Hertha (Mikki) Siemens Cavenaugh

Mikki was named for a childhood friend of Emily's, her mother, from the time when Emily was traveling in Europe with her parents. Emily's father, Simon Newcomb the reknowned astronomer, received a number of honorary degrees from the universities of Europe, so the family was there more than occasionally. The friend's full name, and thus Mikki's, was Hertha Von Siemens, as she was the daughter of the founder of the Siemens industrial giant in Germany. Around the outset of World War II, she dropped the "Von Siemens" from her name, lest people think her German.

When Pearl Harbor was bombed, the family was in the Panama Canal Zone, where #3 child (#2 son) Jim had just been born. Dad was gone at once to war, first to Texas and then to China, and Mikki was left to get herself and the three children, one still nursing, back to mainland USA. She did, finding a home with her aunt Josie in Winter Park, FL.

Mikki was raised in a large, well-off family in New York City, in the exclusive Gramercy Park area, and with a vacation home in Southampton on Long Island. She was fun-loving and a bit of a jokester, enjoying (and bestowing on her children) a love of accents, word games, and humor.