Summary Information
Dreutzer Family Papers
1876-1923
Green Bay Mss 55
2.0 c.f. (5 archives boxes)
UW-Green Bay Cofrin Library / Green Bay Area Research Ctr. (Map)
Papers of the Dreutzer family, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, including correspondence of Yngre and Elizabeth Dreutzer with their children, Carl, Cedric, and Genevieve, while at the University of Wisconsin or the U.S. Naval Academy, 1905-1912; Elizabeth's correspondence with Ada James and Olympia Brown on woman's suffrage, 1912; drafts of stories by Carl Wernicke, Genevieve's husband; legal papers from the Dreutzer law firm; and other papers.
English
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-gb0055 ↑ Bookmark this ↑
Biography/History
The Dreutzer family settled in Sturgeon Bay, Door County, in 1873. Prior to that time, Olaf E. Dreutzer, who had emigrated from Sweden in 1842, lived in Racine, Milwaukee, and Waupaca counties. Olaf Dreutzer was the son of Commodore O. M. Dreutzer, commander-in-chief of the pilots navigating the western coast of Sweden. Born in Gothenburg, Sweden, on January 27, 1816, the younger Dreutzer entered the Swedish navy at an early age. At seventeen he sailed to New York during a leave of absence, and in 1834 he made several voyages in a brig to New Bedford, Massachusetts. At Charleston, South Carolina, he volunteered for service in the Second Seminole War (1835) and spent four months on active duty on the St. Johns River and elsewhere in Florida, before returning to Sweden to enter the naval academy at Cariskroma. Graduating as a lieutenant, he was placed in command of five pilot stations on the coast. In 1840 he married Nellie Uppling, and two years later resigned from the navy and immigrated to Boston. Although almost immediately offered command of a brig, he elected to go west.
Although he bought land in Racine County, Wisconsin, he farmed it only one year, and in 1843 apprenticed himself in the Milwaukee law office of Judge James Holliday (1818-1851). In 1854 Dreutzer opened an office to practice law in Waupaca County, and in subsequent years, was elected to the offices of county treasurer, register of deeds, and county judge. In 1859 Republican Governor Alexander Randall appointed Dreutzer to his staff as a colonel in the militia, and in 1861 raised him to the rank of brigadier general. From 1862 to 1867, Dreutzer served as United States Consul to Bergen, Norway. While there he translated into English many Scandinavian records relating to America's discovery by Norsemen. In 1873 Dreutzer moved his law practice from Waupaca to Sturgeon Bay, and his family joined him in the spring of 1874. Also in that year, he began his first of several terms as district attorney of Door County. Nellie Uppling Dreutzer died on September 20, 1887, and in 1894, Olaf Dreutzer moved to Frankfort, Tennessee, where he died on January 4, 1900.
Of Olaf Dreutzer's fourteen children, seven survived him, but the family of only one, Yngre Viking Dreutzer, is represented in this collection. Yngre Dreutzer, an attorney-at-law and Door County district attorney, was born in Waupaca on November 9, 1857, and moved at seventeen (1874) with his parents to Sturgeon Bay. He was a graduate of Lawrence College, and was admitted to the bar in 1881. Associated with his father in the practice of law until 1891 when Olaf Dreutzer retired from the firm, Yngre Dreutzer was city attorney in Sturgeon Bay for seven terms, and district attorney of Door County from 1890 until his death at the age of 49 in Chicago on January 2, 1907.
In 1880 Yngre Dreutzer married Elizabeth Marie Hanson (1860-1954), daughter of Jacob and Susan Hanson of Sevastopol Township, Door County. Elizabeth Dreutzer was to develop an active interest in the woman's suffrage movement in Wisconsin. Of their four children, Elsie (1883-1888) died in early childhood. Carl E.M. Dreutzer (1884-1958) attended the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis (1905-1907) and the University of Wisconsin Law School (1907-1909), and practiced law in Green Bay and Chicago. He married Marrietta B. Smith (d. 1950) in 1909, and Jessie DeBoth (d. 1959) in 1954. Cedric B. Dreutzer (1889-1967) attended the University of Wisconsin for two years and spent his adult life on the home farm as a cherry and apple grower. He married Hazel D. Johnston in 1937. Genevieve Dreutzer (1891-1975) graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1914, and in that same year married Carl Wernicke (d. 1928). About 1932 she became a special agent for the Equitable Life Assurance Company in Cincinnati, Ohio, and served in that capacity for thirty years. There are no papers in the collection pertaining to succeeding generations of the family.
Scope and Content Note
The collection is arranged in two nearly equal sections, Family Papers and Legal Papers. The FAMILY PAPERS are predominantly Correspondence between Yngre or Elizabeth Dreutzer and their children, Carl, Cedric, and Genevieve, during their years at college; but there are also letters from other relatives and acquaintances. Included are letters from Carl while he attended the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, 1905-1907; and the University of Wisconsin Law School, 1907-1909. Letters written between 1909 and 1912 consist mainly of correspondence between Elizabeth Dreutzer and Cedric and Genevieve while both children attended the University at Madison. The 1912 letters also document Elizabeth Dreutzer's work for woman's suffrage in Wisconsin. This material includes correspondence with the Political Equality League and its president, Ada L. James of Richland Center, and with the Wisconsin Woman's Suffrage Association and its president, the Reverend Olympia Brown of Racine; as well as with other members of both organizations. Drafts of Stories by Carl Wernicke are those written by Genevieve Dreutzer Wernicke's husband in the 1920s.
The Press Clippings, 1898-1910, include articles relating to women and woman suffrage, and to Christian Science, among others. The section titled School Papers relates to Carl Dreutzer's law school education (box 2, folders 9-10), and to Genevieve's and Cedric's studies at the University of Wisconsin (box 3, folders 1-3). The Miscellany segment includes Christmas cards, invitations, and materials pertaining to Elizabeth Dreutzer's and Genevieve Wernicke's roles in a local University Extension club and in other literary clubs.
The LEGAL PAPERS give evidence of the types of routine cases handled by the Dreutzers and similar law firms, such as tax settlements and land title disputes. There are legal briefs and a court transcript connected with the practice of Olaf and Yngre Dreutzer, and similar papers from the office of Carl Dreutzer.
Administrative/Restriction Information
Presented by Mr. and Mrs. Cedric B. Dreutzer, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, August 25, 1965. Accession Number: M65-312
Processed by J. Sorenson and John Fleckner, January 20, 1978.
Contents List
|
Series: Family Papers
|
|
|
Correspondence
|
|
|
Box
1-10
Folder
1
|
1895-1911
|
|
|
Box
2
Folder
1-6
|
1911-1912, 1922-1923, undated
|
|
|
Box
2
Folder
7
|
Drafts of Stories by Carl Wernicke, 1922-1923
|
|
|
Box
2
Folder
8
|
Press Clippings, 1898-1910, undated
|
|
|
School Papers
|
|
|
Box
2
Folder
9-10
|
1907-1909
|
|
|
Box
3
Folder
1-3
|
1907-1913
|
|
|
Box
3
Folder
4-6
|
Miscellany, 1896, 1901-1912
|
|
|
Series: Legal Papers
|
|
|
General
|
|
|
Box
3
Folder
7
|
1897-1898, 1903-1906
|
|
|
Box
4
Folder
1-2
|
1906-1909
|
|
|
Box
4
Folder
3
|
Unidentified Court Transcript, circa 1881
|
|
|
Box
4
Folder
3
|
Legal Briefs
|
|
|
Box
4
Folder
4-6
|
1876-1890
|
|
|
Box
5
Folder
1-4
|
1890-1898, undated
|
|
|
