page_title: Helene Bresslau Schweitzer
section_title: Challenges
hierarchical_section_title: Helene Bresslau Schweitzer / Missionary work / Challenges
caption_attribution_description: English: The Albert Schweitzer House in Königsfeld (Germany) Deutsch: Das Albert-Schweitzer-Haus in Königsfeld Français&#160;: La Maison Albert Schweitzer à Königsfeld (Allemagne)
context_page_description: Helene Bresslau Schweitzer was a German medical missionary, nurse, social worker, linguist, public medicine enthusiast, editor, feminist, sociologist, mother, and wife/confidant of Albert Schweitzer, who co-founded the Albert Schweitzer Hospital with her husband. Albert, a medical missionary, did not mention her role in his efforts. According to writer Mary Kingsley, she is "one form of human being whose praise has never adequately been sung, namely, the missionary's wife." While much of his work seems to overwrite her own, she played a pivotal role in the advancement of medicine, feminine independence, and societal justice.
context_section_description: When World War I broke out in summer of 1914, the French military put Schweitzer and Albert, Germans in a French colony, under supervision at Lambaréné, where they continued their work. In 1917, exhausted by over four years' work and by tropical anaemia, they were taken to Bordeaux and interned first in Garaison and then from March 1918 in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.
  Medical issues forced Schweitzer to leave Africa many times, and sometimes Albert kept her from returning at times. When Albert decided to return to Africa in 1924, he took on an Oxford undergraduate, Noel Gillespie, as assistant, leaving Schweitzer behind. After the birth of their daughter (Rhena Schweitzer Miller), Schweitzer was no longer able to live in Lambaréné due to her health. In 1923 the family moved to Königsfeld im Schwarzwald, Baden-Württemberg, where Albert was building a house for the family. This house is now maintained as a Schweitzer museum.
  Her not returning to Lambaréné was a sacrifice made "by her husband, not for him." She wrote about her not returning, describing it as a "practical matter", but she "never agreed to a separation of three and a half years" from her husband. Despite her poor health, she still took care of her daughter, "engage[d] herself with the Hospital Aid Association," and "enroll[ed] in a three-week course in tropical medicine at the Medical Missionary Institute of Tübingen, Germany." As a motherhood advocate, she gladly took care of her daughter and continued to develop her own personal skills. Schweitzer still remained engaged in helping the mission hospital.
  In 1929, after receiving treatment for pneumonia, Schweitzer returned to Lambaréné to see her husband Albert's progression with the new hospital. Shortly after arriving, however, she developed a bad fever and was forced to depart the hospital and her husband to return to Europe for treatment. After recovering, she used her writing skills and began to edit her husband's autobiography. Her English skills also opened the door for "public speaking and networking in the United States." On December 1, 1930, a German newspaper printed one of her speeches. In it, she described her husband's concept, the Fellowship of the Marks of Pain. She turned her medical challenges into positives, explaining that through her suffering she developed a compassionate view of their work that only she could personally attest.
  Schweitzer was aware that her husband would receive much of the acclaim for their missionary endeavors, so she set out to make her work known. In October 1946, she began to review her documents and collect them so that she would be understood as a "full partner" in their missionary work. In addition, she began lecture tours in the United States in 1937 to promote the Schweitzer Hospital.
caption: The Schweitzer house and Museum at Königsfeld in the Black Forest
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