The poetess Annette von Droste-Hülshoff (1797-1848) from Westphalia called the small town of Meersburg on Lake Constance "the second half of my home". She came on a visit on the invitation of her sister Jenny for the first time in 1841 and stayed in the "Altes Schloß" (Old Palace), which belonged to her brother-in-law Joseph von Laßberg.
Annette (Anna Elisabeth) Freiin of Droste to Hülshoff was born on 12 January 1797 at the moated castle of Hülshoff near Münster in Westphalia. From her birth she was weak and delicate. She was raised conservatively and as a woman in the early 19th century had little chance for personal development. It was only her literary activities that offered her freedoms. However, her work did not become famous and was not recognized until late in her life. Her first collection of poems published in 1838 received mainly adverse reviews. Not until her second collection in 1844 did she achieve her literary breakthrough.
Annette of Droste-Hülshoff took her literary work very seriously and was aware that she was creating great art. Her ballads became famous (Der Knabe im Moor/The Boy in the Moor), as did her novella (Die Judenbuche/The Jewish Beech). An important document of deep religiosity is her cycle of poems entitled "Das geistliche Jahr" (The Religious Year) in which, however - typical for that age - the inner conflict of the human being between enlightened consciousness and the religious search is also dramatized. Today it is primarily her enormous correspondence that impresses and provides a very personal insight into her everyday life and shows her as a communicative, humorous person and a master of concisely described observation.
Annette never really lived in the Fürstenhäusle she purchased in 1842. But she did visit it often and enjoyed the heavenly view of the wide open countryside and the town of Meersburg which lay at her feet.
When Annette of Droste-Hülshoff came for another stay at Lake Constance in 1846 she was seriously ill. She never left Meersburg again, died on 24 May 1848 and was buried at the Meersburg Cemetery.
She wrote her most important poems in this relatively short time at Lake Constance.