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N. O. and Emma Wik on their wedding day, 1898
N. O. and Emma Wik and family, 1916.
Back row: Milton, Elsie, Lillian, Victor
Middle row: Elvera, Reynold (barely in the picture)
Front row: Viola, Slim, Harold, David
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Nicholas, my grandfather, was superintendent of the Sunday school of Millard, held in the school house. He was also a deacon and chairman of the Orleans Baptist Church. "Your dad sang very well, playing the guitar beautifully," Olga writes. "We were favored with his music at the various services held there. More than once, he and I sang duets accompanied by guitar playing." Nicholas had a gentle, playful spirit, and used to tease his wife about some of the poetry she quoted:
"Dad was cheery and fun-loving," Viola writes. "He would breeze in, pick her up, whirl her around, and set her on his lap to tell him her day's woes which by then would seem much less woeful. Because I was only five when Dad died, several sober pictures colored my impressions of him. So I was surprised when I asked her which of the boys was most like Dad. She responded without a blink that it was Irvin. Slim was the one with the most light-hearted zest for life of us all."
"Dad (Nicholas) even as a youth was a salesman, selling books and picture," Emma writes. "It would be fun to have some records of business in its prime for Dad sold almost everything from 1 cent stamps to threshing rigs and ladies hats. He took orders for men's suits or wall paper, handled coal, lumber, farm machinery of all sorts, besides running the grain elevator at times." A WIK & COMPANY letterhead proclaims
Nicholas also broke up large tracts of prairie land. He had the first steam engines operating south of Faulkton, pulling two four-bottom units of breakers. "In '14, '15, and '16, dad and Ed Haselhorst thrashed in partnership, dad furnishing the steam power and Ed the thrashing machine," Elsie writes. "In '14, they cleared $2,000. In '15, they cleared $3,000. These amounts were split between them, and "a thousand dollars in those days meant a lot more than it does now." In '14, they boarded with farmers, then bought a cook car that they used afterwards."
As part of his job, Nicholas had to shovel the dusty grain back into the car as the grain poured down. He would complain that his lungs seemed "full of sharp sand." Emma said that he "became ill, a peculiar redness spreading over his forehead." Elsie wrote in her diary "On January 30, papa had a bad cold and the next day he felt quite sick. His face started to swell up. And so on February 1 (Friday), we called the doctor. Dr. Lamb came. He said he had erysipelas." (Erysipelas is "an acute, febrile, infectious disease, due to a specific streptococcus and characterized by a diffusely spreading, deep-red inflammation of the skin or mucous membranes.")
At just this time, the United States was about to be hit by the greatest natural disaster in its history. In a ten month period, this catastrophe would claim the lives of more than a half million people in this country and up to fifty million lives worldwide. In India alone, twelve million people would perish. Incubated in the trenches of Verdun and Flanders, the so-called Spanish Flu attacked with staggering virulence. Schools, churches, and factories were decimated. In South Dakota, the influenza would infect a member of an Indian tribe. Tribal members would chant around the body through the night. Within a few days, everyone in the tribe would be dead. The virus attacked the strongest, and most people that died were between the ages of 21 and 29. By the fall of 1918, the death rate in major cities was up by 1000 percent and coffins were stacked on sidewalks. But, with the first frost of winter, the flu finally subsided, leaving behind empty homes and playgrounds and a ghostly lullaby:
I once had a bird named Enza,
My guess is that this influenza didn't kill my grandfather. Most people died from the flu in the late summer and early fall, and my grandfather died in the spring of 1918. However, it may have contributed in the later phase. After all, one third of the country caught this flu, and Emma, in her memoirs, states that local doctors were also sick. Nicholas had some of the symptoms of the flu, including fever, delirium, and congestion. According to Emma, "Dad was very ill but recovered completely, I supposed. I believe though that his health had been steadily undermined for some time." That he was able to survive for three months suggests an illness other than the killer flu of 1918, which would often kill within a few days. "As to what caused dad's death, I'm convinced that it was pneumonia-at least it was congestion of the lungs," Elvera writes. "Uncle John said he had a bad cold and was spitting up blood before he went to the meeting in Faulkton. He had completely gotten over erysipelas and the flu hadn't arrived yet. Pneumonia usually lasts ten days when either the fever breaks and you get better or you die. Dad was in bed ten days."
The family was wise to maintain quarantine, and Bertha was brave to care for my grandfather during the erysipelas phase of his illness. Elsie kept the school kids at the store and Emma took care of the younger children. "The poor kids almost froze there in the bitter cold spell we had," Emma writes. "I remember as a pre-school child standing in the doorway to the north room which I apparently wasn't allowed to enter," Viola writes. "Aunt Bertha was there and Dad was lying in bed with his face all covered with some black medication. He was kidding me about having a black father. I think the school kids were living in the depot during the erysipelas episode but not during the final illness. The upstairs of the depot had living rooms since that is where the family lived before the house was built and for the first year after it was built."
"Poor dad failed rapidly. But I refused to face facts. He was so indispensable, not only at home but also in the church, Sunday school, and community."
"One day, gripped with fear, I said, "You're not going to leave us? We need you so badly."
"He comforted me saying, "No, I won't leave you."
"Conscious stricken at my selfishness, I added, "But what if Jesus wants you?"
"Then it's all right," Nicholas replied."
Nicholas died at 11 a.m. on April 19. A feeling of desolation swept over Emma. "I crept off upstairs to try to fight it out. But soon my whole life seemed to pass in review and God's great goodness to me down the years became clear. I realized that God was dealing not out of retribution but in his great love. It seemed like the sun shone through a dark cloud, forming a lovely rainbow of promise."
"As a man Mr. Wik was an exceptional character," the obituary reads. "Always looking to the best interests of the community. Always pleasant. Always hopeful in the midst of adversity. His life was one continual round of unselfishness. The world was made better by his life, and his influence will continue through the coming years. He leaves a wife and ten children to mourn the loss of an affectionate father and a host of friends who feel deeply the loss of a brother and friend."
"Just a year ago tonight, O, Daddy, how swiftly you were passing into eternity," 15 year-old Elsie would write. (On her teenage shoulders would fall the responsibilities of the store, post office, and elevator. This consisted of buying and selling groceries, all types of dry goods, hardware items, kerosene, gasoline, farm implements, banking, book keeping, and running the post office with railroad pick-ups twice a day, six days a week.) "How certain we were that God somehow would restore you to health again. Truly, God's ways are not our ways. O, Daddy, how we have missed you and do miss you. God, forgive us for not appreciating you as we should have. You shall always be a sacred memory to us. I cannot even think of you, O Daddy, without receiving a fresh inspiration to be a better girl-to live a nobler, better life for Christ-to have more faith, to trust him more."
"Dear generous, warm-hearted Dad. Why didn't I realize before it was too late what a prince among men I had won?" Emma writes. " Children, take warning. Appreciate the fine traits and say the kind words of praise while the opportunity is yours."
On a lovely spring day, the family buried Nicholas. "And it seemed instead of an ugly, open grave, we could catch a glimpse of a glad resurrection day, a happy reunion. 'For God shall wipe all tears from their eyes and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain for the former things are passed away.' God grant our family circle may not be broken there."
Nicholas died at the age of 43. The family decided to continue to operate the store, elevator, and all associated businesses with the help of the children and hired help. Victor and Swan carried on with the farm and Elsie with the store. In 1919, the family sold the store and paid off all debts. Emma devoted herself to raising a family of 11 children and managing the farm. "From now on," Emma writes, "it was farming and schooling and teaching to help each other along." Lillian came home from Bethel Academy in St. Paul to help care for little Nicholas, who was born a month later, on May 22. (Emma named her last child after her husband but couldn't call him 'Nick.' So he was called 'Arvid' until the military insisted on using first names. Also, Betty, Nick's wife, liked 'Nick'.) My father, who was two years old, has no memory of his father.
Nicholas' has two memorials at the Millard Cemetery. One is an upright stone with the gates of heaven ajar. The other stone is flat on the ground with only the years of his life, "1875 1918" and a one word eulogy "Father"-as if to sum up his life by saying, "He was a good Dad."
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