Series: Henrietta Martindale Hyessa Wilson (1888-1962) and Family. Papers, 1896-1977
Biography/History: Henrietta, Katharine's elder sister, was horn 3 February 1888. After graduation from high school in La Crosse, she entered Smith College in 1907. Ill health forced her to withdraw temporarily, but she later returned and was graduated in 1913. She then did advanced work in biology or botany in Massachusetts in 1914 and at the University of Chicago in 1915-1916. At Chicago she became friends with several university intellectuals and with Jens Jensen, a landscape architect and associate of Frank Lloyd Wright. Henrietta became Jensen's research assistant and was inspired by him to try to develop family property near the Indiana Dunes where she lived from around 1916 until the early 1930s. Around 1917-1918 Henrietta also became involved in an effort to establish a camp near the Dunes for American Indian children. She met Dr. C. A. Eastman,^[1] a well-known figure in the struggle for American Indian rights, by whom she had an illegitimate child, Bonno Hyessa, in 1919. After her father's death in 1923, arguments arose over the property settlement and Henrietta became estranged from her family. Around 1925 she married Paul Wilson, by whom she had two children, Dianna Hyessa Wilson (circa 1923) and Henrietta Martindale Wilson (circa 1929). Wilson was a social outcast who had trouble with the law, and the marriage further increased the distance between Henrietta and her family. In the early 1930s Henrietta lost the Indiana property and moved to California where she eventually (circa 1935) divorced Wilson. Henrietta remained in California the rest of her life, subsisting on welfare, charity, and the generosity of friends and relatives. She died on 28 October 1962.
Scope and Content Note

The papers in this series are almost exclusively correspondence. Henrietta's own papers fall into two main groups: Personal Correspondence, which includes incoming and outgoing letters, and Correspondence About Henrietta. The former reveals much about her personal life and activities, including her college and university years, her disintegrating family relationships, her often troubled emotional and physical health, her husband and children, and other of her personal interests. Correspondence about Henrietta is almost all to and from Katharine with friends, relatives, doctors, social workers, institutions, banks, and businesses. The letters reflect Katharine's and others' attempts to aid Henrietta: to pay her debts and taxes, improve her health, and provide the necessities of life for Henrietta and her family. The correspondence reveals that a number of distinguished intellectuals, such as Professor Ferdinand Schevill of the University of Chicago and the famous trial attorney Clarence Darrow (see 3 January 1926 letter), took an interest in Henrietta's well being. Also of note is a lengthy intimate personal history of Henrietta (January 1931) which Katharine wrote to a social worker in an attempt to help the social worker better understand Henrietta.

The files for Henrietta's husband, children, and grandchildren contain letters to and from Katharine as well as a few letters to Sophie Martindale. The earlier letters are usually about personal family matters; the later letters, especially those with Henrietta M. Wilson Meuschke and her daughter Traci, concern Katharine's attempts to maintain family ties and to distribute family heirlooms. See also: Anna Martindale, Estate and Business Papers, J. E. Higbee, Attorney