Maria van Beethoven Grave, Bonn

"She was to me such a good loving mother, my best friend." These are the words of Ludwig van Beethoven inscribed on the tombstone of his mother, Maria. The grave is at the Old Cemetery in Bonn. It is a simple grave covered with gravel. The headstone is an elongated rectangle of stone against a wall, flanked by evergreen shrubs.

Beethoven was sixteen years old when his mother died of tuberculosis. He was in Vienna, studying with Haydn and visiting with Mozart, when he received word his mother was dying. He had scarcely returned home in July 1787, when she passed away. His infant sister Maria Margaretha Josepha died shortly afterward.

The grave of Maria Magdalena was sold in 1826. All record of it vanished and the exact location was forgotten. It was rediscovered in 1932. The Beethoven House Society donated the headstone with the quotation by Ludwig. In the same cemetery are the graves of Robert Schumann and his wife, the pianist Clara Schumann.