‘Mrs Mielsch who was murderously assaulted by her husband has slightly improved in condition’.
Maria Rosina Eleanor Sophia, was born in 1855 and arrived in New Zealand in March 1872 as part of a group of Scandinavian immigrants. Within a month she married William Cullen. Together they had six children. In April 1903, she sued William for divorce. Maria supported herself working as a midwife as she had done throughout her marriage.
Maria then married [August] Ernest Carl Max Mielsch (there are many different spellings of his name) on 13th January 1906. Ernest was a German born labourer who was about twenty years her junior. Ernest was previously married in Germany in 1896 and had two children according to Ancestry trees.
By 1st June 1906, Maria and Ernest were already living apart.
On 15th June, Ernest was convicted of biting Maria on the nose and fined 40s. Before the same judge, Maria made a separation order against Ernest. But she then later agreed to meet Ernest outside his lodgings on 23rd June to talk. But when she arrived, he dragged her inside where he was lodging with Niels Rasmussen who was an acquaintance of Maria’s also.
The three talked together and Maria said ‘I would never trust a man who tried to bite a woman’s nose off, because a man who would bite a woman’s nose off would murder her’. This enraged Ernest and he grabbed Maria by the arm again and took her into the yard. She saw him raise an axe. She did not remember anything further until waking in the hospital suffering a wound to the head. Dr Hogg who had attended the scene said the wound was about 4 inches long and penetrated the skull.
Ernest ran off after attacking Maria and arrived at his friend Henrich Bornholdt’s house to say goodbye. Henrich thought he was mad and told him to leave the house. Ernest was arrested on 25th June in Upper Hutt. He was later found in his cell with his throat, temple and wrist cut, lying in a pool of blood. Both Maria and Ernest survived their wounds.
In August, Ernest was found guilty of grievous assault on his wife and was sentenced to two years imprisonment, a concurrent term of one week was imposed for the attempt to commit suicide. From his police record we know that he had the following tattoos: ‘E. R. MIELSCH’ and ‘1893’ on left arm, ‘dancing girl on ball’ on right arm and that he was photographed at Waiotapu in 1907.
In November 1907 Maria sued her children for maintenance. The rebuttal was that she had walked out on them seventeen years prior and that her husband ‘who mistook her for a length of firewood’ (NZ Truth) was the proper person to support her. A friend of Maria’s had a letter published in the NZ Truth refuting most of these claims and that she was a good mother.
Maria died on 8th August 1908 at Wellington Hospital, aged 53. She is buried in an unmarked plot.
Ernest remarried in 1910, but after his young son died in 1912, he was found living as a vagrant in Auckland and was admitted in 1913 to Auckland Mental Hospital. He died there in 1915.
Also interred in this plot with Maria is her son Thomas Cullen who died in 1905 aged 26.
Plot: *Ch Eng/U/132
By Julia Kennedy
Evening Post 29 November 1900
Mielsch / Cullen plot courtesy of FindaGrave