The Benecke Family Papers, held by the State Historical Society of Missouri, contains several thousand items reflecting the lives of immigrants Louis Benecke (1843-1919) and his wife Josephine Amerlan Benecke (1845-1908), as well as the lives of their families, friends, and descendants. Josephine Amerlan Benecke was born in Prussia and married Louis Benecke in 1868, in New York. The digitized letters in this collection were sent to her by her relatives in Germany, above all her sisters Frieda Amerlan (a children's book author) and Auguste Amerlan Schorss. Please note that the digitizations are taken from photocopies of the original letters.