Marie Hesse

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Marie Hesse , ad. Maria Isenberg , b. Maria Gundert (born October 18, 1842 in Talasseri , India; died April 24, 1902 in Calw , Württemberg) was the mother of the writer and Nobel Prize winner Hermann Hesse . The pietist , missionary daughter and missionary wife also taught as the first teacher at a high school in Württemberg .

Life

Marie Gundert was born in India in 1842, where her father, whose eldest daughter she was, the Indologist Hermann Gundert , ran a Protestant mission station. Her mother was Julie Dubois from Switzerland . Like his siblings, the girl grew up with foster parents in Basel before Marie traveled to her parents in India in 1857 and supported them there as an assistant teacher, secretary and companion. In 1862 the family returned to Europe, where Hermann Gundert had received a follow-up job in Calw after his missionary work. Marie helped him with translation work from English, among other things.

During this time she met Charles W. Isenberg , a British missionary whom she married and with whom she moved to Hyderabad , India in 1865 . The couple had three children there; Charles Isenberg contracted pulmonary tuberculosis , however , and they returned to Germany with their two sons, where their husband died in 1870 at the age of 30.

Marie, widowed Isenberg, moved with her children to live with her parents in Calw, where she taught English at the secondary school in 1871 (as the first woman in Württemberg) . She turned down an offer from the Basel Mission , her parents' employer, to study medicine and return to India as a doctor, and in 1874 married Johannes Hesse , who continued to rise in his father's mission publishing house and finally took over the management from her father. The Hesse couple had six other children together.

plant

In addition to her work as a housewife, she supported her husband Johannes in his publishing activities and also wrote articles for his missionary magazines. She also published a paper about her time in India, a short biography of her mother and two biographies on David Livingstone and James Hannington (both in the Calwer family library ). Her diaries contain poetry and anecdotes from her life and are shaped by her pietistic worldview, and her correspondence has also been preserved.

progeny

Three of Marie Hesse's nine descendants died in childhood. Have survived:

  • Theodore Isenberg (September 9, 1866 - March 2, 1941), opera singer, pharmacist, ∞ Martha Cohen, children.
  • Karl Isenberg (born May 25, 1869; † March 29, 1937), high school teacher in Ellwangen , marriage and children.
  • Adele Hesse (born August 15, 1875 - † September 24, 1949), ∞ pastor in Eckenweiler
  • Hermann Hesse (1877–1962), poet
  • Marie "Marulla" Hesse (* November 27, 1880 - March 17, 1953), educator in Korntal
  • Johannes "Hans" Hesse (born July 13, 1882 - † November 27, 1935), businessman

Honor

On the occasion of her 175th birthday, a cultural program will take place in Calw in 2017. Contemporary writers, musicians and artists follow in the footsteps of Maria Hesse and her famous son Hermann all over the city.

literature

  • Adele Gundert: Marie Hesse - the mother of Hermann Hesse. A picture of life in letters and diaries. Insel-Verlag Frankfurt / Main, Leipzig, 7th edition 1996. ISBN 3-458-31961-1 .

Fiction

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Short biography of the city of Calw
  2. ^ Antonius Lux (ed.): Great women of world history. A thousand biographies in words and pictures . Sebastian Lux Verlag , Munich 1963, p. 224.
  3. ↑ Overview of Hermann Hesse's siblings
personal data
SURNAME Hesse, Marie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Isenberg, Marie (first married name); Gundert, Marie (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Teacher, evangelical missionary and mother of Hermann Hesse
DATE OF BIRTH October 18, 1842
PLACE OF BIRTH Talasseri
DATE OF DEATH April 24, 1902
Place of death Calw