Although Bertha financed the development process, and would hold patent rights under modern law, as a married woman she was not allowed to apply for the patent. Together they had five children: Eugen (1873), Richard (1874), Clara (1877), Thilde (1882), and Ellen (1890). In August 1888, without telling her husband and without permission of the authorities, 39-year-old Bertha Benz drove with her sons Richard and Eugen, thirteen and fifteen years old, in the newly constructed Patent Motorwagen automobile--from Mannheim to Pforzheim--becoming the first person to drive an automobile over a real distance.
Ellen
Bertha Benz