Henning Sußebach – from the life of a teacher

Everyone has four great -grandmothers. Few of us got to know their. Each of them has lived their own life. Some things were more original and moving. Not everyone has an great -grandson to trace this life. And hardly anyone should have a great -grandson that has such convincing linguistic means as the journalist Henning Sussebach, who tells the history of his great -grandmother Anna.

He never got to know her. There remains a lot under his research and the pen. The gaps that he could not close has plausibly closed Suussebach according to his own discretion. Only a few can be so nice.

Who was this great -grandmother Anna Kalthoff, from whom the readers can get an idea based on some photos preserved? One of a young age shows a pretty pretty woman with a slightly mocking game around her lips, the later a mature, handsome, the last one perhaps a bit tired woman. She was born in Horn near Soest in the Ruhr area in 1866, lost her father at a young age and had to go to a teacher training-“I get a hump?”, She is said to have asked-to the Dutch Klosterdorf Steyl. Because as a Catholic, she could not be trained as a teacher in Prussia during the cultural struggle stipulated by Bismarck.

Anna is only 20 when she takes her first job in Cobbenrode in the Sauerland. She is presented in front of a class, poorly paid and has to live very easily. Sußebach describes the unfree position of a single lady in a village in which everyone knows everyone. She falls in love with Clemens, the somewhat younger son of the wealthy webwirt family, who also runs the post station. They are fees of the place. Clemens also falls in love with Anna. The connection is disapproved by his family because of the class difference. Clemens learns posting for the father. When the patriarch dies, the train is free for the couple – twelve years after they fall in love with each other, they marry. Clemens inherits Gasthaus and Poststation and Anna terminates her position as a teacher because a Prussian law of teachers demands that they remain single.

Anna is integrated into the post-inn, which is also a small department store, and agriculture is also operated. Fortunately, she finds herself, because her husband will be killed in an accident after a few months. Notarized, he inherited Anna. Anna is pregnant, becomes a “single mother” and a small entrepreneur. She masters everything admirable, the double burden as the mother of a son, as an operator of a post office, as an innkeeper, clerk and farmer. The now wealthy widow can avoid the desires of the men of Cobbenrode, until – again years later – a much younger teacher can achieve their favor. She marries again and, now for forty, is getting pregnant again. The daughter, which is healthy, despite many concerns, will be the author’s grandmother – the happily born and necessary link between great -grandmother and great -grandchild.

Henning Suussebach reports what his research from traditional poetry albums and other sources showed and adds fictional to this perfect portrait. The background forms quotes from school books of time, from laws and selected events from all over the world, inventions, assassinations, births at the respective years. The reader has a colored picture of the living conditions at that time. Anna dies in 1932. Sussebach was born in Bochum 40 years later and a respected reporter of the “Zeit”. What remains of his great -grandmother, he picked up for this very nice homage or added with respect.

Henning Susebach: Anna or: What remains of a life. The story of my great -grandmother. C.H.Beck, 208 S., geb., 23 €.