Sisters of Mercy in Fond du Lac

Happy New Year!

In the course of taking an inventory of the books in the Historical Society Library, I came across a series of books that were published by the Capuchins of Mt. Calvary.  I have previously written about the Journal of Fr. Fidelis Steinauer in an earlier post.

There are two more books in this series:  Bonaventure's Memoirs, a translation from the German of the 1904 memoirs of Fr. Bonaventure Frey, OFM Cap., one of the cofounders of the first permanent Capuchin foundation in the Americas; The History of Mount Calvary, A translation of the book written for the 50th Jubilee of the Province of St. Joseph in 1907 by Fr. Corbinian Vieracker OFM Cap. 1857-1907.

Both of these books are of interest to any local historian.

I then found an even more valuable book, a biography of Bishop Henni, who was the first Bishop of the Milwaukee Archdiocese.

I did find a surprise notation in this book, when I noticed a reference to The Sisters of Mercy as being affiliated with St. Joseph Church in Fond du Lac, running an orphanage.  Wait a minute......the Agnesians have always served St. Joes (my home parish) and this has to be a mistake.  I have never heard of the Sisters of Mercy.

Luckily, the book  is very well referenced, and the 'Sisters of Mercy' information came from The History  of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, published in 1880 by Western Publishing, page 606.  Well, off I zoomed to my copy of that book, and I was surprised to read:

• St. Joseph's Convent of Mercy and Orphan Asylum - In January, 1876, the Sisters of Mercy purchased the S.E. Lefferts place on East Second Street, for $4,500, and converted it into a convent and asylum. In each of the years 1876, 1877 and 1878 the county voted $300 aid to the Sisters.  With this, and the personal means belonging to each, the building was raised another story, fences were built and other improvement made. .....Sister Mary Agnes is the Mother Superior, in whom rests the title to all property. She has sixteen associates. There are twenty-four orphan children now being clothed, fed and educated at the asylum. They are taught whatever trade they seem best adapted to follow. Thirty have found good homes through these Sisters...........The amount of good they quietly and secretly do is incalculable....They are, of course, Catholic.

Of course, I had to dig a little further.  The first reference indicates that the Sisters of Mercy remained at St. Joseph's until 1906, when they moved to Milwaukee.  I checked out the 1880 census for the city of Fond du Lac, and sure enough I found them listed under the heading of St. Joseph's Convent of Mercy and Orphan Asylum, with a Mother Superior, an Assistant Superior, a Mistress of Nurses, eight teachers, five housekeepers and twenty-eight young girls, most between ages 2-12.

I could find nothing in the 1900 census, but then found a second reference to the Sisters of Mercy, which indicated that they moved to Milwaukee in 1896, not 1906, which would explain why they are not found in Fond du Lac in 1900. 

You never know just what you will discover when you browse in a library!

Moving Day

With more probate records on their way to the library, I had to redo the furniture arrangement in the library, to make room for at least 8 more filing cabinets.  Oh goodness, we were already pretty full, and now I have to squeeze in even more records!

I redesigned the room layout, putting all shelving and files in the back of the library,  and moving the work tables to the front of the room.  Then, those wonderful baseball players from Marian University came over, and suddenly, a dream that was only on paper, became a reality!  In one hour, all 41 cabinets are in their new location!

Cabinets and bookcases getting moved

Moving books with an assembly line!

New line of cabinets.

New photo area

There is still a lot to be done, but now its looking good, and the library should be opening soon.

Thanks to those hard-working players on the Marian University baseball team!

tracy reinhardt

JFK in Fond du Lac

Presidential Candidate John F Kennedy made a stop in Fond du Lac, Feb. 17, 1960 while campaigning for the Democratic nomination for President.  Found one really good photo of him, taken at the Retlaw Hotel. (from the photo collection of the Fond du Lac Co. Historical Society)

German Newspaper

When digging in the archives, I came across "Nordwestlicher Courier", a German language newspaper from Fond du Lac.  It appears to be a special edition, dated 8 April 1896.  There are 12 pages to this issue, and the first column, written in English, gives a summary of the past 60 years of Fond du Lac history.  The balance of the paper contains photos and biographies of city officials,including P. J. Van Blarcom, 'Urkundenreg', A. E. Richter, 'Countyrichter', Owen Ferguson, 'Countyclerk' and Simon Schafer, 'Unterscheriff', among other.

There are also pictures of various buildings in the county, and one of them caught my eye.

Even though I thought this looked like the Church of Peace on Military Rd., the steeple looks a little different.  And since I can't read German, the text that accompanied the picture was of no help to me. It seems to me that I remember my cousin, who still attends this church, mentioning a re-build of the steeple, so I will have to check with her to confirm.

Since this is an early commemorative history of the early days in Fond du Lac, I truly hope that I can find someone willing to undertake a translation of all these wonderful articles.

more digging in the archives

For the past several weeks, MaryBeth Hayes and I have been digging in the archives of the Adams House, opening boxes, moving boxes of books, creating pathways into all the archive rooms on the second floor of the Adams House.  And thank goodness for MaryBeth, since she could do all the heavy lifting that I am unable to do, until my back heals.

Every day was like Christmas for us, since we never knew just what treasure we would find when we opened a box.

In the newspaper room, we made a startling discovery.  We found a bound newspaper book, which contained the very first issues of the The Daily Union newspaper, starting with Vol. 1, No. 1 dated March 8, 1856 and continuing through Nov. 7, 1856.   Astonishing.

But right under that book we found another.

This was the first issues of the Fond du Lac Journal, starting with Vol. 1 No. 1 dated Feb. 21, 1857 and continuing through April 17, 1858.(Vol II, No. 61).

It was totally enlightening to carefully glance through these early issues.  There was very little, if any local news in that era.  The issues contained national news, and local advertising, on four pages.
What a wonderful glimpse into the past.

Another treasure that we found at the bottom of the pile, was a box that contained the actual hand-written WWI veterans census, taken in Fond du Lac county.  The entire state of Wisconsin conducted this census, and these are the actual forms that were filled out by the veterans, listing their unit, the names of their parents, any wounds or illnesses incurred during service, dates and places of enlistment and discharge, etc.  What is wonderful about this census, is that Fond du Lac county made a concerted effort for each veteran to include a photo of himself with his form.  Those WWI veteran pictures are all cataloged in the society's photo collection!  Now here were the original forms!

Needless to say, it feels like Christmas every time we open a box!
Next step is to inventory all these boxes, and assign them a permanent shelf location.

Tallmadge Bible

Now that that archive room has some semblence of workablilty, I have been spending an hour or two whenever possible, checking out to see what the room contains.  Some things are obvious, but others are not.

I encountered a lot of 'books' that were wrapped in archival paper, with only a number written on the outside.  No clue as to whether what was enclosed was a scrapbook, an old photo album, a bible, or just an old book to preserve.  Just numbers on the spine.
Of course, I had to open one of them, to find out just what this collection consisted of.

I picked one of the larger books, and carefully opened the paper.  Lo and Behold, this was a large and beautiful Bible.  With all the reverence I could muster, I scanned the Bible to see if there were any pages for Family Records to be entered, and much to my surprise, I found the family record pages, and discovered that the Bible belonged to none other than Nathaniel Tallmadge himself.

Now, I have a special interest in the Tallmadge family.  In researching early Fond du Lac history, you can't help but discover that Nathaniel Tallmadge was one of the most important politicians of his time.  He was a very influencial Senator from the State of New York, and resigned his senate seat when his family all moved to Wisconsin.  He was appointed Governor of the Wisconsin Territory, and ran most of the state business from his home in the Town of Empire.

Nathaniel was the 8th of 9 children born to his parents, and almost all of his siblings came to Wisconsin with him.  There is one minor flaw, when doing Tallmadge research.  His tombstone lists his middle name as Potter, while most documents and articles online about his political life, give his middle name as Pitcher.  Both sources indicate that his middle name was the maiden name of his mother.

The only way to prove whether his middle name was Potter or Pitcher, was to find the Tallmadge Bible, and today I just stumbled upon it by accident.

So now I know, that Nathaniel Tallmadge's middle name was POTTER! (and also this is his mother's maiden name.)

tracy

The archives

It's been a bit since I have made any progress in familiarizing myself with all that this library contains.  I am now back on track, digging through material.
Just recently I received a key to the Adams House, so I can check out the "archives" .  The second floor of the Adams House contains material not currently on display in the Village, and one room is designated for library material.
My first attempt to look at the contents, made me think of a popular tv show, because I could only step a few feet into the room!
Yesterday I started clearing a path, opening boxes and cataloging the contents. I have yet to find any list of the library holdings, so I am making my own list as I go.
There is a full set of DAR Patriot Books, which probably belonged to Ruth Worthing.
I found a box of materials from the schools, and one item was a scrapbook from Cleveland School, which listed the names of their teachers from 1920 to 1959.
there was also a collection of record books from Lodge 357, of the brotherhood of railroad trainmen!
and this is just the start.
I plan on continuing my digging, and hopefully will have a full list of all of the library's holdings.
Stay tuned, as I make more discoveries.