Cottonwood Chronicle

By Carla Wilkins, Museum Director

I was in my early 20s the first time I saw my great-grandmother’s wedding dress at the Historical Museum at St. Gertrude. I was underwhelmed. It was a street-length brown dress that was faded and torn in places. Other members of my family visited and also saw the dress, and it was sometimes mentioned in passing. It was quite a surprise when I began assembling the wedding dress exhibit in 2023 to find the dress wasn’t my great-grandmother’s after all, but instead, belonged to John F. Nuxoll’s second wife, Caroline.
John F. Nuxoll married Maria Beckman in 1874. Three years after her death, he married Caroline Lusse in 1919, a 50-year-old woman from Philadelphia whose husband and child had died. She became stepmother to John’s nine children, including 13-year-old Emma, who became Sister Ildephonse at the Monastery of St. Gertrude. Caroline bought the brown dress in Portland for $60 ($1,067 in today’s dollars). Sr. Ildephonse must have loved her stepmother to have preserved her dress for the museum.
When the museum began, artifacts were described rather than used as props to tell a story. Caroline’s dress was most likely described on the exhibit card in detail, and she was probably referred to as “Mrs. John F. Nuxoll,” since she wasn’t from the area. It is easy to understand why my family didn’t know it was Caroline’s dress. What a shame that we didn’t know her story and that we don’t have a wedding photo of them. My sister had an engagement photo which we used for the exhibit card.
Our family wasn’t the only one surprised over the wedding dress exhibit. The museum also has Bernadina Arnzen’s wedding dress. Surprisingly, there are only two Bernadina Arnzens on the entire Find a Grave website (https://www. findagrave.com). Both lived on the prairie and died within a year of each other. Both families thought the dress in the museum’s collection was their relative’s dress. Again, I suspect the exhibit tag read, “Bernadina Arnzen’s Wedding Dress,” with a description of the dress. It was the dress of Bernadina Nuxoll, who married Joseph Arnzen. The family of Bernadina Uhlorn, who married Henry Arnzen, was disappointed.
When we are offered artifacts, our first question is, “What is the story behind it?” Our museum exists to tell the stories of this area, not to simply display antiques. As the museum has changed, we hope you’ll come in and enjoy the stories you may not have heard.