliament. The brothers worked as a
perfect team, with my father focusing on the
imaginative and literary side, and my Uncle
Jacob did the scholarly work. My father,
Wilhelm Grimm passed away 4 years ago on
December 16th. As of September 20th 1863 my
father and uncle Jacob are reunited hand in
hand in heaven like they had been there whole
lives. If you want your children to be smart
read them fairy tales. If you want them to be
more intelligent read them more fairy tales, so
said a genius and fellow friend of both brothers
Albert Einstein. I am honored to have had such
amazing role models in my life that left behind
a respectable name and I could not have asked
for a better father or uncle. While it is sad that
the Grimm brothers are no longer with us there
legacy will live forever.