Christiane Schumann

The marriage produced five children: Emilie (1796–1825), who is said to have shown features of "quiet madness" in her youth and took her own life in 1825,[5] Eduard (1799–1839), Carl (1801–1849), Julius (1804–1833) and Robert (1810–1856).

[10] She initially promoted Robert Schumann's musical talent which enabled him to receive piano lessons from the Zwickau organist Johann Gottfried Kuntsch at the age of seven.

[11] After the death of her husband in 1826, leaving her a considerable fortune, she chose a legal career for her son together with Robert's guardian, the merchant Johann Gottlob Rudel.

The correspondence gives, among other things, insight into Robert Schumann's trips to southern Germany in 1828, to Italy in 1829, his study visits to Leipzig and Heidelberg, and his living conditions there.

Robert Schumann also reported to his mother about the injury to his right hand, as a result of which he had to give up his virtuoso career as a pianist and devoted himself to composing.

While he often put himself in the spotlight in his letters as a student and aspiring composer and did not always distinguish between pretense and reality, Christiane Schumann always appeared genuine in her correspondence.

In her will of January 27, 1836, she named her "dear children and grandchildren" Eduard, Carl, Robert, Emilie, Richard and Mathilde Schumann as heirs with many detailed provisions "according to the legal order of succession".

In 2012, the Zwickau Schumann Society had a memorial plaque installed in her honor at the Protestant church of St. Laurentius in Karsdorf, where she had been baptized as Johanna Christiana Schnabel on 30 November 1767.