William Wolfensberger

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William Wolfensberger

William Wolfensberger (born June 17, 1889 in Hottingen near Zurich , † December 6, 1918 in Rheineck , Canton of St. Gallen ) was a Swiss pastor and writer .

Life

William Wolfensberger was the son of a businessman. He studied from 1909 at the University of Zurich , first German and then moved - against the wishes of his father, who then threw him out of the house - to theology . There he was particularly impressed by Leonhard Ragaz . He earned his living with private lessons, arranged by Jakob Bosshart, the then canton school rector . In November 1913 he was ordained as an evangelical reformed pastor in the Oberstrass church .

Wolfensberger held his first job from spring 1914 to Christmas 1916 in Val Müstair in the upper villages of Fuldera , Tschierv and Lü , where he quickly settled in. He made this change of location as an "escape" in response to his love for Toni Wolff , which he felt was unrequited. In Fuldera he also held the offices of mayor, treasurer and actuary , and since the teacher was doing military service for weeks at the time of the First World War , he also took over teaching at the eight-grade school with 30 hours a week for a time. The community thanked him for his commitment by granting him honorary citizenship . To pay off a debt that weighed heavily on the small community, Wolfensberger advocated the introduction of a tax progression . He met with fierce resistance, whereupon he resigned after a community meeting in September.

He spent the turn of the year with a sister in Meilen . He applied for a pastor's position in Zurich- Fluntern , but was not elected. In his second parish, Rheineck , which valued his sermons and showed understanding for his literary work, William Wolfensberger worked from the end of April 1917. In 1918, he died there at the age of 29 from the Spanish flu .

The William Wolfensberger Archive is located in the rectory near the Protestant St. James' Church in Rheineck .

Works

  • Our Lord's vineyard. Stories. Salzer, Heilbronn 1916.
  • Religious miniatures. Secular devotions. Salzer, Heilbronn 1917.
  • Songs from a small town. Poems. Schulthess, Zurich 1918; Reprint ibid. 1976, ISBN 3-7255-1746-0 .
  • Minds and hearts. Story from the high valley. With an introduction by Jakob Bosshart. Schulthess, Zurich 1919.
  • Legends. With an accompanying word by Jakob Bosshart. Schulthess, Zurich 1919.
  • Cross and crown. Poems from the estate. Schulthess, Zurich 1920.
  • Fools of love. Sketches and thoughts from the estate. Schulthess, Zurich 1920.
  • O sun! Reflections on the Christian's Walk. Facsimile of the Sunday sermons of the summer of 1918. Clavadel 1922.
  • The Charpella plague. Schweizerisches Jugendschriftenwerk (SJW, Issue 803), Zurich 1963.
  • Selected Works. Edited by Robert Lejeune . Huber, Frauenfeld 1964.
  • The bells of Pralöng. Good writings (GS 286/287), Bern 1965; New edition with an afterword by Iso Camartin : Chronos, Zurich 2016, ISBN 978-3-0340-1372-7 .
  • Stories and poems from the Münstertal. (German / Romanian). Biblioteca Jaura, Valchava 2005.
  • Wedged between impossibility and longing. A reader. Compiled by Charles Linsmayer and Rudolf Probst. Huber, Frauenfeld 2007, ISBN 978-3-7193-1440-8 .

literature

Wolfensberger's handwriting in O sun!

Web links

Commons : William Wolfensberger  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Toni Wolff & CG Jung , Nan Savage Healy, Tiberius Press, Los Angeles, 2017
  2. ^ Mario Florino: William Wolfensberger, pastor and poet. In: Bündner Jahrbuch , Vol. 52, 2010, pp. 68f. Digitized
  3. ↑ Obituary in Schweizer Illustrierte. Retrieved May 28, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Wolfensberger, William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss pastor and writer
DATE OF BIRTH June 17, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Hottingen
DATE OF DEATH December 6, 1918
Place of death Rheineck