McCulloch One Name Study

Nina Marie Monica Louisa von Oppell, who was born 23 April 1869 and was for a time Lady in Waiting to the Queen of Saxony. On the arrival of the Russian forces at Wilsdruff in the spring of 1945 she was evicted from her home at a few hours notice. She subsequently lived in two small rooms over the shop of Herr Otto Nebrich, the apothecary, in the village of Wilsdruff, maintained by the villagers in gratitude for the kindness shewn to them in past years by the von Oppell family. In a letter to the present writer she gave the following information about her family. ‘My dear mother who died in 1917 often told me that her grandmother’s maiden name had been McCulloch but I don’t believe she knew any members of the family. She was born in India and lived in Germany ever since she was a girl of 14. It interested me so much that you should have found that old photograph of my brother and myself with our dear old uncle, General Walter Scott. He was in India all his life, but spent his last years with us in Germany. His great interest was collecting a very valuable library of over 6000 vols, chiefly French Theology, all the Fathers of the Church, St. Augustine, St. John Chrystomus, St. Bernard, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Teresa, etc., each in 12 large vols., besides many other valuable and ancient French books. Also, of course, a great number of English books, some very old illustrated editions of Shakespeare, of course, also, all Sir Walter Scott’s works. All these books were on shelves in a large room in the old schloss here, we used to inhabit. At the time of the Russian invasion I had to leave it, of course, and at that time I lost everything I possessed, every bit of jewellery, silver, clothes, furniture, etc., but I must say the foreign soldiers did not touch the books. That was left, I regret to say, to be done by my own compatriots. I had to take refuge for several months with some relations near Halle a. d. Saale, and during my absence, people here, as well as fugitives from Silesia, forced the lock of the library, pulled the books out of the shelves, and used them to light their kitchen fires with. And the children tore the books to pieces and scattered them over the roads. Can you imagine such vandalism? I am so thankful that my dear brother did not live to see it, he set so much value on our library. He died 4 years ago in Oxford . . . . . . He was a philosopher and wrote many articles in ‘Hibbert’s’ Journal: he was a great friend of the editor, old Professor Dr. Jacks, who is still alive in Oxford. My brother was in the German Army, in a cavalry regiment in Dresden, and later, for many years at the German Embassy in London. My father, who died in 1876, when my brother and I were babies, had been in the same regiment in Dresden, and was wounded in the war with France in 1871. My mother’s father, Alexander Comyn Peat, died in India, where he had been through several wars. I had many long interesting letters he had written to my grandmother from Afghanistan, while she was in Bombay, but, unfortunately, they, as well as many other interesting papers, were all destroyed in the general robbery in the Schloss. Otherwise I should have been glad to send you some’.