[1] Her father, Karl Willdenow is sometimes styled as a pedagogist from Berlin,[2] at others as a privy councilor from Breslau[1] and at others a curator at the University of Bonn.
[3] She was privately educated until completing her Abitur and then enrolled in 1884 at the medical school at University of Zurich.
[4] Studying in Zürich until 1887,[1] after passing her Propaedeutic Examinations she went on to further her education at Bern, with a specialty in pediatrics.
[6] Willdenow conducted laboratory work under Edmund Drechsel [de], the noted chemist.
She studied the milk protein casein and conducted research into the inorganic salts of lysine in the 1890s.