Maren Sars

Maren Cathrine Sars (née Welhaven; 17 August 1811 – 27 December 1898) was a Norwegian socialite. Personal life Maren Cathrine Sars was born Maren Cathrine Welhaven on 17 August 1811 in Bergen, Norway, the daughter of the priest Johan Ernst Welhaven (1775–1828) and Else Margrethe Cammermeyer (1785–1853).

She grew up in a family closely associated with Norway's literary and intellectual life. Her brother, Johan Sebastian Welhaven, four years her senior, later became one of the leading poets and literary critics in nineteenth-century Norway. Her sister Elisabeth "Lise" Welhaven also became known as a writer and storyteller.

Sars spent her childhood in Bergen, which in the early nineteenth century was one of Norway's principal cultural and commercial centres. Her father died in 1828. The couple had fourteen children, nine of whom survived to adulthood. Several later became prominent figures in Norwegian cultural and scientific life, including the historian Ernst Sars, the marine zoologist Georg Ossian Sars, and the singer Eva Nansen, who later married the explorer Fridtjof Nansen. She was also an aunt of Hjalmar Welhaven and Kristian Welhaven.

The family home became a notable meeting place for liberal and intellectual citizens of Norway's capital. It has been called "Christiania's first salon". Among the people who gathered here Ola Thommessen, Lars Holst, Oda Krohg, Mathilde Schjøtt, Hartvig Lassen and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. Mally and Eva provided music and song. Her sons Ernst and Ossian even lived with her after Michael died in 1869.