Lü Meng
Lü Meng was from Fupo County (富陂縣), Runan Commandery (汝南郡), which is located southeast of present-day Funan County, Anhui. His family migrated to the south of the Yangtze River when Lü Meng was young. Lü Meng lived with his brother-in-law, Deng Dang (鄧當), who served as a military officer under Sun Ce. When he was 14 or 15, he secretly followed Deng Dang to the battles against the Shanyue tribes. Deng Dang was shocked to see his teenage brother-in-law in battle, so he scolded Lü Meng and warned him to stop. Lü Meng refused to listen so Deng Dang told Lü Meng's mother about this. When she wanted to punish him, Lü Meng said: "It is difficult to survive in poverty. If we can prove ourselves through hard work, then wealth will come eventually. How can we catch the tiger cub if we don't enter the tiger's den?" Lü Meng's mother sighed and let him have his way.
Žuži Jelinek
Jelinek was born in 1920 in Budapest to poor Jewish parents, Izidor and Ruža Ferber, as the youngest of three children. Her father changed his surname from Farber to Ferber. Jelinek's paternal grandfather was Moritz Farber, a textile merchant from Ludbreg. Her parents were both deaf, her father was from Ludberg and her mother was from Hungary. They met in Budapest, where they were sent by their families to the only specialized school for deaf people in the area. Jelinek also had two brothers. After Jelinek's birth, her family moved to Zagreb. They lived in a poor part of town. Although Jelinek's aunt, her father's sister, was married to a wealthy Zagreb Jew, Jelinek said that her family didn't benefit from it. Jelinek's aunt was ashamed of her poor deaf brother, so when Jelinek's family visited, she would receive them in the kitchen because, according to Jelinek, they were not good enough for the salons in the house. At that time, Jelinek swore that she would have a successful life. The humiliation experienced in childhood poverty were incentives for her to attain a decent life. She graduated from the Zagreb School of Tailors.