Maria Mechelen

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Maria Mechelen (* 25. February 1903 in Neuwied , † the thirtieth April 1991 ibid) was a German Benediktineroblatin the Abbey Maria Laach , a social worker and local politician.

Life

Maria Mechelen grew up with three siblings in a religious family. Her father was a lawyer and died in 1923. After that, her mother made sure that her children could finish their studies despite the inflation .

Maria Mechelen attended the “Social Women's School Aachen”, which she finished in 1926 with a passed exam as a child welfare worker. After an internship at the “Catholic Welfare Association” in Düsseldorf, she was called to Neuwied by the then dean Albert Fuchs . At that time the Caritas Association Neuwied consisted of the Agnesverein, the Marian Jungfrauenkongregation and the Catholic Welfare Association and had the self-imposed task of helping the needy and needy in Neuwied. Dechant Fuchs founded it on November 19, 1919 and handed over management to Maria Mechelen on December 1, 1927, as he himself had been appointed to the cathedral chapter of the Trier diocese . In addition to helping the unemployed, the disabled and orphans, she was particularly involved in the field of health care for young people. The establishment of day rest homes in Heimbach-Weis , Linz am Rhein and Rheinbrohl was an expression of this endeavor.

In the 1930s, charitable and social work was prohibited during the Nazi era . Maria Mechelen continued to work anyway, even after an advertisement in 1935 for “illegal implementation of child recreation”. After the end of the Second World War , the range of tasks for Caritas expanded to include aid to prisoners and refugees. From this the foundation of the station mission at Neuwied station developed . From 1947 Caritas looked after women imprisoned in Neuwied prison. Care for the elderly and children developed into further areas of focus during the time she was in charge of Caritas.

Today's family education center in Neuwied was founded under the name "Catholic Mothers School" on July 21, 1964 on her initiative. Until 1977 she was also its managing director. This was just one of the voluntary work that she continued after her retirement in 1972.

In the period between 1959 and 1964 she was a city ​​councilor in Neuwied and from 1964 to 1969 a district councilor in the Neuwied district . There, too, she was particularly committed to social and cultural issues. She has received many awards and honors for her work.

She was a Benedictine oblate for 53 years and died on April 30, 1991 in Neuwied, where she was born and where she was born.

Honors

literature

  • Brötz, Susanne: Maria Mechelen (1903–1991) in Hedwig Brüchert: Rhineland-Palatinate Women , Mainz, 2001, (publications of the parliament's commission for the history of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate; No. 23), ISBN 3-7758-1394- 2 , pp. 287-288

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Frauenbüro Neuwied (ed.): Von Frau zu Frau, Part II , Verlag Peter Kehrein, 1995, ISBN 9783980326650 , S, 140/141
  2. ↑ Entry on Maria Mechelen in the Rhineland-Palatinate personal database
  3. ↑ Bundesanzeiger, vol. 20, number 239 of December 21, 1968, p. 1 ( online as pdf )
personal data
SURNAME Mechelen, Maria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Benedictine oblate and social worker
DATE OF BIRTH February 25, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Neuwied
DATE OF DEATH April 30, 1991
Place of death Neuwied