Early Life
Helene was born in a minor aristocratic family from the region of Ödenburg.
Helene married twice and bore two children. Her first husband was Peter Szekeles, who died in 1431. She then married Johann Kottanner, an aristocrat from Vienna. By 1436, both Helene and her second husband were servants of Albert the second, the then duke of Austria and his wife Elisabeth. Helene's role in this royal Habsburg household was nanny to the children of Albert and Elisabeth. Note that, according to the contemporary German custom of calling a wife or sometimes daughter, the alternative names ending in "-in" amount to adding a feminine suffix to her husband's name.
Read more about this topic: Helene Kottannerin
Famous quotes related to early life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)