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N. P. and Christina Wik
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On Monday morning at 8 o'clock on December 23, 1935, at the age of eighty-five, N. P. Wik died. Milton, Irvin, Nick, and my Dad sang at the funeral.
Elvera writes that her grandfather "never did learn English. As I look back on it today, I think it's a shame that we didn't learn Swedish so we could converse with our grandparents. But mother, being born here, didn't think she spoke it right and wanted us to learn Swedish from books-which we never did.
"He came to a Swedish community where everyone spoke Swedish, so he didn't have to learn English. Besides this he was a little hard of hearing, which became increasingly worse. He wore hearing aids that looked like earmuffs only they were metal. Even with these-when he became older, people would have to get close and holler right into them to be heard. He was so very faithful in coming to church even though he couldn't understand English or hear. But he would always have someone look up the text in his Swedish Bible and meditate on the passage and pray. His was a godly presence. I heard mother say that she wished N.P.'s mantle would fall on Victor."
It's possible that N.P. did know and use some English. Maria remembers her father holding Sunday services on the Servia using an "English book," and gave them lessons in English while he learned himself.
"My main memory of N.P. Wik is him standing teaching a class of senior citizens at the Norbeck Baptist Church," Dad writes. "He of course taught in Swedish. I retain only a very faint memory of mother's mother."
N.P.'s obituary notes that "during his last illness, he spoke often of looking for his Redeemer and of things eternal. He looked forward with joy to his entrance" into Heaven. But I wonder also if in his last hours, Nils let his mind travel back over his extraordinary life, like a movie being rewound. First, would flicker the beloved faces of his wives Christina and Märit, his eight children, 33 grandchildren, and 16 great-grandchildren. Meetings he held in the Dakotas and Canada. Other memories would rouse almost forgotten from the distant past. The early days on the farm, the struggle to keep body and soul together in the face of heat, dust, and snow. His first sight of a car, tractor, plane. His first look at the boundless prairie. His first view of America, fog wreathing the Statue of Liberty, as the anchor plunged. And then Sweden, with its white, green, and blue beauty. Skiing in snow so deep and deadly, that he could see only the tops of reindeer horns. Cradling baby Nicholas, my grandfather, in his arms. Holding his father's leg on the block as the blade fell. Marveling with his dad as God quenches a sea of flame. And then, finally, as a sensitive little boy of three, hearing from his aunt that he had another brother whose name was Jesus, and crying "Oh, sweet peace and joy!"
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