ABSTRACT
The R. C. Lehmann Lehmann-Robert Chambers family was one such; the Mimi von Glehn family was another, but much more shadowy, appearing in passing and in footnotes rather than anywhere more substantive. The Glehns were not of a class for whom a child prodigy in the family - such as the pianist Adelina de Lara or the violinist Marie Hall - meant an escape from poverty and labour. The story of the family begins with Mimi’s father, Robert von Glehn, an Estonian immigrant merchant. The Glehn family originated from the village of Glehn, near Cologne in the Rhineland, but they had moved away from there some generations previously, migrating via Lubeck to Reval, the capital of Estonia. The family had Continental ways and strong Continental links, and they felt themselves to be a little out of the ordinary, something they clearly rather relished; even mealtimes were sometimes conducted in French, with the children being sent out if they refused to comply.
