Despite her goat whey cure, Minna’s state of health continued to worsen. In order to undergo a thorough medical examination and get appropriate treatment, she began planning a visit to her brother-in-law Adam Tröger in Zwickau, who was a doctor. Her parents were also ailing, and for that reason alone she was keen to see them again, along with her other relatives back home in Saxony. The memories of her enforced departure from Dresden were still painful to her, so she initially planned to leave the city off her itinerary, and arranged for her parents to visit her in Zwickau instead. But what had initially been planned as a family reunion—with a brief extra trip to see Alwine Frommann in Berlin—was soon expanded into a tour of no less than nine cities in nine weeks. This was an extraordinary undertaking for an unaccompanied woman at that time. But Minna had already been accustomed to traveling alone when she was a young, unattached actor, and that experience now stood her in good stead.

Minna left Zurich on September 2, 1854, and arrived in Zwickau after a long, exhausting journey. She was met by her sister Charlotte, her brother-in-law Adam, and her parents. After Adam had treated her, she set off on the round trip she had planned. Chemnitz was her first stop, to visit Clara and Heinrich Wolfram. As chance would have it, an old boyfriend of Minna’s now happened to call on Richard in Zurich. He left his best wishes for Minna, along with the mysterious message that she should be sure to remember the “Concordia.” Richard wrote to her, groaning: “That’s a nice story! and I, poor thing, have to pass it on!!” And in his next letter, he joked: “Natalie said that the people at the post office are going to start making comments about all the gentlemen my wife is hanging out with—one day it’s a Dr. Tröger, then a Mr. Wolfram.”

Richard was at this time tormented yet again by worries about money, but refrained from telling Minna. He had purchased the luxurious furnishings for their apartment on the Zeltweg a year earlier without regard for the financial consequences, and now the income he was anticipating from the smaller German theaters for the fall of 1854 turned out less than he had hoped.