Willibald Schulte and Elisabeth Wiesner in America
Born in Selkentrop, Hochsauerland County, Northrhein-Westfalen Willibald D. Schulte was the youngest of five children, and was the only one to immigrate to America. He and friend Anton Hesse arrived in New York December 20, 1870 aboard the SS Minnesota. The Ellis Island immigration center in New York did not exist in 1870, thus Willibald and Anton landed at Castle Garden (also called Castle Clinton) on the southwest corner of present day Manhattan. Five days later Willibald and Anton crossed the Missouri River at Yankton, SD and walked to the Joseph Hochstein home south of St. Helena in Cedar County, NE. They arrived there Christmas eve of 1870. Joe Hochstein had lived in the same village as Anton Hesse in Germany.
By mid-April of 1871 Willibald and Anton each homesteaded 160 acres adjacent to one another 2.5 miles southeast of today's village of Bow Valley, which had yet to be established. Willibald was living on this homestead when he married Elisabeth Wiesner, daughter of Conrad Wiesner. She was born November 27, 1856 in the village of Dormke, about 6 miles from Selkentrop in Hochsauerland. The Wiesners had arrived in Baltimore, MD on June 27, 1860 aboard the ship Uhland, and first settled in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Then, in the Fall of 1865, they were among the first settlers in the Bow Valley area when they homesteaded 160 acres 0.5 mile north and east of the present-day Bow Valley Hall. In the absence of a priest, Conrad led church services in the Wiesner home and served as an early teacher and postmaster for Bow Valley. Prior to 1876 the Wiesners, Willibald and other early Bow Valley settlers had to travel nearly 7 miles to St. Helena for church services. Conrad often led services in the Wiesner home when settlers could not travel to St. Helena.
On September 7, 1875 Anton Hesse was best man for Willibald Schulte and Elisabeth Wiesner when they married in St. Helena. Willibald and Elizabeth had 11 children in the next 22 years. The oldest, Mary Ann, was born and died in 1876. The rest, nine boys and one girl, were: Will - b. 1878, Conrad - b. 1879, John (JJ) b. 1881, August - b. 1883, Frank - b. 1885, Theresa - b. 1887, Robert - b. 1890, Tony - b. 1892, Leo - b. 1894, and Paul - b. 1898). Of these eleven only Mary Ann and Will were born on the original Schulte homestead. Willibald and Elisabeth sold it in 1878 and purchased 160 acres adjacent to the Conrad Wiesner homestead. Their second home is now the Jeff Kathol place, one-half mile north of the Bow Valley Hall. Sale of the homestead and purchase of the 2nd farm was likely because of a desire to be closer to the Wiesner homestead where Elisabeth’s father Conrad had died in 1875 leaving the mother with two young children.
Willibald Schulte was active in community affairs. He served as an election commissioner and justice of the peace and, in 1887, was among the founders of the German Farmers Insurance Company which still exists today. Perhaps he is most well-known for his roles in establishing the Bow Valley Schuetzenfest and the town of Wynot. In 1896 he and John Noecker, a contemporary from a nearby village in Germany, established the Schutzenfest, a German festival still celebrated in Bow Valley. In 1903 Willibald granted a 99-year lease on 2 acres to the Bow Valley Schutzenverein "only for the purposes of holding its meetings and celebrations." Twelve years later he donated that land to the Schutzenverein. Today this is the location of the Bow Valley Hall. Also in 1903 Willibald purchased 400 acres of farmland on which the future (1907) town of Wynot was to be located. He is credited with naming the town when, after much arguing among the locals regarding a town name, he said in exasperation and in undoubtely German-inflected, broken English "Why not, why not, why not; why not name it Wynot and be done with it!."
The Schulte children did not all stay in Bow Valley-Wynot area however. Large families were raised by Conrad and Frank in Texas, and by August and Theresa in Minnesota. Leo raised his family in Montana. Will, Robert and JJ married four Bruening sisters (see separate writeup) who lived conveniently a few hundred yards north of the Schulte home. A few yearls later Tony married a girl from St. Helena and farmed Willibald and Elisabeth’s 2nd place until well in the 1940s. Many of Robert and Tony's descendants still live in the Bow Valley-Wynot area. Will and JJ’s families grew up in St. Helena and Wynot but no longer reside in Nebraska. Paul also lived in Wynot, but did not marry.
Though Elisabeth passed away in 1912 and Willibald in 1921, and the children were spread far apart, the families kept in close contact. So much so that in 1990 over 280 members gathered for the first ever Willibald Schulte Family Reunion. Every five years since, 300 to 400 Schulte descendants have gathered for reunions rotating between Nazareth, TX and Bow Valley, NE. Despite a one year delay due Covid, nearly 300 came to Bow Valley for the 2020 (in 2021) reunion to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Willibald’s Schulte’s death and the 150th anniversary of his arrival in Bow Valley.
