User:Grad wits/Marianne Kreuz

Marianne Kreuz was from 1857 Handmaiden in the household of Karl Marx, Grafton 9 Grafton Terrace, Haverstock Hill, Kentish Town.

Biography

 * On June 17, 1835, at the age of 43, Maria Katharina Demuth gave birth to her eighth child, her daughter Marianne. Since her husband was already 9 years dead † and she did not specify the father of the child, it was entered in the birth register of the mayor of Sankt Wendel under the name Anna Maria Creuz.
 * At the age of ten Marianne is in the household of Caroline von Westphalen in Trier hired there, takes over the position of Helene Demuth, who went to Brussels in the spring of 1845 to Jenny von Westphalen and Karl.
 * Marianne stays with Caroline until her death in 1856 and comes to Jenny in London in 1857. She worked from then until her death in 1862 in the Marx household.
 * On April 28, 1857, Maria Kreutz, maid, Sankt Wendel, aged 22, applied for a passport to London in Sankt Wendel, in order to enter service.
 * Finally, the birth certificate in London, the death certificate of a »Mary Cross« were found, after which she died there on December 23, 1862.
 * Their economic situation worsened in 1862 when Marx's work for the New-York Tribune ceased altogether.
 * Tussy burrowed into her adventure novels and wonderded at ht hushed discussion between her mother and Helene Demuth about Marianne Kreuz, their maidservant, Marianne, thought to be Helene Demuth's younger sister or cousin, had joined the Grafton Terrace household in 1860.
 * In their present circumstances, a maidservant was an unaffordable luxury.
 * In fact, they were helping Marianne conceal an unwanted pregnancy.


 * For a year past the second servant, Marianne Kreuz, had been on the list of family physician, Dr. Allan in Soho Square, patients. She suffered from a heart complaint that caused him serious misgivings in mid-December 1862, at which juncture Mrs. Marx had just left for France.

Jenny von Westphalen's yourney to Paris

 * Prone to minor accidents, Mrs. Marx had but to step out on a frosty morning to fall and sprain her hand (In extenuation it should be noted that, where they existed, the pavements in Kentish Town until late in the 19th century were of slate, notoriously treacherous in wet or icy weather.) or to bite upon something hard to lose two of her front teeth, whereas should she go to the dentist in frightful pain, an unoffending tooth that had not caused a single pang was bound to be drawn; but what befell her on this excursion defies the laws of probability.
 * She intended to see Monsieur Arbabanel, a banker who had befriended her and Marx in their Paris days. Her purpose goes without saying. On crossing to Boulogne the Channel packet ran into a high storm and while it did not positively founder, as did a sister-vessel, it tossed about horridly so that the passengers were much alarmed. Monsieur Arbabanel lived outside Paris. To reach his house Mrs. Marx took a train whose locomotive broke down, necessitating a halt of two hours for repairs, during which interval M. Arbabanel had a stroke, lying paralysed and at death's door when she arrived.
 * On her return to the city after this hapless errand, she boarded an omnibus which was at once involved in a collision.
 * Shaken but uninjured she made her way back to London where, not feeling at her best, she allowed herself the luxury of a fly whose wheels became somehow interlocked with those of another.
 * In consequence she had to get out and walk, two small boys carrying her trunks.
 * She arrived at Grafton Terrace to be met by the news of Marianne's death which had occurred during the hour when she was plodding her homeward way.
 * It was 23 December and the funeral had to be postponed until Christmas was over Marianne was burried on 27 December.