Albert Schweitzer

On 18 June 1912, Albert Schweitzer married Helene Bresslau, daughter of one of his professors. Soon after their marriage, the couple moved to Africa where they set up their hospital.

Their only daughter, Rhena, was born in January 1919 in Europe. In 1924, when her father returned to Africa she remained behind with her mother in Königsfeld, her father’s birth place, where he had built their family home.

During her childhood, she saw little of her father. But much later, she left for Africa and joined her father, taking over the administration from him, a task that she continued to perform even after his death.

Albert Schweitzer was born on 14 January 1875 in Kaysersberg, a little village in Upper Alsace, where his father, Louise Schweitzer, was a pastor of a small Protestant congregation. His mother, Adèle nee Schillinger, was the daughter of a pastor from Muhlbach.

Albert was born second of his parents’ five surviving children, having an elder sister, senior to him by one year. Subsequently three more daughters and a son was born to his parents; but the sixth child, Emma, died in infancy. Albert himself was born very weak.

Six months after his birth, Louise Schweitzer moved to Gunsbach, another village in Alsace. It was here that Albert began to recoup his health, growing up strong and healthy, enjoying a happy childhood with his four siblings; Louisa, Lulie Adele, Marguerit, and Paul Schweitzer.

Little Albert began his education at the village school, where he studied under Father Iltis until the age of ten, learning a great deal without exertion from him. But even before that he started taking his lessons in music from his father.

As the pastor’s son, he had to walk an extra mile to be accepted by the village boys. It meant refusing to wear a newly made overcoat or a fashionable hat that his mother wanted to buy him because none of the village boys wore them.

In 1901, Albert Schweitzer began his career as a provisional principle at his alma mater, the Theological College of St. Thomas; the position was made permanent in 1903. All along, he continued to preach at the Church of St. Nicholas, rising to the post of curate.

In spite of such preoccupations, music remained an integral part of his life. In 1899, Charles-Marie Widor had asked Schweitzer to write on the great musician, Johann Sebastian Bach.

Working on the theme, he published ‘J. S. Bach: Le Musicien-Poète’, in 1905. Written in French, the book generated great interest among the German-speaking readers. Instead of translating it, Schweitzer decided to write a new book. Entitled ‘J. S. Bach’, it was published in two volumes in 1908. Meanwhile in 1906, he published another book, this time on organ building and playing.

Also in 1906, his first theological work, ‘Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung’ (History of Life-of-Jesus) was published, generating immense interest. In 1910, it was translated into English by William Montgomery. Entitled ‘The Quest of Historical Jesus’, it made Schweitzer famous in English-speaking world.

It is not known exactly when, but sometime around 1909, Schweitzer gave up his successful career to study medicine at the University of Strasbourg with the aim of serving in Africa. He had declared his intention for such work back in 1905 and had been studying in private since then.

Working hard, he completed his courses by December 1911, receiving his degree in Doctorate of Medicine in 1912. Meanwhile, he had raised enough money by holding concerts and also from sales of his books to establish a hospital in Africa.

In the spring of 1913, Albert Schweitzer left for Lambaréné in the Gabon province of French Equatorial Africa, along with his wife, Hélène Bresslau, a trained nurse. There they set up their hospital in a chicken hut on the banks of the Ogooué (Ogowe) River at the edge of the forest.

Although the funds were scarce and the equipments primitive, they began to treat thousands of Africans, thronging their hospital from far and near. By the autumn of 1913, they had their hospital rooms, which included an operation theatre, made out of corrugated iron.

In 1914, with the start of the First World War, Schweitzer and his wife, being German citizen on French soil, were put under the supervision of the French military. However, they continued their work until 1917, when he became ill from exhaustion and anemia. Thereafter, they were moved to France.