Emilie Escherich (pseudonym L. Felshof)

Born: March 11, 1856 in Munich
died: February 3, 1935 in Erbach im Rheingau

Maria Auguste Emilie Escherich was the daughter of Max Joseph Escherich (1797 - 1861), General Director of the Bavarian Transport Authority, and his wife Auguste Escherich, née Paur (1808 Bolzano - 1889). This can be seen in Auguste Escherich's autobiographical text, which her daughter Emilie published in 1930 under the title "An unserer Seite geht Erinnerung ... Ein Familienbilderbuch aus zwei Jahrhunderten" (Berlin).

There is hardly any information about the life of Emilie Escherich, who lost her father at the age of five. At a young age, she married Heinrich Welzhofer, who was born in 1851 and died in Heidelberg. This can be seen from the entry in the residents' register of the Wiesbaden city archives for Mela Escherich, their daughter.

It is highly probable that this is the historian and playwright Prof. Dr. phil. Heinrich Welzhofer, who was born in Donauwörth in 1851, lived at Philippsbergstraße 8 in Wiesbaden from 1896 to 1900 at the latest and died in Rohrbach (Heidelberg-Rohrbach since 1927) in 1911.

There is evidence that Emilie Escherich lived with her daughter Mela at Nikolasstraße 22 (now Bahnhofstraße) from 1902/1903. It is not possible to say with certainty whether the marriage ended in divorce. The 1905/1906 address book still mentions "Emilie Escherich-Welzhofer" as a writer and professor's wife and the death certificate states her marital status as "widowed".

Escherich had already published several works before 1900, including the epic "Runkelstein" (1881) and several stories about Munich. In 1891, shortly after the death of her mother Auguste, she published the brochure "Das Weib als Krankenpflegerin. Practical hints" (Regensburg). In 1900, Escherich's last work for the time being, the "Lieder der Minnesänger", which she had translated into High German, was published in Berlin.

During Escherich's time in Wiesbaden, it can be assumed that she collaborated with the Wiesbaden Folk Education Association, for whose series of "Wiesbadener Volksbücher" she wrote two introductory texts. In April 1901, for example, for Rudolf Greinz' (1866 - 1942) story "Das fünfte Rad am Wagen. Eine lustige Geschichte aus Tirol" (1901, no. 7) and in February 1909 for Max von Eyth's (1836 - 1906) so-called sketch "Blut und Eisen" (1909, no. 123), which first appeared in 1899.

She also published stories in "Nassovia", the "Zeitschrift für nassauische Geschichte und Heimatkunde", from as early as 1901. After the Commission for Dialect Research was founded at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in 1911, Escherich became a member of the dictionary commission for the Bavarian-Austrian Dictionary towards the end of her life.