Ludwig's company moved to the bohemian spa of Teplitz to avoid Napoleon's campaign around Leipzig, shortly before Wilhelm Richard's birth. Carl Friedrich refused to acknowledge the child, so as soon as possible after Richard's birth, Johanna made an arduous journey to see Ludwig, leaving her husband and other six children behind. She stayed only a while before returning to Carl Friedrich, who then allowed the three month old child to be christened as his son. But it is probable that Geyer was Richard's true father.
Three months later Carl Friedrich died of typhus. Geyer and Johanna then married. Six months after the wedding another child was born, Geyer's daughter. Richard was raised as Richard Geyer, until sometime after he was confirmed at the age of 14, six years after Geyer's death.
Richard was a virulent anti-Semite for most, if not all, of his life. Geyer was often a Jewish name; Ludwig Geyer was born in the center of the Leipzig Jewish quarter, and had many of the characteristic Jewish facial features, although time has shown that this particular Geyer had no Jewish blood. Jew or not, Richard loved Geyer. (Interestingly enough, Richard's first "love" was a Jew, as was his best school chum.)
Geyer was talented as an artist, and had intelligence, volubility, articulateness, acting and singing talent and literary ability, all of which he passed on to his son, none of which was recognized early on. When the Dresden conductor Carl Maria von Weber asked nine-year-old Richard if he wanted to be a musician, Johanna informed Weber that she had noticed no indication of musical talent.
But to the contrary, when seven-year-old Richard was called home from school where his father was dying of tuberculosis, Johanna asked him to play the piano in hope of diverting Geyer. After Richard played his own rendition of several folk songs, Geyer remarked, "Is it possible he has musical talent?" Perhaps Johanna just didn't want another of her children in a fickle theatrical profession. Richard was the only one of her children not to be given regular music lessons. But with the rest of the family he began attending operas at the age of five.
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