Regina Hesse

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Regina Hesse
Education administrator
Known for
SpouseHermann Ludwig Rottmann (m. 1857)
Children8
Parents
  • Herman Hesse (father)
  • Charlotte Lamiorakai (mother)
Relatives
(brother-in-law)

Regina Hesse (1832–1898), also Rottmann, was a

Odumase and was active in the women's Christian ministry in Christiansborg, Accra.[1][2]

Early life and education

Further information: Hesse family

Regina Hesse was born in

polyglot - fluent in the Ga, English, Danish, German and Twi.[1]

Women’s education and Christian ministry

In 1850, when Regina Hesse was about eighteen years old, she was confirmed in the Basel Mission Church, Christiansborg and promoted from monitor to teacher.[1] The following year in 1851, she moved into the household of her protégée, Catherine Mulgrave and her husband, Johannes Zimmermann.[1] She later became the de facto headmistress of Catherine Mulgrave's girls' school at Osu.[1] Additionally, Hesse had a great working relationship with her Mulgrave's official successor, Rosina Stanger.[1] Thus, Regina Hesse was influential in shaping the framework for the girls’ education programme through her efficient management and administration of the school.[1] After her marriage in 1857, she became a full time missionary wife.[1] She was also active in the women's Christian ministry and fellowship which led to a significant increase in congregants, including her own extended family, in her home church, the Basel Mission Church, Christiansborg, now known as the Ebenezer Presbyterian Church, Osu.[1] Under her tutelage in the 1880s, more women participated in activities relating to Bible study and prayer meetings.[1]

Personal life

In 1857, Regina Hesse married German native, Hermann Ludwig Rottmann, the first Basel missionary-trader in Christiansborg and the founder of the Basel Mission Trading Company, first entered in the Commercial Register of Basel in 1859, under its German name, "Missions-Handlungs-Gesellschaft Basel".[1][2][21][22] Rottmann's father was a German tobacco manufacturer.[21] H. L. Rottmann had earlier completed his education in commerce in Hamburg, Germany's "Gate to the Seven Seas."[21] After arriving on the Gold Coast in 1854, he opened a hardware shop in Christiansborg, selling goods and building materials for the local burgeoning construction industry: ropes, wires, hammers, saws, nails, bolts, hinges and door handles.[21] This shop evolved into the Basel Mission Trading Company.[21] The trading company was originally financed by Basel patricians, industrialists and politicians such as Daniel Burckhardt, Karl Sarasin and Christoph Median-Burckhardt.[21] Like Johannes Zimmermann, Rottmann saw Africa as his home, a view he communicated to his supervisors on the Gold Coast and to the Home Committee in Basel.[1][23] In approving his marriage to Regina Hesse, the committee saw the Hesse family's local mercantile connections as beneficial to Basel Mission trading activities.[1][22] The couple had eight children but three died at an early age.[1] All surviving children worked with the Basel Mission in one capacity or the other.[1] The oldest son became an employee of the Basel Mission Trading Company while her two younger sons went to the Basel Mission Seminary in Switzerland and were consecrated as Pietist priests. They both married German women and lived in Wurttemberg, Germany for the rest of their lives.[1] Regina Hesse's two daughters, Bertha and Theodora both married German missionary-traders and were widowed shortly after their marriages.[1] Bertha Rottmann's second marriage ended in divorce while her sister, Theodora was widowed again in 1895 after her second husband, Hermann Lieb passed away.[1] Theodora Rottmann eventually relocated to Korntal, Germany.[1] Thus, only Regina Hesse's eldest son lived on the Gold Coast for his entire professional career.[1] Regina Hesse often went to Europe with her husband, Hermann Rottmann on his yearly furloughs.[1] In 1897, the Hesse-Rottmann couple travelled to Basel to seek medical treatment for illness.[1]

Death and legacy

Regina Hesse died in 1898 in

Basel, Switzerland.[1] As an educator, she was both a teacher and a spiritual mentor to a generation of young Euro-African and Ga-Dangme women of Christiansborg and played a major role in increasing the female literacy rate in the town.[1][2]

References

  1. ^
    ISBN 978-9004188884. Archived from the original
    on 30 March 2017.
  2. ^
    doi:10.3366/swc.2018.0203
    .
  3. ^ Jena, Geographische Gesellschaft (für Thüringen) zu (1891). Mitteilungen (in German). G. Fischer. p. 77. nicholas timothy clerk basel.
  4. ^ Jena, Geographische gesellschaft (für Thüringen) zu (1890). Mitteilungen der Geographischen gesellschaft (für Thüringen) zu Jena (in German). G. Fischer. Archived from the original on 23 August 2017.
  5. ^
    doi:10.5451/unibas-003662454. Archived
    from the original on 4 June 2016. Retrieved 3 May 2018.
  6. ^ a b c "Osu Salem". osusalem.org. Archived from the original on 29 March 2017. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
  7. ISBN 9789988029210.[permanent dead link
    ]
  8. ^ "NUPS-G KNUST>>PCG>>History". www.nupsgknust.itgo.com. Archived from the original on 7 February 2005. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
  9. ^ Dawes, Mark (2003). "A Ghanaian church built by Jamaicans". Jamaican Gleaner. Archived from the original on 21 November 2017.
  10. ISBN 9780521583428. Archived
    from the original on 10 September 2017.
  11. ^ "Akyem Abuakwa Presbytery Youth: PCG History". Akyem Abuakwa Presbytery Youth. Archived from the original on 25 April 2017. Retrieved 25 April 2017.
  12. ^ Anfinsen, Eirik. "Bischoff.no – Bischoff.no is the personal blog of Eirik Anfinsen – co-founder of Cymra, anthropologist, and general tech-enthusiast". Bischoff.no. Archived from the original on 30 March 2017. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
  13. ^ Anquandah, James (2006). Ghana-Caribbean Relations – From Slavery Times to Present: Lecture to the Ghana-Caribbean Association. National Commission on Culture, Ghana:"Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 July 2016. Retrieved 3 April 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  14. ^ Seth, Quartey. "Andreas Riis: a lifetime of colonial drama". Research Review of the Institute of African Studies. 21. Archived from the original on 17 April 2017.
  15. ^ Clerk, Nicholas, Timothy (1943). The Settlement of West Indian Emigrants in the Gold Coast 1843–1943 – A Centenary Sketch. Accra.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  16. ^ a b Hall, Peter (1965). Autobiography of Rev. Peter Hall: First Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. Waterville Publishing House. Archived from the original on 20 June 2018.
  17. ^
    ISBN 9783905141702. Archived
    from the original on 27 September 2017. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  18. ^ Ofosu-Appiah, L. H. "Carl Christian Reindorf". Dacb (online ed.). Archived from the original on 8 July 2016. Retrieved 9 January 2012.
  19. ^ ""Obstinate" Pastor and Pioneer Historian: The Impact of Basel Mission Ideology on the Thought of Carl Christian Reindorf". www.internationalbulletin.org. Retrieved 12 June 2017.
  20. ^ Jenkins, Paul. "Reindorf, Carl Christian". Dacb (online ed.). Archived from the original on 10 April 2015.
  21. ^
    ISBN 9789988600013
    .
  22. ^
    ISBN 9780821445396
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  23. ^ "Zimmermann, Johannes – Life and work – Johannes-Rebmann-Stiftung". www.johannes-rebmann-stiftung.de. Archived from the original on 24 November 2017. Retrieved 23 June 2018.
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