Stirner was of purely Frankish blood. His ancestors lived for centuries in or near Baireuth. His father, Albert Christian Heinrich Schmidt of Anspach, a maker of wind-instruments, died of consumption in 1807 at the age of 37, half a year after the birth of his son. His mother, Sophie Eleanora, née Reinlein of the city of Erlangen, six months later married H. F. L. Ballerstedt, the assistant in an apothecary shop in Helmstedt, and moved with him to Kulm on the Vistula. In 1818 the boy was sent back to his native city where his childless god-father and uncle, Johann Caspar Martin Sticht, and his wife took care of him. Young Johann Caspar passed through school with credit, and his schoolmates used to call him "Stirner" on account of his high forehead (_Stirn_) which was the most conspicuous feature of his face. This name clung to him throughout life. In fact his most intimate friends never called him by any other, his real name being almost forgotten through disuse and figuring only in official documents. Stirner attended the universities of Erlangen, Berlin and Königsberg, and finally passed his examination for admission as a teacher in gymnasial schools. His stepfather died in the summer of 1837 in Kulm at the age of 76. It is not known what became of his mother who had been mentally unsound for some time. Neither father nor stepfather had ever been successful, and if Stirner ever received any inheritance it must have been very small. On December 12 of 1837 Stirner married Agnes Clara Kunigunde Burtz, the daughter of his landlady. Their married life was brief, the young wife dying in a premature child-birth on August 29th. We have no indication of an ardent love on either side. He who wrote with passionate fire and with so much insistence in his philosophy, was calm and peaceful, subdued and quiet to a fault in real life. Having been refused appointment in one of the public or royal schools Stirner accepted a position in a girls' school October 1, 1839. During the political fermentation which preceded the revolutionary year of 1848, he moved in the circle of those bold spirits who called themselves _Die Freien_ and met at Hippel's, among whom were Ludwig Buhl, Meyen, Friedrich Engels, Mussak, C. F. Köppen, the author of a work on Buddha, Dr. Arthur Müller and the brothers Bruno, Egbert and Edgar Bauer. It was probably among their associates that Stirner met Marie Dähnhardt of Gadebusch near Schwerin, Mecklenberg, the daughter of an apothecary, Helmuth Ludwig Dähnhardt. She was as different from Stirner as a dashing emancipated woman can be from a gentle meek man, but these contrasts were joined together in wedlock on October 21, 1843. Their happiness did not last long, for Marie Dähnhardt left her husband at the end of three years.