page_title: Merilaid & Co.
section_title: Paul Tever (1870–1939)
hierarchical_section_title: Merilaid & Co. / The seven founders and their families / Paul Tever (1870–1939)
caption_attribution_description: English: Image freely obtained from Saaga, public domain, Estonian National Archives, http://www.ra.ee/dgs/_purl.php?shc=ERA.43.1.99:64?127,450,4104,847,0
context_page_description: A/S Merilaid & Co. was an Estonian shipping company. The firm was founded in Tallinn, Estonia on February 18, 1930. There were seven founding shareholders, most of whom were related by blood or marriage as descendants of Peeter All. Of the 7 founders, 6 were ship captains and 5 had worked in the Far East, in Vladivostok and/or Shanghai, for many years, and had avoided the turmoil of the Bolshevik or Communist Revolution, prior to returning home to a free Estonia. Estonia had been part of the Russian Empire since 1721 when Russia defeated Sweden in the Great Northern War. After World War I, and concurrent with the Russian Civil War, Estonia defeated Russia in the 1918–1920 War of Independence and became an autonomous nation after almost 200 years of Russian rule.
context_section_description: Not much is known about Tever other than he was from Tartu and was an entrepreneur or merchant/businessman and not a seaman. In 1909 he married Luise Mitt (b. 1890). The previous year Tever had adopted his older sister's son, Aksel Teever (1898–1950), who had become orphaned at age 10.
  In Vladivostok, Tever had a factory that made soap. When Tever wanted to leave and return home to Estonia, the authorities were reluctant to let him take his furniture and possessions with him. When Capt. Roos learned of this he convinced the Russians that under the 1920 Treaty of Tartu between Estonia and Russia, Tever was entitled to return home with all of his personal possessions.
  Back in Estonia, Tever apparently owned various properties and businesses. He died of natural causes in 1939. His wife, Luise Tever was arrested and deported to a Siberian camp in 1941, essentially for being bourgeois, for owning property and being a shareholder of a shipping business. Records show she was released in 1947 but no subsequent information about her has been found. Apparently, Soviet records often showed those who had died in camps as having been released from their sentence.
caption: Paul Tever
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