Bertha von Meduna

Bertha Baroness von Meduna (27 September 1836 – 5 September 1899) was Chamber Woman at the royal court of Princess Sophie of Bavaria, who was the Archduchess of Austria and mother of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria.

Biography

Born as Bertha Barbara Karolina Aloisia Freifrau Negelin von Blumenfeld in Dornbach, Vienna, on 27 September 1836, she was the daughter of Alois Negelin Ritter von Blumenfeld and Karolina Elisabeth Charlotte Anna Theresia Wiese. The nobility of the family dates back to a certain Franz Joseph Negelin, son of Johann Baptist Negele, who ascended in the service of Empress Maria Theresa. As member of the Austrian Imperial Council, Negelin was awarded the nobility title von Blumenfeld in 1763 and knighthood in 1767.

She served as lady's maid and Chamber Woman at the court of Archduchess Sophie from 1854 until her death in 1872, received from the Archduchess an estate in St. Christophen, Neulengbach, and was awarded by Emperor Franz Joseph a Golden Cross of Merit with the Crown in 1898.

On 25 November 1874 she married Josef Meduna (19 March 1842, Chrudim – 14 May 1913, St. Christophen), property owner and mayor of St. Christophen and descendant of the East-Bohemian branch of the Meduna family.

After her death on 5 September 1899, her husband erected a family crypt (topped by a 3-meter tall chapel) at the south-western perimeter of the cemetery in St. Christophen, on parcel 14/4. It contains a prayer stool Baroness Meduna had received from Archduke Franz Karl of Austria after Archduchess Sophie's death in 1872. The stool was made from the headboard of the bed in which the old Emperor's mother died and is decorated with a reproduction of Raphael's Madonna della Seggiola.

A prayer book containing a manual inscription and dedication of the Archduchess was also placed in Baroness Meduna's crypt chapel: