page_title: Johanna Gertze
section_title: Return to the Hahns
hierarchical_section_title: Johanna Gertze / Return to the Hahns
context_page_description: Johanna Uerieta Gertze was a Namibian Herero and Christian convert.
  Gertze worked in the household of Carl Hugo Hahn and his wife at Otjikango. She initially came to the school at the mission to learn sewing, and soon became so proficient that she was teaching the art to others. She appears to have been fluent in English, Dutch, and German, and she assisted in translating a variety of materials into Herero. Between 1860 and 1862 Hahn published nine Herero publications in Germany, and there is evidence that Gertze assisted considerably in ensuring their success. She traveled with Hahn and his wife to Germany, participating in mission work as a convert and working on the books on Herero. In 1862 she came back to Cape Town, and in 1864 she returned to Otjikango. The following year, she married the Herero-German Samuel Gertze. He was a widowed father of eight; the couple had nine more children in the ensuing fifteen years, ending with Samuel's death in 1880. Johanna worked as a midwife and pharmacist for the remainder of her life. She was featured on a Namibian postage stamp in 1999.
context_section_description: The Hahn family returned in 1857 to Hereroland and Uerita joined them once more in Otjimbingwe. On 25 July 1858, she was baptized on the mission as Johanna, the first Herero woman to join the Christian faith.
  She was indispensable in Hahn's efforts to translate stories from the Bible into Herero. Later, she accompanied the family to Germany to proofread books published in Herero out of Gütersloh. They stayed there in the mission home available to missionaries on home leave. Later, Vedder's mother made Johanna's acquaintance, making such an impression on her that she urged her son, born in 1876, to become a missionary to young people in Africa.
caption: Johanna Gertze lived first in Otjikango (Gross Barmen) near Okahandja, then later in Bethanie in Namaland and finally in Hereroland: among other places, in Gross Barmen, Omaruru, and finally Otjimbingwe
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