Adelheid Page-Schwerzmann

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Adelheid Page-Schwerzmann (born August 20, 1853 in Zug ZG ; † September 15, 1925 in Cham ZG ) was a Swiss philanthropist and patron .

Live and act

Origin and education

Adelheid Schwerzmann was born as the fifth daughter in the middle-class house of glass trader and travel guide Karl Kaspar Schwerzmann and his wife Agatha Weiss. At the age of four, she lost her father, then called "Heidi", and grew up as a half-orphan. Appropriately, she attended the girls' school in Maria Sacrifice Monastery in Zug and at the age of 16 went to a secondary school for girls in Vevey . She took an early interest in art and culture and learned various foreign languages.

Marriage to George Ham Page

In 1875 Adelheid Schwerzmann met her future husband George Ham Page, who in 1866 took over the management of the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company in Cham ZG, founded the year before , at a carnival ball. The two married that same year, and the following year they moved into one of the colonial style houses . In 1877 their only son Fred was born. In the course of his studies, Adelheid Page-Schwerzmann spent several years in New York and Paris. Her husband died in 1899; she outlived the major entrepreneur 17 years her senior by 26 years. After the death of her husband, she took over the management of the company, but decided against running the company permanently and prepared the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company for a merger.

St. Andreas Castle in Cham

In 1902 she and her son bought the castle property on the St. Andreas peninsula and had it redesigned by the Zug architect Dagobert Keizer from 1903 to 1907. At the time of purchase, the castle was in a desolate condition.

"Adelheid" sanatorium and "Heimeli" children's home

Because of her own illness, she was particularly committed to the fight against tuberculosis . In 1912 she founded the Adelheid tuberculosis sanctuary in Unterägeri , which she bequeathed to the non-profit association of the Canton of Zug, and in 1918 the “Heimeli” children's sanctuary.

She was considered a philanthropist with a sense of art and was also an art patron.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Merki: Adelheid, the intrepid . Ed .: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . No. 260 . NZZ, Zurich November 8, 2018, p. 15 .
personal data
SURNAME Page-Schwerzmann, Adelheid
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss philanthropist and patron
DATE OF BIRTH August 20, 1853
PLACE OF BIRTH Zug ZG
DATE OF DEATH September 15, 1925
Place of death Cham ZG