The Gerlach Family
The Gerlach Family
The family has been documented in Lübbecke since the early 17th century.
Eduard Gerlach was a trained chemist. In 1868, he took over his father’s long-established general store and expanded it to include a drugstore. There, he sought a practical solution for protecting feet from sores and blisters. After several years of research and experimentation, he succeeded. In 1882, he launched the world’s first industrially manufactured foot care cream under the name “E. Gerlach’s Praeservativcreme.” This laid the foundation for the globally successful family business “Gehwol.”
In 1875, Eduard Gerlach had a prestigious residential and commercial building constructed on the south side of Lange Straße, modeled after Berlin architecture. Numerous tasks, including plastering the facade, were carried out at the time by Berlin craftsmen. The ironwork also came from Berlin. It had to be transported by horse-drawn carts from Kirchlengern to Lübbecke, as there was no railway connection here yet.
When the residents of Lübbecke were given the opportunity in 1839 to purchase family burial plots at the new cemetery, the Gerlach family was one of the first to take advantage of this opportunity.
Another highly respected figure in Lübbecke was the postmaster Friedrich Ludwig Gerlach. He was a farmer, treasurer, tax collector, moneylender, bankruptcy administrator, and innkeeper all in one. He was the grandfather of Eduard Gerlach, the druggist and founder of Gehwol. His gravestone, a stele featuring a butterfly, is one of the oldest gravestones in the cemetery.</poi>