Finding aid for the Helen Borntrager Buschen church postcard collection

Biography of Helen Borntrager Buschen

Helen Borntrager Buschen was born in 1908, and passed away in 2006 at the age of 97 years old. She was the mother of three children, and had six grandchildren. She was involved in the women's clubs at her parish, St. Benedict in Chicago. Buschen began collecting postcards in 1949, and continued to grow her collection for much of her life.

Scope and Content

Buschen stored her collection of church postcards in two binders. The binders were originally used to display greeting card samples; Buschen removed the samples, and pasted or taped her postcards onto the original pages that the samples were attached to. Buschen arranged her collection geographically. The United States collection is divided by state, and the international collection is divided by country. Buschen added inscriptions to identify churches that were not self-identified on the recto of the postcard. Many of her international postcards were sent to her by her nephew, Father Conrad Borntrager, O.S.M. She copied the inscriptions that he wrote on the versos of these cards onto typed or handwritten captions that were pasted into the scrapbook alongside the postcards. This postcard collection includes real photo postcards, photographic postcards, and postcards with artistic images of the churches. The churches depicted in these postcards are Roman Catholic churches, shrines, convents, seminaries, and other religious buildings of note. The majority of cards in the international collection depict European churches, though there are also Mexican, Canadian, Asian, and African church postcards in the collection. There are approximately 371 postcards in the in the international collection, and approximately 252 postcards in the United States collection.

Statement of Arrangement

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Restrictions on Access

This collection is open and available to the public for research in the U.S. Catholic Special Collections reading room. The materials are non-circulating.

Indexing Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.

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Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Helen Borntrager Buschen church postcard collection CSC6, U.S. Catholic Special Collections, The Roesch Library, University of Dayton.

Acquisition Information

Donated to the U.S. Catholic Special Collection by Helen Buschen's nephew, Father Conrad Borntrager, O.S.M.

Detailed Description of The Collection