Review Essay: Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs, editor and translator, Swiss Sisters Separated. Pioneer Life in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Washington 1889-1914. From the Letters of Louise Guillermin Dupertuis to Her Sister Elise Guillermin, the Painter

Authors

Leo Schelbert, University of Illinois at Chicago

Keywords

Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs, Swiss Americans, siblings

Abstract

This work of nearly 500 pages presents a rich harvest of documents, data, and insights, derived from Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs' painstaking and expert effort as editor, translator, and interpreter. He first offers a concise introduction concerning the letters which had been exchanged mainly between Louise Guillermin Dupertuis (1848-1914), an 1889 immigrant to Kansas, and also some of her children, with Elise ( 1851-1931) and Isa line (b. 1841) Guillermin, the sisters of the book's title. Despite Louise's frequent entreaties, Elise stayed in Crettaz-Tavex sur Ollon in the Swiss canton of Vaud in whose studio the editor discovered their copious correspondence (447). Most letters were written in French, yet gradually Louise's children changed over to English, a language which Elise luckily understood. The collection contains, however, only one item of Louise's husband Henri-Louis Dupertuis (1852-1925) whom she had married in 1876. It is a thirty-six page handwritten report from 1889 (28-32, 49-54) to his brother Emile Dupertuis (b. ca. 1855) who resided in Yvonne, Switzerland; Henri-Louis' account features his trip to Oklahoma "in the center of the Indian Territory" (28).

Recommended Citation

Schelbert, Leo (2003) "Review Essay: Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs, editor and translator, Swiss Sisters Separated. Pioneer Life in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Washington 1889-1914. From the Letters of Louise Guillermin Dupertuis to Her Sister Elise Guillermin, the Painter," Swiss American Historical Society Review: Vol. 39: No. 3, Article 5.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sahs_review/vol39/iss3/5