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Who Are the People In This Photograph From the Longyear Collection?
December 13, 2010
…and why are they sitting around a large round table covered with books, notepads, a briefcase, pens, inkwells and a blotter?
The time is 1911-1912, the place is the Hotel Beaconsfield in Brookline, Massachusetts (a suburb of Boston), and the people are six carefully chosen individuals who have come together to embark on a major undertaking: the first authorized German translation of the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy.
From left, they are: Count Helmuth von Moltke, Ulla Schultz, Adam H. Dickey, Renata Hermes, Countess Dorothy von Moltke, and Theodore Stanger.
“Your desire to have my book ‘Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures’ translated into the German language expresses one of the warmest wishes of my heart but I fail to know how this can be done properly and conscientiously,” Mrs. Eddy had written to a German Christian Scientist in about 1904.1 Six years later, after she had become convinced of the feasibility of a reliable German translation, she was able to tell her publisher on March 31, 1910: “Please take immediate steps to have SCIENCE AND HEALTH translated into the German language.”2 She then gave the order to appoint three qualified German translators to prepare, separately, their own translations and bring them to Boston, from which to compose the final translation.
The three Germans chosen to bring their own translations were Count von Moltke, Fräulein Schultz, and Fräulein Hermes. Stanger, a German-American, was editor of the German-language periodical Der Herold der Christian Science. Mr. Dickey, a member of the Christian Science Board of Directors (1910-1925), was assigned to the committee to “watch the translation and to guard the metaphysical meaning of each line,” according to strict orders left by Mrs. Eddy.3 Finally, Countess von Moltke, a Scottish-South African married to Count von Moltke, initially intended coming to Boston to keep her husband company, but ended up serving on the committee, where she played a vital role as the only native-speaker of English who was also fluent in German.
The work, originally projected to take two months, stretched out to seven months, reaching completion in March, followed by three more months of revisions. The new, authorized German translation of Science and Health was finally published in July 1912 — almost a year after the committee began their work in Boston.4
