About Franz

The story told by Mary Dian Molton in About Franz began in 1988 in Küsnacht, Switzerland. Molton, living in Kansas City, Missouri, and having recently completed exams as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, was taking classes at the Jung Institute in Küsnacht when she inquired about the possibility of visiting the Jung family home. She was directed to contact Franz Jung, Carl Jung’s only son, who was living in the home at the time, to see if a visit might be possible. Indeed, Franz Jung was most gracious in his reply, and Molton’s first visit was followed by several more over the years as well as the exchange of many letters. Over the next eight years, until Franz died in 1996, Molton had the singular opportunity to peer into the inner and outer worlds of Carl Jung through the lens of his son, Franz, while also learning what it was like to be the son of a genius. A battered suitcase in Molton’s office came to collect sets of letters, notebooks, and journals within which she stored the artifacts of her treasured relationship with Franz that brought the world of Carl Jung—his prominent work as a psychologist and writer, his art that was on display at the family retreat at Böllingen, and his role as a father—up close for examination. It took some years and much hesitancy, but Molton eventually opened the suitcase to tell this great and important story about Franz, talented architect and gifted artist, who in his later years became a generous and gracious ambassador for his father, Carl Jung.