52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Wedding
Ida Jaeger, the oldest surviving daughter of Henry and Alvine Jaeger, was born August 3, 1895. She married Adolph Wilhelm Pietz (1885-1933) on September 12, 1917 at Bethlehem Lutheran Church, and they had one child, Emmett. Several years ago, I found a picture of Ida’s wedding dress on a genealogy website but forgot to save a picture or even write down where I found it! However, earlier this year, my mother and I toured the Briscoe Center for American History’s Winedale location. I spoke with site manager Tricia Blakistone about the dress and she and I set out on a journey to find it. We discovered that the dress had been displayed at the University of Texas at Austin in 2002 as part of the “Handmade for Texas: Selections from the Winedale Decorative Arts Collection” exhibit. Tricia and I contacted the Dolph Briscoe Center to inquire about the dress and obtain a picture. Erin Harbour, the reference archivist, worked with the artifacts archivist to locate the dress. Although the dress was unable to be taken from its box, they were able to expose it to the air briefly in order to take photographs. Erin said,
“I’m happy to report that the wedding dress was able to be photographed, though it could not be removed from the storage box to do so. The silk satin underdress is in very poor condition and is actively disintegrating, which is unfortunately common in silks from this time period, as they were often weighted with metallic salts that eventually cause a chemical reaction and breakdown of the fibers. The shots are of the dress in the box, the accompanying gloves, fabric flower corsage/hairpiece (we aren’t sure which), and lace belt sash.”
Ida was described as a strong willed, demanding person, however the family loved her. Looking at the beautiful dress, and other pictures of Ida as a young woman, I imagine how lovely and beautiful she looked on her wedding day.