Maria Dmitrievna Mendeleeva
Maria Dmitrievna Mendeleeva, born Maria Kornilieva, was the mother of Dmitri Mendeleev.
Early life
Mendeleeva came from a well-known family of Siberian merchants. They were the founders of the first Siberian printing house who traced their ancestry to Yakov Korniliev, a wealthy 17th-century posad merchant.Maria's mother died birthing her, and so she was raised by her nanny.She was not allowed to go to school due to sexism, and instead learned by herself from the work that her brother, Vasily Dmitrievich, brought home from his lessons and from her father's large collection of books.
Midlife
In 1809, at age 14, she married Ivan Pavlovich Mendeleev, a school principal and a teacher of fine arts, politics and philosophy.Maria birthed 17 children, of whom "only 14 stayed alive to be baptized" according to her son Pavel. The Mendeleevs raised their children as Orthodox Christians. Maria encouraged her youngest child, Dmitri, to "patiently search divine and scientific truth". She encouraged all of her children to read, calling books, "the gift of words on paper".
In 1823, Ivan was dismissed from his teaching position and the family moved to the village of Aremzyanskoye. In 1834, the same year that Maria's youngest child, Dmitri was born, Ivan became blind due to cataracts and unable to work.
Maria's brother, Vasily Korniliev, owned a dormant glass factory in Aremzyanskoye. He passed the management to Maria who reopened the factory and restarted production.After Ivan Mendeleev's death from tuberculosis in 1847, the large family lived Maria's income from managing the factory.
Later Dmitri would recall: "There, at the glass factory managed by my mother, I received my first impressions of nature, people, and industrial affairs.
In 1848, the factory burned down. By 1849, Maria had settled her affairs in Aremzyanskoye and moved with her daughter Elizaveta and son Dmitri across country to Moscow. She intended to enroll Dmitri in Moscow University, but found that due to red tape, because they were coming from the Tobolsk region, he could not be admitted. Maria persisted, and moved with her children to Saint Petersburg, an arduous 700km trip by horse and cart. There, she was again foiled as Dmitri was rejected from the main university, and instead enrolled at the Chief Pedagogical Institute, previously known only for teacher training. However, the Institute was changing. That autumn, Dmitri joined the physical–mathematical track, enjoyed lectures from visiting University professors and achieved good grades. A few weeks after Dmitri's enrollment, Maria died of tuberculosis in 1850. Dmitri recorded her last words to him as, "The hopes of my old age were based on you."
Legacy
Dmitri was eventually able to receive a full education at Saint Petersburg State University and would go on to formulate the periodic law and creating a version of the periodic table of elements among other achievements. His mother's influence on his life and success was clear to him as he wrote in the dedication to his first major work, "The study of aqueous solutions by specific gravity":In another introduction, he wrote: