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The Servia
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Nils and Christina served the Myssjö Baptist Church until 1889. Then he received a call to become pastor of a church that had been organized in Enterprise Township, Faulk County, South Dakota. The little could church pay no salary but offered some land and the option of living with another family for awhile. So, like other pioneers, the Wiks would farm a homestead.
My great-grandfather felt that this "come over and help us" was God's will for him so he accepted the call and resigned from the Myssjö Church. After selling what property they had, they said goodbye to relatives and friends. Six children had to be vaccinated (Nicholas Olaf, age 14, Anna Elizabeth, age 11, Marie Margaret (May), age 9, Anna Martha, age 4, Julius Andrew, age 3, and Bertha (Brita) Christina, age 10 months).
In July 1889, N.P. took his family over the Norwegian border by train to Trondheim, the closest port city. The family then took a two a two to three day trip on the SS Hero, a Wilson Line ship, to Hull, England. From Hull, they traveled by train on a day trip to Liverpool.
The manifest describes Nils, age 39, as a currier (tanner), but that title might have been a Pirates of Penzance-like confusion with curate (clergyman). "On the passenger list when it lists occupations of the passengers, I think grandpa should be "courier" which means 'messager'," Elvera writes. "Knowing grandpa's humility, he probably said he was coming to America to bring the Good News of the Gospel-or something to that effect-instead of pastor or preacher." His wife Christina was 31 years old.
"Getting these eight folks halfway around the world-to a new world-on a Baptist parson's salary was no mean feat," Carl Smarling writes. "The time is 1889. Not that long ago, but basically primitive traveling by our standards." Christina was the unsung heroine in this saga. "With six kids, three of them hers, three from Nils Petter's former marriage, ages 1 ½, 3 ½, 6, a little over 9, 12, and 14 ½, the oldest girl being 12 years old, and most able to help, she embarks on this journey. Two boat voyages, at least four trains, and several interim stops waiting for the boat or the train. Conceivably, Baptist families put them up along the way to save money. So there they go. And from the writings by Nils Petter, what is he doing during this trip? Dollars to donuts, he is off witnessing and 'bringing the unchurched to the Lord.' I can imagine him preaching to these new 'congregations' almost every moment. And clearly part of any 'Sunday service' on the boat across the Atlantic. So there then is Christina in charge of logistics and getting this brood and the luggage properly placed on almost an hourly basis. Getting them fed and getting them berthed. All the boys and men in ties and caps. All of the women seemingly bundled up, the babushka look. My reading says that the wife would have been doing most of these things in any emigrant family, but with Nils Petter's 'special calling', I'd wager that Christina carried a double load. Strong, strong woman."
Nils Peter Wik's family boarded the Servia, sailing from Liverpool and Queenstown. The English steamship carried 667 paying passengers, including two stowaways. (The August 6th New York Times would later report "On the Servia, which arrived yesterday from Liverpool, were two stowaways, Maurice Murphy, seventeen years old, and John Neal, nineteen years old. Murphy was a native of this country and was therefore landed, while Neal, who is a native of Belfast, will probably be returned as he is likely to become a public charge.") First class tickets cost between $60 and $100 dollars. Second class tickets went for $35. "Steerage tickets to and from all parts of Europe at very low rates" according to a Cunard Line advertisement for the Servia in the August 10th New York Times.
The Servia's master Henry Walker writes that the "Viks" brought two trunks with them, for clothes and blankets. "Some dumbbell had instructed them to wear lambskin vests to ward off disease," Emma writes. "So vests were hired made for the entire family. The stewards, too lazy to clean cabins, shoved about thirty of them into one large cabin. Imagine yourself down there in August with a lambskin vest next to your skin! Dad, at least, divested himself and made himself useful on deck with the crew and seemed to enjoy the trip.
During the nine-day trip, Brita, the youngest at the time, had walked on a table where the ship's cook had baked pies and had them cooling. She evidently stepped in every pie. "When Marie remembered this," granddaughter AnneMarie writes, "she always shook her head, and frowned and laughed at the same time."
"I'm not sure if we sailed as second or third class immigrants," writes Bertha Wik, who wasn't yet a year at the time. "At any rate, it wasn't a good deal. The voyage was rough. We were only permitted on deck a little while in the afternoons and had to spend most of the daytime in a cabin with some thirty immigrants. The air became very polluted as there were those who smoked and the portholes were not permitted to be opened. Mother became very ill with seasickness.
"One day when we were on deck, father lifted up Julius (who was about three and half years old) and asked him if he could see the whale out in the ocean blowing his nose. Julius thought if the whale was blowing his nose he was surely doing a good job of it!"
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