People

Betty Heinemann was the third child and first daughter of Lüneburg banker Marcus Heinemann and his wife Henriette née Lindenberg. When she was born in 1859, her parents still lived in the Heinemann family"s ancestral home at Bardowicker Straße 6. In 1862, the family moved to Große Bäckerstraße 23, a large old patrician house that now became the center of life for Betty and her 16 siblings.

In 1877 Betty married Moritz Mendel Jacobsohn, a banker from Nienburg, in Lüneburg. He was fourteen years older than her and, since his arrival in Lüneburg in 1863, had quickly worked his way up from trainee to owner of the banking house "W. H. Michaels Nachfolger" - the most important competitor of the Heinemann bank.

Betty and Moritz Jacobsohn initially lived at Große Bäckerstraße 25, where the bank also had its business premises. Their five children Martha, Hermann, Albert, Elisabeth and Adolf were born there. In 1889, the family moved to the Wellenkamp Villa in Schulstraße (today Haagestraße). In this place of peace and beauty, Betty gave birth to Ruth in 1900.

Betty was very socially engaged: She was a member of the board of the "Vaterländischer Frauenverein" in Lüneburg, which supported needy children and women, and in 1912 she founded the forest recreation center for children in Wilschenbruch. In the early days of the First World War, she organized the care and feeding of thousands of refugees at the Lüneburg train station.

In addition, she kept the large Schulstraße household running, supported her adult children at a distance with advice and assistance, repeatedly took grandchildren into her household for shorter or longer periods of time, and organized large family celebrations. After the death of her husband in 1932, Betty Jacobsohn lived in the villa as a widow for a short time until she too died in October 1934.