Bernhard Caesar Einstein
Bernard first met his grandfather Albert when he was two years old. As a boy he travelled alone to spend time with Albert in New Jersey, and at Saranac Lake in upstate New York. Einstein recounted to his son Thomas that he used to irritate his grandfather because he would urinate out the window directly above Albert's study in Princeton. At Saranac Lake he enjoyed sailing with his grandfather. Apparently Albert Einstein's favorite time to sail was when there was very little wind. According to Bernard, his grandfather enjoyed the challenge of harnessing whatever little bit of breeze he could capture. The sailing tradition was carried on by Albert's son, Hans Albert, and Bernard's children on the San Francisco Bay. Albert Einstein died in April 1955. Having shared his love of music with his grandson, he bequeathed Bernard his violin in addition to a modest sum of money.
In 1954, Bernard married Doris Aude Ascher (born c. 1938), with whom he had five children:
Albert Einstein
Einstein's future wife, a 20-year old Serbian woman Mileva Marić, also enrolled at the Polytechnic that year. She was the only woman among the six students in the mathematics and physics section of the teaching diploma course. Over the next few years, Einstein and Marić's friendship developed into romance, and they read books together on extra-curricular physics in which Einstein was taking an increasing interest. In 1900, Einstein passed the exams in Maths and Physics and was awarded the Federal Polytechnic teaching diploma. There have been claims that Marić collaborated with Einstein on his 1905 papers, known as the "Annus Mirabilis" papers, but historians of physics who have studied the issue find no evidence that she made any substantive contributions.