Henriette Bitzius-Zeender

Henriette Bitzius-Zeender (approx. 1850) painted by Friedrich Walthard

Henriette Bitzius-Zeender , née Henriette Zeender (born August 8, 1805 in Bern ; June 14, 1872 ibid) was a Swiss pastor's wife who worked as a lecturer for her husband Albert Bitzius (known as the writer Jeremias Gotthelf ) and who looked after family in Lützelflüh , Housekeeping and guests.

Gotthelf's publisher Julius Springer noted in a letter that Bitzius would not have become Jeremias Gotthelf without his wife, so significant did he assess the influence she exercised on the poet.

Life

Church and rectory Lützelflüh, where Henriette Bitzius-Zeender lived as a child and later as a pastor's wife (1827)

The daughter Henriette, as a writer under the name Marie Walden known

Henriette was the youngest of three children of Emanuel Jakob Zeender, professor of theology at the Bern Academy , and Marianne was born at Fasnacht. She lost her parents at the age of two. Together with her siblings Samuel Albrecht and Maria Anna Katharina, she grew up with their grandparents at Fasnacht. Grandfather Jakob Albrecht Fasnacht came to Lützelflüh as a pastor in 1808. Here, in the Emmental, to which she felt deeply connected, she spent her childhood and youth. Her grandmother Katharina Fasnacht, born Lüthi, came from a farming family. Henriette often stayed in Jegenstorf , where her uncle Johann Ludwig Fasnacht had taken over the pastoral position in 1812.

In Burgdorf , Henriette Zeender was taught in a private institution according to the educational ideals of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi . In 1821 she went to the Guyot guesthouse in Saint-Blaise for two years . Her guardian Johann Rudolf von Sinner then helped her to find governess posts in Aarwangen and Kiesen . An engagement after 1823 with Bernhard Walthard, who worked as vicar in Lützelflüh and had taught in his private school in Bern, was dissolved around 1828/1829. In 1829 she returned to her widowed grandfather in Lützelflüh and ran his parsonage. Here she met Albert Bitzius in 1831, who took up his position as vicar; the two married in Wynigen in 1833 .

The son Albert Bitzius (1835–1882)

For Albert Bitzius, the educated and regionally anchored Henriette Bitzius-Zeender was a good match. As a single woman, like her sister, she would probably have earned her living as an educator in wealthy families and also abroad. Her marriage to a pastor gave her a clearly defined, helpful role model, so that from then on she was only perceived as the wife, mother and assistant to her writing husband, who published under the pseudonym Jeremias Gotthelf. Bitzius-Zeender worked as an editor and copyist of his works and mitigated politically risky statements. In a family sense, she had a balancing effect between her husband and his mother Elisabeth Kohler and between him and his half-sister Marie Bitzius. She also took on the education of her daughters Henriette and Cécile, while Albert went to school in the Burgdorf orphanage and later attended high school in Bern. She also took care of her husband's numerous and regular guests.

After the death of her husband in 1854, the move from Lützelflüh, where the majority of Bitzius-Zeender had lived, turned out to be a traumatic experience. In 1855 she moved to the city of Bern, in 1860 to Sumiswald , where her older daughter Henriette Rüetschi-Bitzius was pastor's wife, and finally in 1867 to one of the Wankdorf estates near Bern. The remaining 18 years of her life also corresponded to the social expectations of a widowed pastor's wife. So she looked after her descendants, especially after the death of her son-in-law Ludwig Rüetschi in 1866. She remained the center of a family that had spread over several places (Bern, Gstaad , Twann , etc.). She kept in contact with Gotthelf's publisher Julius Springer in Berlin in order to secure the sale of the works. After lengthy health problems, she died in 1872.

Literature and Sources

• Marie Walden (Mrs. Pastor Henriette Rüetschi-Bitzius): Mrs. Henriette Bitzius-Zeender. A picture of life told by her daughter. Bern 1941. (= good writings. 201)
• Karl Fehr: Jeremias Gotthelf, man, educator, poet. A picture of life. 3rd edition Swiss. Association of abstinent teachers, [Obersteckholz] 1954.
• Doris Stump: «Against the pride and arrogance of women. The image of women in Jeremias Gotthelf ». In: Hanns Peter Holl, J. Harald Wäber (ed.): "... to scream into time ...". Contributions to Jeremias Gotthelf / Albert Bitzius (1797–1854). 1997, pp. 149-170, v. a. 167-170.
• Marianne Derron: "Vos ouvrages, Monsieur, sont ce qu'il [...] faut." How the French-speaking part of Switzerland discovered Jeremias Gotthelf. in: Marianne Derron, Christian von Zimmermann (eds.): Jeremias Gotthelf. New studies. 2014, pp. 53-74, v. a. 53-54.
• Gertrud Lüthardt: The pastor's wife of Lützelfüh, Henriette Bitzius, go to Zeender. In: Burgdorfer Jahrbuch, 1948, pp. 85–94. ( PDF online )

Web links

• Marianne Derron: Henriette Bitzius-Zeender. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . April 8, 2020 , accessed April 18, 2020 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gertrud Lüthardt: The pastor's wife of Lützelfüh, Henriette Bitzius, go to Zeender , in: Burgdorfer Jahrbuch, 1948, p. 91. ( PDF online )

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