Marie Schmolková was born in June 1893 as the youngest child of Hynek and Julia Eisner. Her father died when she was three years old. Older sisters married and left the family home, the youngest Marie continued to live with her mother. Czech was spoken at home, and in addition to Czech and German, she knew English and French, and so, as an unmarried woman, she built a fairly successful career.
After her mother's death, Marie married a distant relative, a successful lawyer a generation older, Leopold Schmolka. It was a happy, if brief, marriage; Leopold died less than five years later.
As a recent widow, Marie decided that the best way to forget her grief was to travel. She chose the Middle East as her destination: Egypt, Syria and Palestine. She returned as a convinced Zionist and feminist and joined the women's organization WIZO. Gradually she became involved in social welfare programs, devoting herself to organizing humanitarian aid for impoverished Jews in Subcarpathian Rus.
Marie and Leopold Schmolka.