Finding aid, and Biographical information

File — Box: 1, Folder: 1

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

From the Collection: The Kate Selby Wilder Papers are an eclectic collection of documents related to her life, as well as the Selby and Wilder families. The collection has been arranged by the type of document. All of the files are quite small and give only a brief look into Mrs. Wilder’s life. The correspondence is letters of condolence sent to Mrs. Wilder’s daughter upon her death, all from 1946. There is a pocket diary in which Mrs. Wilder recorded various events in which she was involved, but covers only from January to May 1940. There are two mortgage deeds for property she purchased in 1906 in Fargo, located in Lot 8, Block 30 or the Original Town Site. The few newspaper clippings relate to her membership in the Fargo Fortnightly Club and W.C.T.U. The Selby family file includes a short obituary of her brother John R. Selby of Palo Alto, Calif. and a handwritten copy of information on William A. Selby’s service in Civil War that she received when joining the Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War. The World War II ration file contains three ration books of Mrs. Selby contained in a hard-cover folio. The file of Frederick H. Wilder includes a copy of his will and a small booklet on the ‘History of The Class of 1886, Tufts College.’ In it he is listed as secretary of the Merchants National Mutual Fire Insurance Co. of Fargo. The Wilder family file includes an undated handwritten letter with Wilder family history information written by a Harrison Wilder, and a letter written by unknown author on Aug. 5, 1861 from Brooklyn, N.Y. The W.C.T.U. file includes an unused mailing label of the Institute Department of which Mrs. Wilder was director, notes from the 1937 convention, and a copy of the White Ribbon Bulletin (issued by the W.C.T.U. of North Dakota) of March-April 1946 with a notice of her death.