Adolf Friderich (1715) and Hedewig Marse

Adolf Friderich and Hedewig Marse

The emblem for Heide depicts St George a dragon.

Adolf was born on 29th September, 1715 in Heide, and at this time Dithmarschen was an independent peasant republic.   In German Heide means ‘heath’. The exact foundation date is not known, but by 1447 Heide was already the main village of Dithmarschen.  In the 15th century four villages decided to build a church in the ‘middle of the heath’, and by 1715 it was a major city with it’s very own cathedral most likely already under construction when Adolf was born.

We have no records indicating what occupation Adolfs Soldier father Johan took up, or if he continued to go away as a soldier.  However we do know that his son Adolf stayed in Heide, and when he married Hedewig Marse on 24th January, 1736 he was 21 years old, and it was the middle of what would have been a very cold winter.  Hedewig was the daughter of a german couple, and her name means ‘refuge in battle’.

When Adolf and Hedewig married, Adolf’s occupation was listed as a Mauermann, which is  a German occupational name for a bricklayer, literally ‘wall man’.    Perhaps young Adolf was much interested by the construction of the late-renaissance three-story tower that was added to the Heide church  by Johann Georg Schott in 1724, when he was 9 years old.

Two and a half years after their marriage, their son Paul Hinrich Sladetzki was born to them in Heide.  So far we have no further information on how many other children there were.