Louisa Nelson
Louisa Christine Nelson (Rolfing) was the wife and business partner of Nelson Greenbrier Distillery founder Charles Nelson. Married for 30 years, she was her husband’s shrewdest and most ambitious partner while operating as wholesale grocers, and later as distillers and distributors for roughly thirty different brands of liquor, ranging from Tennessee Whiskey, bourbon whiskey, corn whiskey, gin, to both apple and peach brandy.
Born near Bremen in the Province of Hanover, Germany, on May 24, 1838, Louisa would move to the United States at the age of six with her parents to Cincinnati, Ohio. After attending school in Ohio throughout her childhood years, she would later meet Charles and marry on March 4, 1863. They would go on to have five children: Emma, William, Alice, Henry, and Louisa, along with a stepson from Charles’s first marriage, Charles Nelson Jr.
When her husband Charles died in 1891, Louisa assumed the role and duties of distillery president, leading the Nashville, Tennessee-based Green Brier distillery for eighteen prosperous years before statewide prohibition shut its doors in 1909. During this time, not only did Louisa meet expectations, but she far exceeded them. Louisa was a pioneer in the male-dominated whiskey industry during a time when women were denied many basic rights, including the right to vote. Louisa demonstrated that women could succeed at positions of authority and leadership in their communities with great success.
The Nelson Greenbrier brand would be reintroduced years later by both Charles and Louisa’s great-great-great-great-grandchildren, brothers Andy and Charlie Nelson, who resurrected the brand in March 2012 following the end of Tennessee Prohibition in 2009. The distillery today honors the contributions of Louisa with her own signature label as well as an annual Louisa Nelson Award, which recognizes the achievements, vision, and inspiration of three female leaders from Nashville’s business and cultural communities.
Brothers Andy and Charlie Nelson pay homage to Louisa on the distillery website, which proudly proclaims:
“The Nelson’s Greenbrier Distillery of the 21st Century benefits directly from the business decisions Louisa made while running the company. And in a broader sense, we all benefit from her refusal to accept the confining role most women of her time were assigned at birth. There’s no doubt her ability to refuse these norms was facilitated by a privileged social context, but she utilized that privilege by continually offering a hand up to those who had less than she did. The obscurity of her story is reason alone to tell it, but because Nelson’s Green Brier is in the business of both whiskey and stories, her descendants feel a strong conviction to shine a light on her contribution to our family, our company, and our industry”.
Louisa Nelson died on February 21, 1918. Almost exactly one year later, Congress voted to approve the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote.
Louisa’s local obituary had read, simply and appropriately, “NOBLE WOMAN PASSES AWAY”.
