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.
And who could watch the kids see the new couple the next day and not feel fuzzy? Especially Little Johann.
"Papa!" he squealed. "Papa! Papa!"
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 peniless 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.
Also in 1632, when Jeff is waiting for the Croats to break down the gymnasium door:
Jeff said nothing. He couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't sound melodramatic and corny. So he decided to spend these last moments of his life simply thinking about his wife, and hoping that their unborn child would enjoy the world as much as he had.
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.
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..."
First, 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."
Second, after he has finished his first batch of dyed embroidery thread, he shows the father of the woman he loves, the father who had prohibited their union because he was Unable To Support A Wife, that he lives by the American proverb of "where there is a will, there is a way".
Finally, silence again. And when Guildmaster Edelmann turned back to face them, he was wearing an entirely different expression than the one he'd arrived here with.
"Also," he said. "Ja, gut. Und wann moechten Ihr beiden heiraten?"
Tom didn't need Klaus's translation for that. Magdalena's shining blue eyes were enough.
1633
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.
Grantville Gazette
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.
1634: The Bavarian Crisis
At the end of The Bavarian Crisis, Maria Anna's brother Ferdinand convinces their dying father to reaffirm his love for her and assures their younger sister she won't have to make the unhappy marriage she did in the original timeline.
