This is the 1914 wedding dress of Hedwig Hildegarde Reu Salzmann (1893–1994), worn when she married Samuel Fredrick Salzmann (1888–1983). Her mother, Wilhelmine Marie, a Swedish immigrant, met and married her father, German immigrant Johann Michael Reu, in Brooklyn, New York. Hedwig was born in Rock Falls, Whiteside, IL, on September 30, 1893, to Wilhelmine Marie Elisabeth Schmitthenner Reu and Johann Michael Reu. As Hedwig’s father was a Protestant professor, the family moved to Dubuque around 1899, where they became involved with Wartburg Theological Seminary. Hedwig met her husband, Samuel, there, a graduate and later president of Wartburg. Throughout her life, Hedwig was active in her community, serving as an educator for St. John’s Vacation Bible School and Sunday school, a teacher at Five Points, secretary of the Finley Hospital Auxiliary, chairwoman of education for the Women’s Missionary Society at St. John’s, and president of the Tabea society at St. John’s. According to the February 14, 1994, edition of the Telegraph Herald, Hedwig studied Greek with Professor Edwin Adam Schick in the 1940s and was the “first woman to be enrolled in a regular academic course at Wartburg Theological Seminary.”
Hedwig also played a role in founding the Girl Scouts of Dubuque. She aimed to help her daughter, who was deaf, interact with hearing children. With assistance from the public school and other members of St. John Lutheran Church, Margaret Salzmann became the first Girl Scout in Troop 1 of Dubuque, with her mother serving as the first troop chairwoman. Hedwig continued volunteering in the deaf community as vice-president of Iowa’s Parent-Teachers’ Association for the Deaf. Hedwig Hildegarde Reu Salzmann passed away on February 11, 1994, nearly eight months before her centennial. She was buried with her family in St. John’s Lutheran Cemetery in Dubuque.
Descendants of Hedwig donated her and her mother’s wedding dresses to the Historical Society. The wedding dress exemplifies the lingerie dress style of the Edwardian and pre-World War I era. A lingerie dress was an outer garment named after lingerie because of shared decorative elements—usually white cotton lawn fabric, lace, tucks, ruffles, embroidery, and delicate ribbons. The dress was worn with a white silk petticoat or combination undergarment to add volume and protect it from sweat stains. The outer dress features pleats at the waist, machine-made lace, and embroidery. The sleeve is quarter-length and fastens at the back with hooks and eyes. Though such embellishments declined in popularity during the war, they continue to influence wedding fashion today.