Anna von Szent-Ivanyi

Anna von Szent-Ivanyi (19 January 1797 – 28 January 1889) was a German-Hungarian noblewoman who became the owner of a successful winery in Deidesheim. She never married, and in her later years became an important benefactress of the town's hospital-asylum ("Deidesheimer Spital") and of the Latin school with which it shared its site.

Life In 1797 Anna "Nanette" von Szent-Ivanyi was born in Freinsheim, a small town, already under French military occupation, south of Bad Dürkheim, which became part of the French First Republic the next year. Johann von Szent-Iványi, her father, was an aristocratic army officer of Hungarian provenance, serving in the Imperial Army: his presence in the Rhineland was a result of the French revolutionary wars. He was promoted to the rank of Major general in 1802. His wife, born Maria Anna Tillmann, who was Anna's mother, had been a widow when she had married Johann von Szent-Iványi. Maria Anna's first husband, Franz Joseph Stengel, who had died in 1794, had held a senior administrative post as a "Stiftsschaffner" of the Electoral Palatinate, based in Frankenthal. Anna von Szent-Ivanyi was therefore born the step half-sister of Josephine Stengel (1789–1834) on account of her mother's first marriage. The relationship was an important one because after she grew up Josephine Stengel married Andreas Jordan (1775–1848), the town's mayor, who later became a member of the lower chamber of the Bavarian National assembly ("Bayerische Ständeversammlung") after the region was handed over to Bavaria in 1816. All this meant, put simply, that Anna von Szent-Ivanyi was well connected from the moment of her birth, and the value of her family connections increased further through the on-going success of her step half brother-in-law, the businessman-politician Andreas Jordan. Her disposable wealth was significantly increased by a major auction she arranged which took place on 22 April 1858 of wine that had been produced, accumulated stored at her winery.