The Moser dam was no light piece of weekend carpentry. There were several –ahem–’ruptures’, and Papa seemed to be locked in a battle against the very forces of nature. Unsurprisingly, he won. The waterworks were completed in April 1866 and were, at that moment, the largest in Switzerland. In celebration, I tried (quite a lot) of champagne for the first time… and may even have overindulged a little. Papa had established himself not only as a local hero, but as a star in the international Industrial firmament.

Very sadly, Mama had died suddenly in a carriage accident in 1850, unable to witness all of the exciting industrial activities. This untimely end cast a long shadow over our celebrations. But In 1870, Papa married his second wife: my Stepmother, Baroness Fanny Louise of Sulzer-Wart. The two met rather romantically: on a train, when Fanny’s glasses broke and Papa offered his services to mend them. Though in her early 20s, she was quite a bit younger than he, the pair got on famously and produced two daughters. Tragically, it was only four days after the birth of my younger half-sister Mentona that Papa died: on October 23, 1874 at the age of 68. It was, undoubtedly, the end of an era.