Theirs had been a difficult courtship. She was an intimate of his sister as well as the sister of a college friend. Ellen was several years older than he and in poor health. They long carried on an intellectual correspondence (with infrequent meetings) about books and ideas. Ellen was an intellectual, a self-taught student of philosophy and literature, and probably had a truer concern with ideas than Alice. George and Ellen shared rich and varied interests. Aside from the impact of two years at the University of Tübingen, Ellen probably contributed as much as anyone to George Palmer's intellectual development before he came to Harvard to teach. George Palmer at about the time of his marriage. (Courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.) But when they decided to marry, both their families were strongly opposed. The Palmers disliked intensely Ellen's Swedenborgian religious ideas, that she was older than their son, and that she was already stricken with active tuberculosis which had plagued her much of her adult life. Eventually, however, everyone was reconciled. The marriage seemed happy and fulfilling for both, marred only by Ellen's ill health. Always frail, Ellen died in 1879 of tuberculosis.