Personal Life
Brotherus was born in Skarpans in Sund, Åland while Finland was under Russian rule. He had 13 brothers and sisters of whom six died young. He took his Candidate of Philosophy degree in 1870 at Imperial Alexander University (later University of Helsinki) and began medical studies but gave them up after getting blood poisoning and became a teacher. He married Aline Mathilde Sandman (born 1853 ), daughter of Jonas Sandman, a Justice in the Court of Appeal, in 1879 at the age of thirty, and had four children. She died in 1894 and he did not remarry. He taught natural history and mathematics at the Swedish girls' school in Vaasa City from 1878 to 1917, carrying on his career as a botanist in parallel. At his funeral, his grand-nephew describes:
"Foreign guests arrived to his funeral, he was praised in the funeral orations, last respects were read from distant lands. The staff of the school was astonished. They had no idea that he was also something else but their dear old junior lecturer ."
Read more about this topic: Viktor Ferdinand Brotherus
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