Karoline Rosing

Haldora Helene Margrethe Karoline Rosing (née Petrussen ; born August 9, 1842 in Ukalersalik , † September 6, 1901 in Kangaamiut ) was a Greenlandic midwife and translator .

Life

Karoline Rosing was the daughter of the hunter Jehu Petrussen and his wife Cori (or Guri) Ane Petersen and grew up under simple circumstances at the Ukalersalik residential area. As a big girl she came to the Barfoed pastor family in Paamiut . The Danish-Greenlandic later Udsteds administrator Peter Frederik Rosing (1835-1912), whom she married on September 19, 1862 in Qeqertarsuatsiaat , worked there as a volunteer at the time . The marriage had nine children: Marie (* 1861), Johannes (* 1863), Christian (* 1866), Ulrik (* 1868), Peter (* 1871), Ludvig (* 1873), Ludvig (* 1876), Karl (* 1878) and Theodora (* 1883).

Inspector Hinrich Johannes Rink , to whom the wellbeing of the Greenlanders was very important, offered the couple a trip to Denmark so that Karoline could train as a midwife. From 1865 to 1867 she was trained at Rigshospitalet . This made her the first Greenlandic woman to ever complete a midwifery training. Some women in Greenland were previously unable to complete their training due to a lack of language skills. Karoline, on the other hand, had learned Danish from her foster family.

After Karoline Rosing and her husband returned to Greenland, they settled in the colonial district of Holsteinsborg, where they worked in Sisimiut and Qerrortusoq . In order to have their children raised to hunters, they moved to Maniitsoq in 1876 and to Kangaamiut in 1882 , where the hunters were considered particularly capable. At that time there was no district doctor in the colonial district of Sukkertoppen and she was the only one with a medical training in the entire district who was also responsible for amputations and the care of gunshot wounds, for example. At the same time she also trained young girls to be medical assistants.

Karoline Rosing was an avid reader and read Danish newspapers regularly. She translated the feature articles into Greenlandic and read them regularly to her family. Around 1886 she was the first woman to publish an article in the Atuagagdliutit , which at the time consisted mainly of translated articles from Danish newspapers. She also regularly translated articles for the newspaper in the years that followed. Her records were collected, organized, copied and printed in a five-kilogram book by her descendants around 1970, which is in the Greenland National Archives . Karoline Rosing died in Kangaamiut at the age of 59.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Church records Maniitsoq 1901–1913 (Died Women, p. 185)
2. ↑ Biography in Dansk Kvindebiografisk Leksikon