Highlights Archives
Oliver William Reese, Society Benefactor, 1924-2005
Oliver William Reese, a generous promoter of Wisconsin history and culture, died peacefully on Saturday, April 30, 2005, in his beloved Wisconsin Dells. Born in 1924, Reese was an enthusiastic civic leader for more than half a century, doing everything from piloting steamboats to planting trees on Broadway — the Dells' main thoroughfare. With his wife Jean Dyer Reese, he worked as a Dells photographer for many years offering custom images from Henry Hamilton Bennett's original glass plate negatives. He and his wife — granddaughter of H. H. Bennett — preserved not only the Bennett collection, one of the nation's richest 19th-century photography collections, but also Bennett's original photography studio. Collaborating with other local business leaders, many generous donors, and officials from the state, Reese and his wife donated the collection to the Wisconsin Historical Society in 1999. Because of his generosity, more than 650 H. H. Bennett photographs are now available online and visitors can step inside the historic H. H. Bennett Studio & History Center to revisit the life and times of one of America's most pioneering landscape photographers.
:: Posted May 4, 2005
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