Minna Ewald

Minna Ewald b. Gauss.

Minna Ewald (born February 29, 1808 in Göttingen as Wilhelmine Gauß ; † August 12, 1840 in Tübingen ) was a daughter of the mathematician, astronomer and physicist Carl Friedrich Gauß . In 1830 she married the orientalist and Protestant theologian Heinrich Ewald , who, like Gauß, taught as a professor at the University of Göttingen. He was one of the seven Göttingen who protested against the repeal of the constitution in the Kingdom of Hanover in 1837 and therefore lost their job. Heinrich Ewald accepted an appointment in Tübingen in 1838. Minna died of consumption in 1840 , as did her father's second wife and her sister.

Life

origin

After completing his studies in 1798, the mathematician, astronomer and physicist Carl Friedrich Gauß (1777–1855) settled in his native Braunschweig as a private scholar. In 1805 he married Johanna Osthoff (1780–1809), the daughter of the white tanner master Christian Ernst Osthoff. In 1806 Joseph , the first child from this marriage, was born. On July 25, 1807, Gauß was appointed professor of astronomy and director of the university observatory in Göttingen. On November 21, 1807, he and his pregnant wife moved into an interim apartment at Groner Strasse 27 in Göttingen. The second child Wilhelmine Gauß, called Minna, Minchen or Minnchen, was born here on February 29, 1808.

The astronomer Gauss had given himself the rule to name his children after the discoverers of the minor planets. He therefore named his second child Wilhelmine, after his friend Wilhelm Olbers , who discovered the second minor planet Pallas . He announced the happy event to his parents in Braunschweig in a letter:

“The girl may not be as delicate and pretty as Joseph was at the beginning, but she is very well formed and healthy and strong. ... May Heaven continue to prosper. The poor child is to be regretted that he sees the world on Leap Day and therefore only has a birthday to celebrate every 4 years. "

The third child, Louis, was born in 1809. Johanna Gauß died a month after giving birth, and Louis died at the age of six months. A year later Gauß married the professor's daughter Minna Waldeck. From this connection the three children Eugen , Wilhelm and Therese emerged who were 3, 5 and 8 years younger than Minna. Minna Gauß replaced the mother of the children from the second marriage and was recognized and loved by them. The relationships between the siblings and half-siblings were also cordial and were not marred by the origins of different mothers.

Gauß lived in the interim apartment until Easter 1808, then he and his family moved into the first floor of a large half-timbered house at Kurzen Strasse 15 in Göttingen, before moving to the west wing of the newly built Göttingen observatory at Geismar Landstrasse 11 in October 1816 , which he headed has been since 1807.

Gronerstrasse 27, 1854. Arrow: Gaußhaus.

Short Street 15, 2006.

View from the north of the Göttingen observatory. Gauss lived with his family in the right wing.

youth

Minna received her schooling through private lessons. However, unlike her brothers, she did not attend high school. The style of her letters to Gauss, her siblings and her husband testifies to a solid education.

After the birth of their three children, Gauss' second wife Minna began to be ailing in 1818. She was sick with consumption, and from 1824 a terrible period of suffering began for her until her death in 1831. The housewife's long illness resulted in a domestic strain that Gauss and the entire family suffered. The Gauss researcher Theo Gerardy judged the children of Gauss:

“The different mental legacies of the mothers can be seen in the children. Josef and Minna, Johanna's children, are warm-hearted, uncomplicated and capable of life. In addition to many advantages, Minna's children also have clear characteristics of maternal imbalance. Eugene is reckless, violent and unbridled; Wilhelm is easily offended, thoughtless and unreasonable; Therese seems strange, closed and exalted. "

Since Gauss's wife was severely restricted in her performance due to her serious illness, Minna took on responsibility for her younger siblings as a young girl.

Goettingen

When Carl Friedrich Gauß was out on his annual measurement campaign in 1827, his 19-year-old daughter Minna told him in a letter from a visitor he had missed: the 23-year-old orientalist and biblical scholar Heinrich Ewald : “Another thing that you think about you will be surprised: Ewald, probably to present yourself to you as a professor. ... made his fortune very early on, they say he already got 300 Reichsthaler salaries. ... however, he should support his poor parents very much. "

Heinrich Ewald at the age of 37.

Heinrich Ewald was born in 1803 as the son of a poor Göttingen master cloth maker. With the help of some professors, the talented boy was able to attend high school and study at the University of Göttingen. He received his doctorate at the age of 20 and quickly gained a good reputation in the professional world, so that he was appointed professor at the age of 24. His annual income, including the listening fees, was 2000 Reichstaler. For comparison: Gauß ', as the best-earning professor at the University of Göttingen, received a fixed salary of 2500 Reichstalers.

One pupil, Julius Wellhausen , described Ewald as “very stately and strong, his posture taut and upright, his gait quick, his eyes strangely tense. He could not be overlooked, but was noticed everywhere, there was something solemn about his appearance. ”Nevertheless, he was shy and awkward, and from the correspondence between the married couple it is clear that Minna guarded and directed her husband in the outer things of life. Ewald was helpful and generous, an original researcher, a critical, incorruptible spirit, and a restless worker. As a charismatic teacher, he had a large audience. Outside of his close family circle, he kept social intercourse to a minimum, in favor of the huge workload he put on himself. It was not uncommon for him to be opinionated and contentious towards his specialist colleagues, especially in old age.

In the two and a half years after first getting to know each other, Ewald and Minna got closer and decided to connect with each other. On February 17, 1830, Ewald wrote to Carl Friedrich Gauß for the hand of his daughter Minna, the engagement took place two days later, and on September 15, Minna married Heinrich Ewald, who was 5 years her senior. The joy of the bride and groom was clouded by a family scandal: Minna's brother Eugen had fallen out with his parents because of his dissolute student life and wanted to emigrate to America.

Minna was not one of the university clerks , the Göttingen professor's daughters, who embarked on an independent career that was untypical for women at the time. She corresponded to the image of the woman who takes care of the household and family, and despite her physical limitations due to illness, she managed to organize the professorial household and "take care of her husband". The correspondence in Minna's environment shows her as a kind-hearted, soulful and noble woman with a critical mind. Her letters breathe the constant concern for her husband, her relatives and her friends, to whom she was deeply attached. Since Gauss' second wife was severely restricted in her performance due to her serious illness, Minna had already taken on responsibility for her younger siblings as a young girl.

After the marriage, the couple moved into an apartment at Groner Strasse 15. From the winter semester of 1832 to May 1838 they lived at Kurzen Geismarstrasse 39. This apartment was 350 meters closer to the observatory where Gauß and Minna's sister Therese lived, but it was always there 600 meters away from her. For the sisters, who both suffered from consumption, this distance was often unbridgeable, depending on how they felt, so that Minna's otherwise close contact with her father and Therese was temporarily interrupted. Four spa stays between 1832 and 1836 in Bad Ems and Franzensbad did not cure or alleviate her illness. In later years Heinrich Ewald described the time from his marriage in 1830 to his dismissal in 1837 as the happiest time of his life.

Göttingen Seven

The Göttingen Seven. Bottom right: Heinrich Ewald.

After his accession to the throne, King Ernst August I of Hanover repealed the relatively liberal constitution on November 1, 1837. Seven professors from Göttingen, among them Heinrich Ewald, submitted their written protest against this act of arbitrariness on November 18. Thereupon Ernst August I dismissed the " Göttingen Seven " from their office on December 12th . The now jobless Ewald used the involuntary leisure from January to April 1838 for a study trip to London and Oxford to devote himself to researching the manuscripts in the local libraries. During this time Minna managed his business, the publication and distribution of his writings and the contact with his colleagues and students. In May 1838 King Wilhelm I of Württemberg appointed him professor at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Tübingen, not - as it was called - although , but because the King of Hanover had horrified him from his office. In addition, Heinrich Ewald was given the personal nobility.

Tübingen

In May 1838 the Ewald couple moved from Göttingen to Tübingen. For the first 8 weeks they were accommodated in the Gasthof Eifertei (→  illustration ). They then lived in a small, former student apartment before they were able to move into their final apartment at Bursagasse 12 in October (→  photo ). Minna lived here until her death in 1840, her husband until 1848, the year he was reinstated as a professor in Göttingen.

Minna suffered from the long journey with the carriage from Göttingen to Tübingen and from the teething problems in the strange city. The Ewalds were welcomed in a friendly manner, but Minna could hardly make the most important inaugural visits due to her physical weakness. In addition, she suffered from terrible homesickness for Göttingen and the people who lived there, as she did during her spa stays. At least she found a friend in Emilie von Wächter geb. Baumeister, the wife of Karl Georg von Wächter, Chancellor of the University of Tübingen and President of the Württemberg Assembly of Estates.

Retirement

Plaster bust of Minna Ewald.

In the summer of 1838 and 1839 Minna gathered up all her strength and courage and twice more subjected to the exertion of a trip to Göttingen. She stayed there for several weeks with loved ones and her husband's relatives. From April 1840, Minna was seriously ill and bedridden, with short interruptions. The last six weeks of her life she was cared for by Emilie Ilse, a cousin of Heinrich Ewald from Ilfeld .

The women of the Gauss family died before the age of 50. Gauss' second wife Minna Gauß succumbed to her illness after 10 years of martyrdom at the age of 43. Minna Ewald was 22 years old when she married. She died on August 12, 1840 after 10 years of childless marriage at the age of only 32 abroad, in the Swabian town of Tübingen. In her honor, Ewald had a stone monument erected in the Tübingen city cemetery, but it has not been preserved.

Heinrich Ewald married Auguste Schleiermacher, the daughter of the Darmstadt librarian and orientalist Andreas Schleiermacher, as a second marriage . In 1850 this marriage resulted in a daughter who was baptized Minna in memory of Heinrich Ewald's first wife. Ewald was reinstated in his previous office in Göttingen in 1848. He survived his first wife by 35 years and died in Göttingen in 1875. Minna Ewald's sister Therese, who had looked after her father until his death, married the theater man Constantin Staufenau after his death in 1856 and died after 7 years of childless marriage at the age of almost 48 in Dresden. The men of the Gaussian family, spared from consumption, reached a much older age than the women. Carl Friedrich Gauß was 77 years old, the brothers Wilhelm and Joseph were 66 and 67 years old respectively and Eugen was 85 years old.

illness

Minna Ewald, like her 8 years younger sister Therese and Gauß 'second wife, suffered from consumption, from which many other people around her were also affected. The men of the Gauss family were spared the disease. At the time, there was neither a clear diagnosis nor an effective therapy for this fatal infectious disease. The doctors tried helplessly and in vain to combat the symptoms of the disease. Spa stays with baths and drinking wells were mostly ineffective, and they often even worsened the condition of the patients. In addition, the women of the Gauss family were terribly homesick, which tormented them during their spa stays.

The women suffered not only physically but also emotionally. In a letter to her husband, Gauss' second wife Minna summarized her state of mind in the lawsuit:

"As I am, I am also a very useless creature as a mother and housewife."

Minna Ewald was also unable to adequately fulfill her housewife duties; she was much more dependent on the help of her maid. Through their coexistence, the Gauss women always had the “well-being” of the other in front of their eyes like a mirror and lived in fear for their own health and the health of their fellow sufferers. Her letters are interspersed with remarks about her "state of health", whereby they often whispered in order not to worry the others with recurring complaints.

The disease manifested itself in chest discomfort, headache attacks, coughing up blood, sputum, vomiting and great physical weakness. Housework, writing letters, climbing stairs, short walks or traveling in a carriage often led to strong "attack". Time and again, the women were forced to stay in sick beds for weeks due to their illness. Brief periods of recovery fueled the futile hope of permanent victory over the terrible disease.

After the early death of his wife, Heinrich Ewald wrote to Gauß 14 days later:

“Perhaps you would like more information about the last few weeks of the transfigured. Unfortunately, nothing can be said but that the evil progressed slowly but surely until it suddenly rose to its height in the last 2 days. ... The germ of evil seems to have been very old; I remember how the transfigured woman usually told me that as a girl she had never tolerated dancing or prolonged singing, in the autumn of 1831 after the days of the death of her blessed mother, which were very attacking for her, the first blood attacks came, which unfortunately never completely disappeared. At the same time, however, her body was actually quite healthy and strong, wonderfully built and well preserved, and it was the most painful to see the long struggle that her delicate and strong shell endured with masculine strength and greater courage against the progress of the evil. Last winter she was not exactly sicker than the earlier winters in Göttingen, my hope was all the greater the more she seemed to have overcome the dangers of youth after having covered 32 years. "

Anecdotes

• Ewald is said to have been an absent-minded professor. His friends advised him to marry in order to bring order into his life. Since he did not know who to marry, it was decided that he should choose the one of the two Gauss daughters who would pour him the tea on his next visit. - Well thought out, but probably completely unlikely.
• Whenever a student came to his office hour, Ewald would chat with him in a friendly way over a mug of beer, but when he noticed that the student was more socially than scientifically interested, he asked his wife to take care of the student.

literature

• T. Witton Davies: Heinrich Ewald. Orientalist and theologican 1803-1903. A centenary appreciation . London 1903, pdf .
• August Dillmann : Ewald, Heinrich von .. In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie Volume 6, 1877, pp. 438-442, online .
• G. Waldo Dunnington : Carl Friedrich Gauss. Titan of Science. A study of his life and work. New York: Exposition Press, 1955, pp. 363-365, 87-88, 145-146, 205-206.
• Menso Folkerts : CF Gauß and his sons. Gauß 'sons (Joseph, 1806–1873; Eugen, 1811–1896; Wilhelm, 1813–1879). Lecture at the opening of the Gauss exhibition 2005 in the Landesmuseum Braunschweig, manuscript. Braunschweig, 2005.
• Theo Gerardy: CF Gauß and his sons. In: Mitteilungen der Gauß-Gesellschaft Göttingen, Volume 3, 1966, pp. 25–35.
• Martha Küssner: Gauß 'move from Braunschweig to Göttingen in 1807 and the first half-year in Göttingen. In: Mitteilungen der Gauß-Gesellschaft Göttingen, Volume 14, 1977, pp. 30–47.
• Martha Küssner: The women around Carl Friedrich Gauß. In: Göttinger Monatsblätter, Volume 4, Number 37, March 1977, Pages 2–3, Number 38, April 1977, pp. 6–7.
• Heinrich Mack (editor): Carl Friedrich Gauß and his family. Festschrift for his 150th birthday. Braunschweig: Appelhans, 1927, pp. 92–106, 125, panel XI, Figure 4–5.
• Horst Michling: Carl Friedrich Gauss. Episodes from the life of the Princeps mathematicorum. Göttingen: Göttinger Tageblatt, 2005, pp. 115–122.
• Joseph Weinberger: Carl Friedrich Gauß 1777–1855 and his descendants. In: Archive for family research and all related areas, year 43/44, 1977/1978, issue 66, pp. 73–98.
• Julius Wellhausen : Heinrich Ewald. In: Festschrift to celebrate the hundred and fifty years of existence of the Royal Society of Sciences in Göttingen. Contributions to the scholarly history of Göttingen. Berlin 1901, pp. 63–88, 80–81: life and character of Heinrich Ewald.
• Paul Zimmermann: KF Gauß 'letters to his daughter Minna and her husband HA Ewald. In: Braunschweigisches Magazin, year 21, 1915, pp. 133–141.

Web links

Commons : Minna Ewald  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Commons : Heinrich Ewald  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

1. ↑ # Mack 1927a , Plate VII, # Küssner 1877b .
2. ↑ #Mack 1927a , page 28.
3. ↑ # Mack 1927a , Plate VII.
4. ↑ # Gerardy 1966 , p. 26.
5. ^ Letter from Minna Ewald to Carl Friedrich Gauß, June 10, 1827, Gauß letter database . - The ellipses indicate lost text.
6. ↑ From 1807 the family lived in the poor Düstere Straße. After his father's death in 1829, Ewald supported his mother with 130 Reichstalers a year.
7. ↑ #Dillmann 1877 .
8. ^ Letter from Heinrich Ewald to Carl Friedrich Gauß, February 17, 1830, Gauß letter database .
9. ↑ #Wellhausen 1901 , page 80.
10. ↑ #Davies 1903 , pp. 33-41.
11. ↑ #Davies 1903 , page 15.
12. ↑ #Dillmann 1877 .
13. ^ Letter from Minna Gauß b. Waldeck to Carl Friedrich Gauß, June 1, 1824, Gauß letter database .
14. ^ Letter from Heinrich Ewald to Carl Friedrich Gauß, August 30, 1840, Gauß letter database .
15. ↑ #Dunnington 1955a , page 364th
16. ↑ #Davies 1903 , page 34.