The lives of two generations of this family of a German immigrant are outlined in this collection of manuscripts. Henry Wild, a native of Baden, Germany, arrived in Milwaukee in 1853. Three years later he married Caroline Bock, also from Baden. Their children attended the old West Side German American school in Milwaukee, later known as the Second Ward School; they took part in German music and drama festivals; and were active members of German American associations. Henry Wild was a charter member of the Milwaukee Turnverein, organized the very year of his arrival in Milwaukee, and continued his connection with the movement when it expanded into a national organization. He established himself in business with his brother as a merchant tailor, and at his death in 1902 left his widow and children in comfortable circumstances.
The elder Wilds maintained a correspondence with their relatives in Baden, preserving many of the incoming letters. In addition to these, there are some letters and legal documents of compatriots in Milwaukee among the Wild papers. Among the latter are a few from the estate of Franz A. Mohr, a relative of Mrs. Wild; about two dozen pieces, 1846-1913, touching on the career of Dr. Francis Huebschmann; and a very few of editor C. Hermann Boppe, of Georg Brosius, director of the Turner Institute, and of Charles H. Doerflinger.
Each of the Wild children, when on visits from home or attending school or traveling, wrote frequent gossipy letters to his parents or the “liebe kids.” These letters, preserved in quantities in the collection, tell much of family life, the dispersal of relatives, education of the family, and their movements and interests.
There is a large group of this type of letters from George B. Wild (1869?-1941). This son studied law for a time in Milwaukee, was associated with his cousin John for a short time in a tailor shop; experimented in oil wells near Perrysburg, Ohio shortly after 1900; and for ten years or more was employed by the Toledo Exhibition Company which operated the Toledo Baseball Club, serving part of the time as manager of the club.
George (called “Dodo”) wrote long letters home in German and in English, describing his trips, the successes of the league, and his visits to book stores and curio shops, where he made extensive book purchases for his brother's library. His preference in literature is expressed in a letter dated June 10, 1913: “Historical studies are the most interesting to me and I sometimes in the spirit of unfairness feel kind of dissatisfied at my not having had the proper training in my youth, so that I could more enjoy what I like...Old Justin certainly is interesting.”
While associated with the club, he became a confidante of the club's president and financial backer, Noah H. Swayne (1847-1922). When George left the league in 1916 to make his home with his brother and sister, the Swayne letters became very numerous. Swayne was by this time a retired gentleman of leisure, whose main interests were good living, restoration of health, reading, baseball, and his pet charities. In addition to these subjects and local events, his letters give an interesting picture of the attitude of an American towards World War I, at first inclined to tolerance, but exhibiting an increasing impatience and finally a deep distrust of the Central Powers.
Of more consequence than the Noah H. Swayne letters to George Wild is a small group of papers of Swayne's father, Noah H. Swayne (1804-1884) and his elder brother, Wager Swayne (1834-1902). The elder Noah Swayne settled in Ohio in 1823, where he served as district attorney and a member of the Ohio-Michigan boundary commission. In 1862 President Lincoln appointed him a justice of the Supreme Court, a position he held for nearly twenty years. Wager Swayne had a distinguished military career in the Civil War, rising to the rank of major-general. At its close he was made commissioner of the Freedmans' Bureau in Alabama and organized schools and colleges for the Negroes in that state. In 1880 he moved to New York City where he served as counsel for railroad and telegraph corporations.
In a memorandum filed in this collection George Wild notes the regret with which, at the express command of Noah H. Swayne the younger, he destroyed a large collection of correspondence of these two men. The small group of about fifty pieces that he was permitted to salvage are largely valuable for the purpose for which they were spared--as autographs. The collection dates from 1825 to 1883. Among it are letters from Cassius M. Clay, J.D. Cox, Myron T. Herrick, E.R. Hoar, Robert G. Ingersoll, and William T. Sherman, but the brevity of all the letters and the absence of any continuity among them makes it impossible to designate any subject matter contained in them.
Robert Wild (called “Jim”) was the most widely known member of the family. In 1897 he graduated from the Law School of the University of Wisconsin, having distinguished himself by winning the intercollegiate oratorical contest, and for many years was a prominent attorney in Milwaukee, a member of the firm of O'Connor, Schmitz, and Wild.
In 1896 the family had established a home, “Wildeck,” southwest of Milwaukee, near Hales Corners, and there Robert Wild and his brother collected and preserved a fine library of over ten thousand volumes of historical, philosophical, and classical works. His reputation as a public speaker grew, and he came to be in great demand as a speaker at German society meetings, bar associations, historical gatherings, and funerals of members of notable families of Milwaukee. His papers contain many articles and addresses prepared for such occasions, most of them in his own handwriting, and bearing fullest internal evidence of his close familiarity with the books gathered around him at his home. Among the articles are several recording his strong opposition to two measures under discussion at the close of World War I - women's suffrage and the prohibition amendment.
Robert Wild's love for companionship and his many interests led him into active participation in a number of organizations. Among the societies with which he affiliated were the Steuben Society, the Turnverein, the German Press Club, and the Old Settlers' Club, all of Milwaukee. He was also a member of the State Board of Bar Examiners, becoming vice president of the board, and a curator of the State Historical Society. In 1927 Governor Zimmerman appointed him a member of the Board of University Regents. Wild had been instrumental in securing an agreement in 1926 that Max Griebsch, the director of the National Teachers' Seminary at Milwaukee, be appointed professor in the Department of German at the University and have charge of the teacher training in the department. In the brief time between his appointment to the board and his death in the fall of 1928 he took steps to strengthen that and other departments.
In 1927 Robert, together with his brother George, made a trip to Germany. There he was received with great acclaim, as a representative of a great American university and a torch bearer of the German traditions in the New World. He lectured on “Three Great German-Americans, Franz Lieber, Gustav Loerner, and Carl Schurz,” and established connections with the Deutsches Ausland-Institut Stuttgart, an organization for cultivating and maintaining connections with emigrant Germans and people of German descent in foreign countries. While in Germany and after his return he corresponded with the president and chairman of the board of directors of the institute, Theodor G. Wanner, and with other distinguished Germans, including Ferdinand Miller, director of the Deutsche Akademie zur Wissenschaftlichen Erforschung; Moritz J. Bonn, former Carl Schurz lecturer at the University of Wisconsin; Dr. Hans Adolf Eduard Driesch and Dr. Georg Witkowski, professors of philosophy at Leipzig; Dr. Max Walter, director of the Real gymnasium at Frankfort; Dr. K.O. Bertling of Berlin, director of the Amerika-Institut; and Dr. Joseph Heimberger, professor and rector at the University of Frankfort-on-Main.
Robert Wild's career was cut short by his death at the age of 54 at Wildeck in the fall of 1928. The profusion of letters of sympathy, filed in this collection, are some indication of the esteem in which he was held. His fellow townsman, George William Bruce, speaking at the funeral, praised Wild's Americanism which he declared to be “unquestioned and of exceptional character.” He had, he said, “found in Robert Wild a man who was intensely American in all his political viewpoints and professional connections, and who at the same time was ideally German in his social and cultural life.”
Scores of prominent Wisconsin individuals partook of the hospitality of Wildeck during Robert Wild's lifetime. After his brother's death George B. Wild continued the pleasant practice of inviting congenial friends and relatives there. These manuscripts contain the record of an afternoon spent at Wildeck by one such guest in August, 1932, the well-known novelist, Opie Read.
