The papers presented in this collection consist of documents, photocopies of letters received by Joseph and Theresa Nuesse, and supplementary documents and letters of biographical significance. They include all the papers that Joseph preserved in a cigar box that he kept in a drawer of a chest in his bedroom.
The documents in this collection either establish biographical facts or pertain to real property transactions. The original biographical documents kept by Joseph Nuesse are supplemented, as noted in each case, by photocopies or certificates of records that are relevant. The photocopies of the first four items from Bredenborn records were obtained by a great-grandson of Joseph and Theresa, Leon J. Long of Fort Worth, Texas, through the courtesy of the Family History Center of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at Sturgeon Bay. Other photocopies as noted are also owed to him.
All of the letters in this collection are photocopies of the originals, arranged in chronological order. Except as explained in the contents, the original letters were addressed to Joseph and Theresa Nuesse by their relatives in Germany during the period from 1891 to 1920. The originals were sent to Friedrich Potthast (now deceased) of Paderborn, Germany and was a son of Heinrich Potthast, half-brother of Joseph Nuesse. Since the earliest of the letters is from 1891, twenty-two years after the arrival of the addressees in the United States, it is probable that earlier letters were received but not preserved. Probably, also, not all letters received after 1891 were preserved.
The letters document conditions of life and social change in the Bredenborn area at the turn of the century and after World War I. Of particular interest are the anecdotal reports of infant mortality, care of the aged, religious expression and practice, conditions of labor, enclosure of farmlands, and conflict of social classes.
Of special interest in the last letter of Heinrich Potthast and in the letters of Heinrich and Albert Becker are descriptions of conditions in the Bredenborn area following the defeat of Germany in World War I. These last letters were sent by an unrelated resident of Bredenborn and his son to the former's daughter in Marquette, Michigan, and forwarded by her to Frank Golueke of Menominee, Michigan, who was also a native of Bredenborn. He passed the letters on to Joseph Nuesse.
Enclosed with the letters, as aids to users of the papers, are transcriptions and translations made by the compiler C. Joseph Nuesse and others who assisted him in reading and translating the old German script, in which the letters were written. Gratitude for assistance is owed particularly to the compiler's mother, Salome Martens Nuesse, to a colleague at The Catholic University of America, Ingrid Merkel, and to a friend, George Zinnemann.
