Friedrich Georg Tuve

Family burial site

Friedrich Georg Tuve (* 8. October 1759 in Großwechsungen ; † thirtieth June 1830 in Aleksandrów Łódzki ) was a German Protestant Lutheran pastor.

family

Tuve was the youngest of eight children of Pastor Gottfried Kaspar Tuve from Großwechselungen and his wife Sophie Christiane, nee. Tölecke. His eldest brother, Ludwig Christian Gebhard Tuve, was a pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Badenhausen from 1779 to 1811 . Another brother, the Kramer Matthias Gottfried Tuve, is the ancestor of an important merchant family in Celle . The third brother Ludwig August Tuve was last landowner in Thuringia. Four other siblings were girls.

In the excerpts from a chronicle of his son Carl Friedrich Adolf Tuve, published in 1840, he describes the life story of his in-laws, the chief magistrate Johann Adolf Eckermann from Thorstorf in the parish of Bössow , and his wife Dorothea Magdalene, née. Burmeister. The first wife fell ill with measles shortly before the birth of the seventh child and died from it in childbed. The widower married his cousin Margarethe Dorothea Elisabeth Lange, the daughter of a lawyer from Güstrow, in Rostock on February 16, 1793 . There are six more children from this second marriage. The father Johann Adolf Eckermann died on his 57th birthday after a stroke.

His wife, who is now single, has made ends meet with her seven children who are still alive on an estate in Mecklenburg that has already been leased from her husband. Often the crop yield and the income from the livestock industry were insufficient to pay the rent. The family has more from the income from the property in Güstrow, an inheritance from the deceased husband, than they have to live from the income from agriculture.

The way to Poland

In this situation, the widow Eckermann found out from landowners friends that arable land and forests in Poland are being sold at very low prices. She came up with the idea, which the chronicler described as nonsensical, to acquire six Hufen arable land and as much forest in Łęczyca in the Zgierz district . This assessment seems to have been correct.

The log house built for temporary accommodation with the most expensive items to be moved has burned down. Almost everything was lost. The family found temporary shelter in a school house not far away. The mother returned to Mecklenburg at short notice, sold another part of her property and tried to build up the newly acquired property in Poland. As much as the family has invested in capital and hard work, they never found a green branch. The hopefully acquired Polish property was sold again. The family has moved back to Mecklenburg, to the "Land of Canaan", as Pastor Tuve called it.

Pastor Tuve in Alexandrov

Friedrich Georg Tuve was a student in Halberstadt and since October 17, 1777 a student of theology in Helmstedt . Its next traces can only be found in Upper Silesia. He worked there as a private tutor and chapel preacher with Count Posadowski-Blotznitz.

It seems that Friedrich Georg Tuve first got to know the Eckermann family on their Polish estate. The marriage with Johanna Margaretha Katharina, born on February 16, 1803 in the parish register of the Catholic parish in Zgierz is certain. Eckermann, who was born in Langen Brütz (Mecklenburg) in 1777 , the oldest daughter from his second marriage.

Around 1782, the first settlers arrived on the land of the landlord Rafał Bratoszewski. Soon the desire arose among them to build a German school and a house of prayer. The small community was looking for its own evangelical preacher and, after some difficulties with other applicants, unanimously decided in favor of its first pastor, Friedrich Georg Tuve.

After the founding approval of the parish by the Royal South Prussian Consistory, Pastor Tuve began his service in November 1801. The German-Protestant colonists were able to build the desired school and prayer house as well as a parsonage with the land and building materials generously provided by the Catholic landlord Bratoszewski. On the 23rd Sunday after Trinity , Pastor Tuve held the first service.

In a rousing sermon on June 28, 1803, he is said to have called on his sheep to fund a fundraising campaign for a new church. With these donations from the settlers and further support from the landlord, the young parish built a small wooden church in 1805. After only a little over ten years it was already too small again because visitors from neighboring villages had come regularly. Therefore, a new wooden church with a bell tower was built, which was consecrated on August 17, 1817. In the meantime, many Catholics had also immigrated. The Catholic landlords Bratoszewski and Gedeon Goedel now insisted that the existing church be made available to the Catholics.

In 1822 Alexandrov was officially promoted to the city. For the new Protestant citizens of the city it was a great advantage that they found an orderly community in Ruda-Bugaj . Sunday after Sunday a growing crowd of visitors moved to the church, which was 2 - 3 kilometers away.

Pastor Tuve still had to hold the service in the school. The construction of a new church was planned and approved as early as 1823. For various reasons, the completion of the new church in the city center has been delayed for years. Ultimately, the parish seat was moved to Alexandrov. The parish has had a new, even larger and more magnificent stone church built here.

On Christmas Day of 1828 Pastor Tuve carried out the solemn inauguration of this new church with the participation of the pastor from nearby Zgierz and about 3000 people. With a generous inheritance from the late mayor Goedel von Alexandrow, a third Evangelical church was built in 1843.

The old church was demolished, sold and placed in another parish. He never experienced that again. The memorial plaque installed in the new church was removed again during the Second World War . Today the church is used by the Catholic parish.

Pastor Tuve's relationship with his parishioners is clearly shown in the words he wrote shortly before his death: The colonies entrusted to me have rewarded my efforts with love and respect with undeniable gratitude.

Literature and other sources

• Alwina Stremler: From the chronicle of the Tuve family, written around 1840 , in: Zeitschrift des heimatbundes Mecklenburg 32 (1937), no. 1 pp. 10-18.
• Adolf Kargel ; Arthur Schmidt: Alexandrow, a center of the Germans in the industrial area Lodz . Publisher: Heimatkreisgemeinschaft der Deutschen aus der Lodzer Industriegebiet eV, Mönchengladbach (1980).
• Eduard Kneifel : The pastors of the Evangelical-Augsburg Church in Poland. (Self-published in Munich).
• Edmund Holtz: Hundred years of divine grace and loyalty to the evang.-luth. Alexandrov Parish . Lodz 1901.

Web links

• Biography of Pastor Fryderik Jerzy Tuve in Polish (PDF file; 337 kB)
• Photo of the family grave : An unusually large, brick-built family grave stands exactly on the border between the Evangelical and Catholic cemetery in Alexandrow, which is separated by a wire fence. After about 175 years, it is understandably in poor condition. An existing cross is rusted. Part of the inscription with the name and date of death of Pastor Tuve, his wife Johanna, geb. Eckermann and two children or grandchildren with the names Karl and Amalie can still be recognized.