New Collection: Kuntz Family Scrapbook

The Kuntz Family Scrapbook, assembled by Leona Kling Kuntz, features newspaper clippings documenting the lives and activities of prominent Dayton-area families, especially the Kuntz family, over the course of 60 years.

Leona (Kling) Kuntz began this scrapbook of newspaper clippings related to the Kuntz family and other prominent Dayton-area families in 1922, around the time of her engagement to Edward James Kuntz, Sr. Leona added to the scrapbook until 1981. Leona’s daughter-in-law, Jane Shipman Kuntz, wife of Edward J. Kuntz, Jr., donated the scrapbook.

Engagement announcement of Leona Kling to Edward Kuntz, 1922, from MS-539
Engagement announcement of Leona Kling to Edward Kuntz, 1922, from MS-539

The scrapbook features newspaper clippings from society pages in Dayton-area newspapers from the 1920s to the 1980s. Additionally, several oversize clippings date to Peter Kuntz’s death in 1918. Many are engagement, wedding, and birth announcements documenting, textually and in photographs, the lives of women in the Kuntz family and other prominent twentieth-century Dayton-area families, including the families of Patterson, Talbott, Parott, Rike, Grant, Breen, Focke, Oelman, Mead, Deeds, and Cox, etc. Other clippings document vacations (especially to Sea Island, Georgia), hobbies (such as hunting and skeet-shooting), and parties these families participated in. Clippings from the 1960s and 1970s include articles about changes in the Kuntz business. Several miscellaneous local history articles are scattered throughout. One page includes news clippings about local men’s military service in World War II.

This collection was processed in September 2019 by WSU College of Liberal Arts intern Megan O’Connor. For more information about this collection, please review the MS-539: Kuntz Family Scrapbook finding aid or contact Special Collections and Archives.

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