Wilhelm, later William, was with a party of over twenty kin arriving together at New York City in May 1849,[4] [5] in the wake of the failed Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire.

[6] "The Wehles were one of the aristocratic old Jewish families of Prague [who] took a leading part in the Sabbateans group",[7] a small and short-lived, messianic and reformist offshoot from Judaism at the time.

The Wehles proceeded from New York to the Ohio valley, first settling at Madison IN before moving on to Louisville KY.[8] Oscar's mother, Rosa Tachau (b.

[12] A Union army force would remain in Louisville after the war through the end of the same decade and into the early 1870s to recruit and train African American men at the Taylor Barracks (Kentucky) for soldiering out in the western plains.

Of note, in mid 1861, after a state of insurrection was declared, Oscar's father, Wilhelm, a merchant of wines, liquors, and Hungarian cigars[13] was implicated in the smuggling of contraband (a load of pistols) on the railroad from Cincinnati to Louisville.

As a bachelor and sporting man of his times, Oscar's adult life outlines a preference for the manly world of the military regiment, the outdoor sportsman's life[19] and, as well, homosocial societies like the Young Hebrew Men's Association or YMHA,[20] the German Gymnastic Association or Turners, and The Brotherhood of Commercial Travelers,[21] for example.

The nature of the affliction is not identified, but in seeking relief Oscar traveled to the American west and to New York for extended periods, returning to Louisville and Chicago thereafter.