The Edward DeNomie Collection is divided into three series: Papers, Photographs, and Negatives
Papers (1916-2008) document DeNomie's high school days, his family history, letters sent to DeNomie from his family, and records of his military service. Materials relating to the family include photocopies of a family tree produced by the Department of Indian Affairs and a handwritten list of family birth and marriage dates. His high school sporting days are recorded in the Tomah High School yearbook from 1916, where he poses for photographs with the football and basketball team. He is also mentioned in the basketball team roster as “Dynamite DeNomie,” which provides a small caption about his basketball skills. The letters to DeNomie were written in 1916 and 1920 and pertain to him maintaining family relationships and news from home. The two letters from Naida provide some detail into the preparation of troops in World War I, but her relationship to DeNomie is unclear. Materials pertaining to his service with the Wisconsin National Guard include discharge and service papers, postcards he sent during the Mexican Boarder War, photocopies of a scrapbook, various souvenir material collected, and a diary he kept in 1918. One service record indicates he continued his love of sports by naming him as a member of the 32nd Division basketball team in 1919. The postcards were written to friends and provide very little in conversation. DeNomie had created a scrapbook documenting his high school and military service, but due to extreme deterioration, it was dismantled for preservation. The pages were photocopied to maintain its original order and organized with other material in the collection. His diary contains entries about his combat service during World War I in 1918. However, not every day is recorded and they tend to be small one to two sentence descriptions. It also includes various notes taken about the A. E. F. and the 32nd Division, humorous poems and songs about military service, and addressed for fellow servicemen and French civilians. The World War I memorabilia he collected consists of a gallery guide to a wax museum in France and a humorous “will” for Kaiser Wilhelm. Both his manuscripts and photographs attest to DeNomie's sense of humor. This can be seen in several humorous anecdotes in his diary, the kidding received in the letters from Naida, and from the satirical will. The collection also contains newspaper articles about the documentary “The Way of the Warrior” that was produced by his granddaughter, Patty Loew. They contain information about DeNomie and his service in the National Guard, along with additional information about Native American military service in the 20th Century.
Photographs (circa 1910-circa 1930) consist of photographs, postcards, and negatives of his high school sports teams, his family, and his training and service with the Wisconsin National Guard. Family member photographs include those of relatives at various gatherings, reunions, and children playing. The images from Tomah High School are of DeNomie posing for football and basketball team photographs, images of the high school, and miscellaneous images of other organizations and students. Some photographs include descriptions that identify context and individuals. They include images of the destruction along the front line during World War I and identify the names of family members and friends from the service. His humorous side is indicated in the photographs through the comical images of soldiers accosting one another. Some group photographs identify DeNomie in the image with an arrow. The oversized photographs relate to his high school athletics teams, and include what appears to be a family reunion group shot and two images of what appears to be a logging camp.
Negatives (circa 1916-circa 1930) consist of images taken during his Wisconsin National Guard training and family gatherings. They have been identified and connected to photographs in the collection, however, some photographs do not contain the entire image captured by the negative.
