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Tilda Braun
Fictional Character
1632 series
POD: May, 1631
Appearance(s): 1632, Grantville Gazette I
Type of Appearance: Direct
Nationality: Germany
Spouse: Jurgen Braun
Children: Anna Braun
Created by: Eric Flint

Tilda Braun was the wife of farmer Jurgen Braun. During the Thirty Years' War, in May 1631 Tilda and her family fell victim to Spanish mercenaries in the employ of Count Tilly. Tilda was brutally gang-raped by the mercenaries as her husband was forced to watch after being crucified to the door frame of their home. Fortunately, Tilda was saved by the American posse led by Michael Stearns. However, Tilda was deeply traumatized by her rape and was taken to Grantville, where she began recuperating at the high school. There she was reunited with her daughter Anna, who had been sheltered and looked after by George Blanton, but was emotionally unresponsive to her daughter.

The next day, Tilda recovered and met again with Anna and Blanton. Tilda was formally introduced by her daughter to Blanton, after which Tilda gratefully thanked him in English, much to the surprise of Blanton and Anna. Later, Tilda agreed to live with Blanton. But before that, Tilda wanted to see what was left of her home. After arriving there on Blanton's truck, Tilda and Anna were deeply dismayed that everything they possessed had been destroyed and ransacked. This led them to decide to live with Blanton. Initially, Tilda didn't accept that good fortune had finally come her way and believed that she and her daughter had to work for Blanton to cover their expenses for living with him, even though he reassured them that he was not making servants out of them. In the first instance, Tilda and Anna began to farm on George's disused farmland before seeing, to their great surprise, that Blanton had started to farm his land with his tractor. Later, Tilda tried to get accustomed to her new environment and to living with Blanton, which left each of them thinking that the other the most stubborn person that they ever met. During their discussion, Blanton strongly planned on having her husband move in with them once he recovered from his injuries. Tilda, however, was almost grimly certain that Jurgen would not survive his injuries. Eventually, Tilda got used to her situation and started to take charge of looking after Blanton's farmland, as Grantville's emergency committee had drafted Blanton into using his tractor to plow other lands. Personally, Tilda was concerned that the elderly Blanton was overworking himself.

In the weeks that followed, Tilda was reunited with a recovering Jurgen, who finally moved in with Blanton. Later, she and her husband oversaw of a planned marriage proposal between their daughter and Little Jim Reardon. The couple didn't agree to the marriage, believing that Little Jim was too young to be wed. However, the Reardons and Blanton explained the modern concept of marriage and Little Jim's successful career as a machinist. Tilda agreed with her husband that Anna can marry once she is eighteen years old and can make her own dowry.

On the day Blanton died, Tilda and everyone in the household discovered his corpse comforted by a saddened Anna.


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