Ottilie Weiß.

The heart and soul of the family.

Ottilie Weiß, née Streicher, was born in Plochingen in 1886. She was the second of three daughters. Her father ran the 'Zur Brücke' inn in Plochingen. Ottilie Streicher spent her childhood and teenage years there.

When she was about 20 years old, a young entrepreneur regularly came to the 'Brücke'. Leonhard Weiss was working with his workers on the tracks at the nearby Plochingen railway station. What happened next is told by the Weiss family as follows: After a few visits, Leonhard noticed Ottilie's little sister Emma. When he finally asked the landlord if he could marry her, he is said to have replied: 'You can marry her, but Ottilie has to be married first, she's older'.

This gave Leonhard Weiss some time to get to know the other sister. The next documented event is their engagement in September 1907. They married on 9 January 1908 and Ottilie was from then on the most important companion at Leonhard Weiß's side - and became a mainstay of the construction company.

Ottilie and Leonhard Weiss had five children. Their eldest daughter Emma was born in 1909 and their son Walter in 1916, in the middle of the First World War. Leonhard Weiß was a pioneer in Romania when his son was baptised. One day before Christmas Eve, Ottilie received a letter from her husband: 'The little boy is already laughing as you write, and [I] will see him soon.

Meanwhile, Ottilie held down the fort in Göppingen, looking after the family and the business. She argued with the authorities and, together with a few loyal employees, fought for every order. After the war, Ottilie had three more daughters: Lotte (1920), Else (1921) and Inge (1923). From 1924 the family lived in a simple house on the company premises. As orders dwindled during inflation and the Great Depression, and Leonhard Weiß struggled to keep the company afloat, Ottilie supported the family by growing vegetables in her own beds and keeping livestock between the construction machinery.

The death of her husband in 1938 was a severe blow to Ottilie. Together with her son Walter and her son-in-law and businessman Werner Schmidt, she took over the management of the company, which had grown considerably in the meantime. During the Second World War, Walter Weiss was drafted into the Pioneer Corps. When he finally returned home safe and sound, the company owner retired.

From then on, Ottilie Weiß looked after her grandchildren, but remained connected to the family business. As long as her health permitted, she came to make what she called her 'inspection rounds' and to check on the welfare of her employees. Ottilie Weiß was a strong woman, known for her strictness, but also for her 'golden sense of humour'. Even after her death in 1968, she remained, in a way, the good soul of the family and the LEONHARD WEISS company.