George W. Wing, the Father of The OWL

Friday, September 3, 2010

I wrote this article for the Kewaunee County Historical Society for their anniversary celebration this year.

George W. (G. W.) Wing

George W. Wing was the “father” of the Kewaunee County Historical Society. He wrote stories endlessly and documented all aspects of life from the earliest pioneer days of Wolf River (Ahnapee, later Algoma) and Kewaunee, Wisconsin.  From “how Ah-ne-pe got its name” to politics to the Indian lore of the Winnebagoes, G. W. Wing wrote about it. His stories also included those of his own family’s history in a newsletter he named The OWL (Our Wing Lineage).

Four Generations:  Left to right: George W. Elliott, George W. (G. W.) Wing, George D. Wing
and Mary (Elliott) Wing

G. W. Wing was the son of a prominent Kewaunee attorney, Rufus Wing, and Mary (Elliott) Wing. Rufus and Mary Wing had followed her father--my great, great, great-grandfather--a surveyor and justice of the peace named George W. Elliott, to Wolf River in 1858 from Chilton, Wisconsin.

G. W. Wing, having had experience at age 15 starting the Ahnapee Record newspaper with Charles W. Borgman in 1873, set up a small printing press in the upper story of his Kewaunee home for his 12 year-old-son, George Dikeman Wing, and called the place The Owlery. There, George W. and his son wrote The OWL as a family newsletter. “We ‘hoot’ monthly for fifty cents a year” advertised young editor George D. Wing in Vol. 1, No. 1., September, 1899.

Initially G. W. and George D. interviewed all of the local relatives in my family—the Elliotts, Halls, McDonalds, Stebbins and Wings—for the paper. Their articles shared tales of overland journeys from New York to the wilds of Wisconsin territory in 1839; first hand accounts of Civil War experiences and Revolutionary War diaries; photos and drawings; and, of course, the begets and begots of each collateral family back to the arrivals of our ancestors to Governor Winthrop’s colony in 1632.


The paper also included newsy updates about new births and who had visited whom sent in by corresponding Wings and members of family branches. These tidbits were chronicled in columns called “Kith and Kin” and “Winglets”. “Our Household Department” featured the favorite family recipes submitted by the ladies. The newsletter caught on. It really caught on.


Soon this “family newsletter” was being subscribed to by the likes of the New York Public Library. Within a year, The OWL was publishing extensive ancestor pedigrees mailed in from Wing relatives living far and wide and others researched by G.W. and George D.  By October, 1900, The OWL was hooting monthly for a dollar a year.


Given the extent to which this project must have occupied the time of young student George D., his father took on more and more of the work of family correspondence. There was an ever-growing interest by Wing relatives and much research to be done.


Then G.W. Wing visited the homestead of the earliest Wing ancestors in Sandwich, Massachusetts. There he met distant Wing cousins and saw the original homestead of the family founders in America. The idea for a family reunion and creation of a Wing Family Association (WFA) was proposed in The OWL in 1901.


George W. Wing was frequently asked how the first family reunion was planned. He wrote: “In the spring of 1901, with members of my family, while upon an eastern tour, we drifted down upon Cape Cod…. We visited and marveled at the rare old patriarchal homesteads and came away filled with the wonder and pride of it all. On the way home…. we tarried for a day (at Chicago) as guests of the hospitable family…John Mansir Wing and his sister, Anna. Around their board in after dinner chat we told of the wonderful things we had seen at Sandwich, of the dignified, proud old ancestral homes there belonging to us, and of the warm and cordial reception of the resident kinspeople. Cousin Anna listened to it all in rapt attention and finally exclaimed, ‘Let us all go back and hold a family reunion there next year.’ The idea took root; we discussed the feasibility; talked of those whom we might interest in the movement; and from that hour the Sandwich reunion of 1902 was a surety.”


Plans were in the works and a date set--June 21-28, 1902. The reunion would be held at the ancient homestead of the Wing family matriarch Deborah and her sons in Sandwich. Addresses by prominent family members and readings of papers and poems were scheduled. A “handsome souvenir badge” was designed. The founding father of the WFA, its first president, was George W. Wing who was affectionately called Col. Wing (based on his role as division colonel in the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War). By March, 1902, The OWL had become “A Genealogical Quarterly Magazine” and a real deal at $1 a year or 25 cents for a single number, still published by George D. Wing in Kewaunee.


The reunion was held, papers of incorporation for the Wing Family of America were filed, and The OWL continued to be published quarterly through June 1934. Eventually its publication was moved to Massachusetts. It became an annual issue in 1936 and, except for a few instances, has been printed yearly as The OWL to this day. And the reunions are still held—nearly every year. The house of The Owlery still stands on Milwaukee Street in Kewaunee today.

George W. Wing, who, in his career, was an attorney by age 21 and became County Judge in 1885, died April 12, 1924 in Kewaunee. The OWL didn’t let the story of G. W. Wing’s impact go unrecognized. Many articles honored the man who started it all with his idea for a family newsletter. In addition to his son George Dikeman Wing, G.W. and his wife Isabel (Dikeman) Wing had two other children: daughter Grace and another son, Charles. Grace became the keeper of the family documents and outlined much of the family’s ancestry and descendants. Some of her family remains in Wisconsin today.


I often wonder what George W. Wing would say (or write) if he could have known that what he began as a little newsletter writing project will celebrate its 109th anniversary this year as one of the oldest family history associations in America and that his OWLs have become one of our family’s most treasured heirlooms.


For more information about the Wing Family of America and the impact of George W. Wing, see www.wingfamily.org .

Home of The Owl, Kewaunee, WI