1632/Heartwarming

• Jeff and Gretchen's first night together as husband and wife. If that doesn't make you feel warm and fuzzy inside, you are not human. The marriage proposal preceding that moment wasn't exactly lacking in the ability to warm hearts, either.
  • Frank Jackson's impassioned defense of the relationship. Several members of the little emergency council are implying that Gretchen - by virtue of being a German refugee with nothing to call her own - can't possibly be good enough for Jeff. Frank gets absolutely furious, and demands to know whether they assumed his wife of thirty years was "some kind of Vietnamese princess," with the implication that there was no other way they'd have been stupid enough to make the claim that marrying a penniless refugee couldn't work out in front of him. We don't see a lot of her in the books, but Frank Jackson loves his wife.
  • The morning after the wedding night is pretty sweet, too. Gretchen's several (unofficially) adopted children had been terrified during the night by sounds they'd never heard Gretchen make in the past. It relieved their worry only a little to see that her grandmother was clearly very pleased at those noises. And when they finally crowded in to see Gretchen late in the morning, they almost couldn't recognize her. Because they'd seen her smile from time to time before ... but they'd never before seen her happy. <Sniffle>
• Whatever other Grantvillers thought of Tom "Stoner" Stone, his sons deeply love and respect him as a father. In the words of his eldest son Frank: "Pop, you have not once, in the past fifteen years, been stoned. Don't think we haven't noticed. Once in a while, about half as often as most guys' dads drink a six-pack, you've been a little buzzed. Never when we needed you. Maybe the rest of the town thinks you're a doper, but we know better. Always have. You've been a damn fine dad, as good as the best, and better than most. No shit."
  • There's a line in one book that sardonically describes Tom's parenting style as "borderline abusive," at least from the point of view of vigorous teenagers. This is because he explains to his sons what he considers good behavior to be, practices what he preaches, and then trusts them to follow his example, with the result that they'll feel guilty if they rebel against his authority. Rebelling against parental authority is a birthright of all teens....
• Gretchen visits Hans while he is lying wounded on a hospital bed-after going through untold agony for months trying to help Gretchen protect their siblings. Gretchen says, "You don't have to be a soldier anymore..."
• Amazingly given his role in the first book, Admiral Simpson earns a few of these, particularly in the course of his grooming of Eddie Cantrell and Larry Wild as naval officers.

Eddie Cantrell: Yeah, sure, Simpson's a bastard. But dammit, Larry, he's our bastard.

• David Bartley earns two of these in "The Sewing Circle" from the first Grantville Gazette:
  • First, after the hiring of Johan Kipper, when David explains to Johan why the uptimers treat him with respect;
  • Second, when he supports the takeover of the company by Karl Schmidt because it would make his mother happy.
• Rebecca catching sight of the Roths' menorah and realising that they are openly Jewish. And then Judith telling her that Mike had suspected she would feel safer with a Jewish family, and that was why he had asked them to take her in.
• In 1634: The Bavarian Crisis, the archduchess Maria Anna develops a friendship with Mary Simpson while they're escaping from Bavaria. And then she discovers that Mary is Unitarian -- a branch of Christianity so heretical by the standards of the time that they make most Lutherans seem almost identical to Roman Catholics. What will the archduchess do? Run away as if Mary were a plague carrier? Call for the Inquisition? After pondering the question for about fifteen minutes, she vows to devote a half hour each day for the rest of her life to extra prayers for the salvation of Mary's soul.
  • Maria Anna acquired a nickname among Grantvillers as a result of the escape: The Wheelbarrow Princess. This was because when Mary Simpson's feet developed such blisters from walking in ill-fitting shoes that she couldn't walk anymore, Maria Anna found a wheelbarrow for Mary to ride in ... while the archduchess pushed it. (There was no one else in their party who had the strength, except perhaps some not-quite-nuns whose snooty leader didn't offer to have any of them take a turn pushing.)
• In the course of 1636: Mission to the Mughals, a daughter-in-law of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan goes into labor -- and there are complications (possibly worse because her husband is believed to be dead). The most-qualified medic from the U.S.E. mission is requested to assist the birth. She's successful, saving both mother and child, and Shah Jahan is very grateful. Literally "give-the-medic-her-weight-in-silver" grateful. Then it gets even better, because just as the scales are about balanced, the new mother sets her infant down in the medic's lap, meaning she gets a bit more silver. And the emperor doesn't object at all.