Born October 14, 1797, Vienna, Austria
Died October 27 or 28, 1858, Vienna, Austria

Ida Reyer was the only girl in a family of six children. Her father was a wealthy Viennese merchant who allowed his daughter to dress like a boy and to be taught alongside her brothers. Although Ida’s father died when she was nine and her mother tried to correct her “unladylike” upbringing, it was already too late. The girl was strong-willed, fearless, and independent. These characteristics would serve her well on the extraordinary world travels she would undertake later in her life.

At seventeen Ida fell in love with her piano teacher (an instrument she hated to play) but the match was considered beneath her social station. So she consented to an arranged marriage with Dr. Mark Anton Pfeiffer, a distinguished lawyer from Lemberg who was much older than she. After her husband...