The professor’s family were natives of Fracture, his great-grandfather owning a well-to-do mining business paved the way for the future generations to live financially well lives. His grandfather, Stephen, followed in the same footsteps, however he moved away from mining stone and moving more in to gems and precious metals. By the time his father became the patriarch of the family, the mining business more or less ran itself and Garfield’s father, Marshall, spent a majority of his time hunting all manner of beasts and monsters while his mother, Theresa, the daughter of another somewhat influential labor family spent her time at home entertaining groups of women interested in clothing and jewelry in the Evanstark Estate house. It was through this gaggle of gals that Garfield met his wife. One of the women, the wife of a popular tailor had a daughter named Leena.
The two youths clicked like it was fate and were soon married right before Garfield’s apprenticeship as a physician’s aid at the University was to begin. Leena was interested in following her father’s line of work and worked to increase her skill as a seamstress, often making her new husband robes, aprons and other articles for his more in-depth classes so he would never run out of clean proper clothing for it. In addition, she also enjoyed maintaining a gorgeous garden at her new family estate and the couple would often spend their evenings sitting together in each other’s company there.
Some years in to the marriage, Garfield’s parents passed away. His father first, then mother shortly after as age finally caught up with them but their loss didn’t affect him as terribly as he had Leena and she supported his grief. With her help, he finished his apprenticeship and became a full-fledged physician and opened his own clinic. Eventually he took on an aid of his own, a man named Harald that was a little too enthusiastic about his learning, taking to sniffing smelling salts to keep himself awake, often for days at a time despite Garfield’s warnings of the health concerns and how it looked for a man practicing medicine to do such things. Harald grew an addiction to his habit and the physician had end his apprenticeship abruptly.
Nearly a year later, Leena’s father’s shop began to experience troubles. An unexpected drought had significantly decreased the supply of cotton and wool needed to make fabric for the garments they sold. Between her and her father and Garfield’s financial aid they were able to keep the shop from shutting down but the equipment had suffered during this time. Splintered wood and rusted metal lead to even more difficulties. But before Garfield could pay for repairs or replacements, Leena’s father continued on anyway and eventually, tragedy struck. One day while working at the shop, Leena was scratched by one of the rusted spinning wheel spindles without realizing. She went about her life as normal, continuing to work at the shop and at home to help her father and maintain her garden until her health suddenly took a turn for the worst. The scratch had gotten infected at some point without her noticing from how busy she had become.
Her husband desperately attempted to treat Leena, using every single concoction, spell and minor surgical procedure he knew of, even agreeing to take Harald back in to assist to save her but the infection having gone so long without treatment had made its way in to her bloodstream. It wasn’t long before she passed away from the infection and Garfield fell in to a deep depression.
He sold his clinic and withdrew to solitude in his family estate. Leena was buried on the grounds outside the house, her sewing room was locked and abandoned, same for her garden where the plants were left to wither and die off over the following years. Harald moved in to the house to watch over his mentor, despite still dealing with his own addiction and he became responsible for many things regarding the home and Garfield. The physician himself took to drinking heavily and would often sit outside the door of either of his wife’s places in the middle of the night. He spent an extraordinary amount of gold commissioning an artist to sculpt a statue of Leena that was placed in the stairs of the estate that replaced his midnight rituals.
Some years later, while he still was still grieving though less so, he was approached by the headmistress of the Arcane University with the offer of a teaching position in her school. Initially, Garfield rejected the offer but Harald convinced him. He told the widower that even if he couldn’t save Leena, he could still teach others how to save their loved ones. He agreed eventually and took the position.
Now as the appointed professor of Medicine and the Healing Arts of the university, Garfield takes a hard stance on the learning and practice of his craft and expects his students to follow suit as it will be them that one day will hold someone’s life in their hands.
