Not limited to the affairs of one individual, these papers represent three generations of the family during their moves from Wisconsin to Mexico and Texas during the first half of this century, and their involvement in the financial dreams and crises, wars, and civil and political concerns of that period in history. A close-knit family, related to the Lawes, Boyds, Battles, Fords, and Adamses, it continued to exemplify the spirit and toughness of the early “American character” necessary to uproot and relocate hoping to better one's condition, and an intense civic and patriotic commitment. The collection is organized under three main headings: Family Genealogy and Personal Papers; Family Business Papers; and Correspondence. From the material within these three categories, the history of the family is readily reconstructed.
The heterogeneous FAMILY GENEALOGY AND PERSONAL PAPERS contain genealogies of the Tanner, Lawe, Boyd, Battle, and Ford families; and other Boyd and Tanner family papers, including letters and other documents relating to the family back to 1793 and through the Reconstruction period to 1881. More on all these matters is in the Herbert Tanner collection. Herbert Battles Tanner was keenly conscious of history and a few of his writings and collected materials dealing with Kaukauna history are filed here, including reprints of his article on General George Washington's scout, Hendrick Aupaumut, the Stockbridge Indian largely responsible for the Stockbridge migration to Wisconsin and one of the very few Revolutionary soldiers buried in Wisconsin.
The FAMILY BUSINESS PAPERS are also supplemental to those deposited with the Herbert B. Tanner Papers (Wis/Mss/DJ). Because Kenneth Tanner spent nearly fifteen years managing the family's Mexican interests, the business papers reflect an important segment of his life. They include a history of the Rio Tamasopo Sugar Company written by Herbert Battles Tanner, and promotional materials, as well as journals, maps and general business papers. Documents relating to Tanner family property in Texas are found with the Red River Farm material. The Selective Service Appointments and Awards folder concerns Kenneth Tanner's service on the Eastland County Selective Service Board. Oversize items relating to the latter material are filed with Miscellaneous Oversize Documents in box 6, folder 1.
Most of the collection is CORRESPONDENCE, which has been divided into Letters Sent and Letters Received by Kenneth Tanner, and is described in some detail in the Container List of this register. Under Letters Sent the arrangement is by person(s) addressed, listed in family hierarchical order with one exception; early correspondence, 1880-1900, contains some letters from Tanner's grandparents. The last folder in this section marked General, holds letters written to a number of people outside of the immediate family. All letters are filed chronologically in each folder. They address the concerns one would expect in letters home from a university student and from an officer candidate during World War I. The letters Tanner wrote to his father, H. B. Tanner, from Mexico deal primarily with the problems of management of the Rio Tamasopo Sugar Company's plantation during the Mexican revolutions of 1910-1911 and the resulting political turmoil. The letters to Tanner's wife, Bertha, during this period are more concerned with the problems of family adjustments at long-distance.
Letters Received is the larger of the two correspondence files. It includes a great deal of family information and history, and carries Kenneth Tanner from a university freshman to the end of his life. The first and General section of this file includes letters from distant family members and others, and deals with every phase of Tanner's life and that of his family. Dolores Tanner's fourteen years, circa 1940s - 1950s, with the Hedgerow Theater, a struggling drama company in Pennsylvania, is touched on and there are three letters from Dolores' husband, Christos Vachliotis, a Greek citizen connected with the Hedgerow group. Tanner's involvement with Republican politics, as well as his sister Blanche Tanner's lingering final illness and the war-related deaths and military records of Tanner's two sons can also be traced in this file. The letters of the Bossard sisters, friends of Tanner's youth in Kaukauna, are chatty reminiscences of Kaukauna, their neighbors, and friends, replete with current news and views of mutual acquaintances and family members. They occasionally touch on the political situation of the day and reflect cultural biases. Of more than passing interest is the correspondence with Tanner of his cousin, Vivaldo Coaracy, and of Sister Helen A. Hurley, concerning the Sister's research into the life of Coaracy's grandfather, Father Charles Francis de Vivaldi. The Vivaldi and Coaracy families are considered rather extensively. The Horatio Winslow correspondence is full of the veiled bitterness and subtle humor of Tanner's fraternity brother, a man at that time in his 70's and 80's, slowed by a series of strokes, reminiscing and resenting time's passing. In the folder of correspondence pertaining to the 1952 Presidential campaign are three campaign letters signed by Dwight D. Eisenhower on July 26, October 20, and December 16, 1952; and a similar letter from Senator Robert A. Taft dated February 22, 1952. The family letters in the Letters Received segment are arranged in a hierarchical order. Other letters follow at the end of the file in alphabetical order. Within each folder the arrangement is chronological.
