Alfred Wegener: Difference between revisions
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== Early life ==
Born in 1843, Richard Wegener was ninth of the eleven children of Friedrich Wilhelm Wegener, an owner of a military uniform factory in Wittstock, in the northwest corner of Brandenburg, about 90 kilometers from [[Berlin]]. Richard realized his father's ambition to study theology and become an evangelican clergymen. After his seminary study and ordination in 1868, he spent a year as an assistant pastor to parish in Kolmar, Posen -- the Prussian province centered on the historic Polish city of Poznan.
Richard studied Greek, Latin and Hebrew and earned a PhD from the Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Berlin in 1873. In that same year, Richard and Anna took over the Schindler Orphanage (''Schindlersches Waisenhaus''), a privately endowed orphanage for sons of clergy, teachers, civil servants, landowners and merchants. Richard also began his parallel career teaching Greek and Latin at the Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster, the illustrious secondary school that the older orphans attended along with the children of Berlin's cultural elite. Richard also fed his other interest and commitments by teaching German literature at a nearby Mädchenschule (girl's school) and holding a chaplaincy at the criminal court in the nearby neighborhood of Moabit.
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