Chatfield, Minnesota (3)

File — Box: 1, Folder: 4

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

From the Collection: The Fred S. Rutledge photographic collection consists of 110 photographic prints, and two color photographs. Formats include cabinet cards, studio settings, photographic postcards and snapshots. This photographic collection complements the Fred Rutledge manuscript collection at the Institute (Mss 222) consisting of correspondence, genealogical material, manuscript files and subject files. In addition to the Institute collection, other works by Mr. Rutledge are in the South Dakota State Historical Society, Minnesota Historical Society, and the historical societies of Pope, Olmstead, Fillmore and Winona Counties of Minnesota. Many of the photographs in this collection have extensive accompanying information as to the individuals or to when the photograph was taken. Only a small number of the photographs are unidentified. The collection is organized into two series: Portraits and Subject Files. The Portraits Series consists of snapshots, cabinet cards, photographic postcards, and studio photographs. Many of the snapshots are taken either indoors or outdoors, with the older snapshots from the 1920s and early 1930s being primarily taken outdoors. This series is organized geographically by states reflecting not only where the image was taken, but it also reflects the various places Fred Rutledge was connected to through colleagues, friends, and family. It also allows for placing not only a location to the picture but a time frame that these photographs were taken in. These photographs were taken between 1881 to 1955. The states represented in this series include California, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Washington, and Washington, DC. The Minnesota files are further broken down by community. The California file consists of four snapshots of a visit to California taken in the 1950s. These portraits are of Albert and Vivian Dinnie in front of a house and at the beach and of William and Muriel Campbell. The Minnesota general file features a collection of four snapshots and one cabinet card. The cabinet card in this collection is mounted memorial card of Fred Rutledge’s grandmother, Mary Jane (Cox) Wheelock. The four snapshots are of Clarence Sand and Wayne Ahlgrim who was living with their grandparents; Jennie Reed, a neighbor who survived the Rochester, Minn. tornado; C.L. Warner and the final snapshot is of Mrs. F.S. Rutledge and Vivian Rutledge. The communities within the Minnesota files are arranged alphabetically. This grouping contains seven cabinet cards, two photographic postcards, eight snapshots, one color photograph and two studio photographs. The uniqueness of the two photographic postcards in this grouping is the identification of the photographer who took the initial picture from a raised stamp on the corner of the photograph. Within this grouping is a separate collection of photographic postcards of individuals in Minnesota related to Fred S. Rutledge. The first grouping in this sub-series of communities is Chatfield. The Chatfield collection has two cabinet cards and a studio photograph. The photographs feature Myrtle Mamie Palmer, the second wife of Horace Dickison; a studio quality-wedding picture of Albert Dinnie and Minnie Ethel Rutledge and the last picture is a memorial wreath for C.L. Palmer. The Duluth collection has two snapshots. One snapshot is of Albert Leslie Warner and Lilly M. Dickison and the second snapshot is of Reverend and Mrs. Andrew A. Sware. The Minneapolis sub-series is a collection of three cabinet cards, two studio photographs, two snapshots, one color photograph and one photographic postcard. The individuals featured in the two studio photographs are Noreen Jane Budd , and Fred J. and Carrie (Fieldin) Dickison. The three cabinet photographs include Alfred and Winnifred Dinnie and their son Albert; Horace Edwin and Myrtle (Palmer) Dickison and their son Russell and the Rutledge Family: Fred, Ada, Harriet, Violet and Hazel taken in 1913. In the two snapshots, the first one portrays Mrs. Raymond J. (Espelding) Palbicki standing near a car and the second snapshot is of Fred and Ada (Dickison) Rutledge. The photographic postcard is of Harry Zoller and his wife, a colleague of Fred S. Rutledge and the first engineer he worked with. The color photograph is of Harriet, Violet, Hazel and Vivian Rutledge taken in 1923. The Sauk Centre grouping includes four snapshots and two cabinet cards. The individuals featured this grouping are relatives of his wife, Ada Dickison Rutledge. The individuals are featured are: George and Amy Dickison (Ada’s parents); Alvin Bernard Dickison; the George Dickison Family; Ada (Dickison) Rutledge and her brothers in 1914; Fred J. and Carrie Dickison; and finally Mr. and Mrs. A.F. Chapman with their oldest two children, Harry and Olive. The final grouping in the Minnesota sub-series is a collection of five postcards depicting Mr. and Mrs. Mike Nivel and their son Lyle, a cousin to Ada Dickison Rutledge; George Dickison, a brother of Ada Dickison; Vivian Rutledge in 1918; and Horace E. Dickison. The North Dakota file contains six cabinet and two unmounted photographs. The two unmounted photographs show Fred S. Rutledge and his sister, Minnie, in portraits taken by George Lucas in Park River, N.D. There is one unidentified photograph and five cabinet photographs of neighbors of the Rutledges when they lived in Dundee Township, Walsh County, Dakota Territory. The four identified cabinet photographs are of John Armstrong; John Peterson family of Edinburg; N.D., Gorgan Olson, a blind man from Edinburg; one photograph identified as the children of the blind man’s brother; and the E. Lochren farm in Dundee Township with the family standing in front of the buildings. These individuals lived near the Rutledge farmstead in Dundee Township, Walsh County. The South Dakota file contains a cabinet card photograph of his wife’s cousin, Luke Smith. The Washington file consists of two snapshots and one photographic postcard taken in 1908. The snapshots feature the Rutledge family in Centralia and Floyd Allen Connelly and his son Albert of Spokane. The photographic postcard shows Jack Corbett. In the Washington, DC file there is a snapshot of Fred Rutledge and his sister Vivian are at the U.S. Capitol building. The Wisconsin file contains three snapshots and one cabinet card. The three snapshots detail friends and relations: Mrs. Peele and friends; Ella Wheelock and Arron Drinkwater; and Harriet Rutledge and her father, Fred Rutledge. The cabinet card is of Gladys Drinkwater, the daughter of Arron and Ella (Wheelock) Drinkwater. There are three collections of other portraits that are arranged by years due to the lack of any identifying geographic location: 1890-1919, 1920-1939, and 1940-1955. There is one color photograph. Many of the photographs in these collections detail family members and his half brothers. The first collection of photographs, taken between 1890 – 1919, are a collection of seven cabinet card and four additional mounted photographs that are of scenes possibly taken in Dakota Territory and may have been part of a calendar or album. Three of the scenes are outside and show a group of people possibly at some sort of festival. The fourth one was taken in winter in front of a farmhouse. The cabinet cards relatives of both Fred Rutledge and his wife Ada. The pictures feature Uncle Pops family and Bob in a broken in half cabinet card taken in 1898; Fred J. and Carrie Dickison; Mr and Mrs. James Rutledge; John Rutledge, his half-brother; wedding picture of Fred Dickison and Carrie Fieldin; Rutledge at twenty years; and the final cabinet card shows Fred Rutledge’s half brothers: Charles, Homer, Keizer, and John. The second grouping, 1920-1939, is a combination of eight snapshots and one studio photograph. The studio photograph is a wedding picture of Thiman G. Iverson and Agnes Dickison. The eight snapshots show unknown son of Bob Simonton after he died of heart failure; Ada Dickison Rutledge and her sister, Elizabeth Heap along with their husbands, Fred S. Rutledge and George Heap, Hazel, Harriet and Vivian Rutledge; Alice Kittleson Paaverud and family; Mr. and Mrs. Albert Dinnie; Grace, Elmer, and Cheryl Dickie; Amy and George Dickison; Fred Rutledge and Noreen Jane Budd; and a wedding picture snapshot of Donald Dickison and Selma Juntunen. The third grouping consists of eleven snapshots taken between the years 1940 – 1955, both indoors and outdoors. These photographs depict the following individuals: Mrs. F.H. Budd and family; Mr. and Mrs. Melvin Hagen; Mrs. Mary Wanner at Dickison Family Gathering in 1942; Confirmation snapshot of Raymond Joseph Espelding; Floyd H. and Vivian Rutledge Mattin; Clarence and Adeline Ahlgrim; Floyd H. and Vivian Mattin in Virginia; Mr. and Mrs. Fred S. Rutledge in 1948; Emma Kittleson, Joseph Paaverud and Joan Paaverud; and Mrs. Kate Crosma, the eldest daughter of William W. and Sarah E. (Rutledge) Havens. One folder contains a color photograph of Clarence S. and Adeline (Mattin) Ahlgrim taken at an unknown location. The final grouping in the portraits series contains a collection of eleven photographic postcards of unknown location and photographer. The photographic postcards detail Dickison relations and his halfbrothers, particularly John and Charles Rutledge. The photographic postcards depict the following individuals: David Cargon; Charles R. Rutledge and Grant James; John Rutledge and Mary Schmidt with Mary in 1912; James W. Rutledge with John Rutledge’s children; James and Clara (Simonton) Rutledge, Fred Rutledge’s father and stepmother; Clarence Dickison, the second son of Albert and Barbara (Staven) Dickison; Edward T. Dickison, son of William and Inga (Thompson) Dickison; Aunt Ella Drinkwater; Belle (Warner) O’Leary and her second husband, Jack O’Leary; and Leslie Warner with Avis. The Subject File Series are arranged into three topics; agriculture, buildings, railroads and ships. The Agriculture file is a collection of four black and white snapshots, a mounted cabinet card of a threshing operation. Two of the photographs show John Rutledge, Fred Rutledge’s half-brother, demonstrating the use of a grain cradle and making a shock of oats. Two of the photographs depict harvest scenes, one is mounted but unidentified and the second photograph is a reproduction and identified as the Leo Grodt outfit at Lockhart, Minnesota. There is also snapshot of the A.F. Chapman Highland Stock Farm near Barrett, Minnesota. The Buildings file highlights houses and a sanitarium in five snapshots. The photographs show the home of James Rutledge in Centralia, Washington, the home of Floyd H. and Vivian (Rutledge) Mattin in Duluth, Minnesota; and two photographs of Fred Rutledge’s home in Duluth, Minnesota in the 1940s. The last photograph is of the Lake Julia Sanitarium near Puposky, Minnesota. The Railroads file consists of two photographic postcards dated 1909 and 1917 and four snapshots taken in 1956 in Centralia, Washington. The first two photographic postcards shows Fred Rutledge and a man with the initials of L.S when they worked for the Great Northern Railroad in 1909 and the second one shows his half-brother, Kiezer Rutledge near a steam engine in Great Falls, Montana in 1917. The four snapshots show his half-brother and his crew who ran engine 2711, a steam engine, on its last run out of Centralia, Washington in 1956. The Ships file consists of four snapshots and one print. The snapshots show ship interiors, an icebreaker on Lake Superior, a family snapshot of Fred Rutledge’s cousin, Vernon Wheelock, in Florida. There is also a print that depicts the officers and crew of two ore ships moored in Duluth during a steel worker’s strike in Pittsburg. Fred Rutledge’s daughter, Vivian was a cook on one of the ships and her husband was a steward.