CHAPTER SIX

OUR STORY GOES ON

This is my story, this is my song, Praising my Savior all the day long; This is my story, this is my song, Praising my Savior all the day long.

“Blessed Assurance”

Harold Wik’s age in this period 29-84 Philip Wik’s age in this period 0-45

The Rest of the Story

It’s presuming too much to think that my life is significant enough to be put to paper. But the boys have started asking questions, and I will someday be an ancestor. So, here is the rest of the story through the year 2000.

China

On May 1, 1946, Dad arrived in Shanghai and proceeded by rail to Chengchow, Honan province. He worked with a Mennonite relief organization on several agricultural projects, such as teaching students how to use tractors and raising milk cows. A Mennonite bulletin from 1947 describes Dad as “the fellow that eats and sleeps Chinese. Harold is our agricultural man. When he first arrived, he was assigned to the tractor project. Later, he was put on the agricultural and cotton loans. Now he is working on the heifer project.” Uncle Frank White, an Australian army officer, worked with Dad in China when Dad was serving in the Friends ambulance unit. “Australia had sent some cows as a present to China as the Japs had left nothing,” Frank writes. “One of the cows Our Story Philip G. Wik 2

died and Harold who had a degree in animal husbandry was asked to go out with me to try and determine the cause of death—accident, exotic disease, or sabotage. To our horror and dismay, Chinese butchers had already skinning the cow with the carcass a welter of blood and gore lying on the raw side of the skin with the butchers hastily slicing off chunks of meat and packing it into buckets to sell to an unsuspecting public. To the best of my memory, we were unable to determine the cause of death.” In 1981, Dad got a letter from James Liu from the Hengyang, Hunan Province, the People’s Republic of China. Lieu worked with Dad in the China Relied Unit, and he and his wife Hazel taught Dad Chinese. “When we saw you for the last time, that was in Shanghai,” Lieu writes. “In 1951, we went back to Hengyang and continued to work in the orphanage. After the liberation, Hazel was asked to work in one of the hospitals and I was asked to teach in one of the high schools. We are not young any more. Hazel is 70 years old and I am 77 years old. We want to live for Jesus during the rest of our lives.” “In 1946, the United States sent General George C. Marshall to China to reconcile the Nationalists and the Communists,” I write in my book How to Do Business With the People’s Republic of China. “Marshall’s efforts continued until 1947 when he announced abandonment of his mediation. The U.S. State Department ordered the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from China. The civil war became more widespread. Battle raged not only for gaining territories but also for winning allegiance of populations. Within three year, the Communists forced the Kuomintang to set up a truncated regime on Taiwan. In January 1949, the Communists took Beijing without a fight." The Communist takeover of China forced Dad’s evacuation back to Shanghai in 1948. “We received good treatment at the hands of the Communists,” Dad wrote in 1947 from Kaifeng. “There is little doubt in my mind but that far reaching agrarian reforms are in order in China, and that the central government is failing in meeting the needs of the people. Nevertheless, resort to armed revolution and bloodshed as an accepted method in extending an economic or political ideology contrary to the prevailing one is, in my opinion, morally indefensible.” In 1979, Dad wrote that the “takeover was relatively bloodless as the Nationalist forces by then had little heart to resist the onslaught of the Communist armies. The CIM, which was the largest Protestant mission working in China, suffered no casualties as a result of the Communist takeover, though a number of the missionaries were held under house arrest, some like Arthur Miller for a few years.” The Chinese, Dad notes, are “patient, resilient, hard-working people. Many have learned to live with little.” Dad was accepted into the China Inland Mission in February 1949, three months before China fell to the Communists. “We were happy to have an interview with you at our headquarter staff meeting yesterday, and after further prayer, we are prepared to accept your application and receive you as a member of the China Inland Mission”, writes Bishop Frank Houghton, the general director. You can sense Dad’s exaltation and excitement as he anticipates his adventure, in a letter written from Shanghai to Aunt Viola and Uncle Henry in February, 1949. “Greetings over the way and brace yourself for some news relative to my application to the China Inland Mission. Read—here it is … They have accepted me!” Dad ends the letter noting that “relations with my best girl are looking good. I’m now looking for the Lord to send her out to China.” In March 1951, Dad left China and three months later went to Malaya, which was then a British colony. In October 1948, Mom went to China under the China Inland Mission, later renamed the Overseas Missionary Fellowship. In 1949, Mom wrote that “I was walking to school alone and the hot morning sun was shining brightly. As I was nearing the market place, the familiar sound of a battle plane made my ears prick up. Immediately, there were loud reports of defensive ack-ack fire. In no

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 3

time the street cleared. I saw a woman quickly dart across the street to collect her children who were unconcernedly continuing their game of marbles. On other occasions, I have watched the bombs dropping. They would come down with a thundering noise above the roar of the engines, thick volumes of dark smoke marking the spot where they had fallen.” Mom saw “two large excavations where thirteen graves had been dislodged and large trees cut down” and also saw a plane crash. Mom supervised hospital wards and was also in charge of training Chinese girls. Mom and Dad met in a language school in Shanghai. They learned Mandarin and then later the Hakka dialect used by the Southern Chinese. On July 20th 1951, Dad was engaged to Mom. My parent’s letters, now fragile and yellowing after fifty years, evokes a romance conducted with a literary flair that has today all but vanished. “Leisurely, our boat cuts her way through the calm blue seas so that traveling becomes a delight,” Mom wrote on June 23, 1951. “The scenery yesterday was a particular joy as we skirted by the islands at a very close distance. Much could be seen of the islanders in their huts surrounded by the coconut plantations while on the hill slopes farming seems to be the order of the day. “Yesterday morning, my waking thoughts were of you and this continued throughout the whole day as I remembered your birthday. To say that I have missed you is putting it mildly. The Lord has been good to us in allowing us to have three weeks crammed full of happiness." “Darling, you know that I would account it a small thing to circumvent the globe if that seemed necessary,” Dad wrote shortly afterwards. “I trust that God will be directing you clearly in respect to the timing of your coming to this land. Darling, I think that you will love living here in this land. I am really beginning to fall in love with the place. So do come soon my love to share the wonders of this land with me. It’s God’s mission field for us, and my heart is really not hankering after another.” “This is truly the happiest of all days for me,” Mom wrote from Australia on July 20, 1951. “The Lord has been good in making it clear that you are His choice so that I need not hesitate longer in answering your question. How I would love to be with you at this moment while I whisper clearly in your ear “Yes.” Harold, darling, I do belong to you and you belong to me because of Him. “As long as I live, I will have a testimony to give concerning the Lord’s guidance as He began to unite our hearts. I cannot help but love you and now long for the day when we will share each other in a more perfect way. “Even while I write this letter, I am wearing the ring (precious to us both) which will continue to remind me that you are not very far away, at least in thoughts.”

Malaya

Mom and Dad were married in Singapore at Bras Basah Road Gospel Hall on February 9th 1952, and had their honeymoon on the island of Penang off the coast of west Malaya. They inscribed on their rings “God with us”. Aunt Grace wrote that “When Harold was serving the Lord in China, I recall receiving a letter from him telling us of a profound fact—the Lord had given him a promise of wife. It was a joy to meet this smiling, happy, intelligent Christian sister-in- law.” My cousin Ruth Nicholls gives us this picture when she was about five. Mom was about to get married. “The scene was the breakfast room at the Old House there at Redland Bay. This long narrow room with its cream wooden paneling had a distinct flavor of its own. Two adjacent walls were filled with a series of sliding windows, which added to the character. Grandma’s sewing machine occupied the corner between the windows. Next to it was THE coach! Everyone’s favorite! It was evening. The open windows captured the deep

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 4

blackness of the night sky. Outside, the cicadas sang. A dog’s bark echoed in the distance. That long table with its many chairs had been cleared. The vase of flowers—there was always a vase of flowers—like the tablecloth—had been safely stowed on the side board. Grandma’s sewing machine, with its throttle- like spindle, was ready for action. My, how Grandma could make those treadles move! The sisters Halley, Frances, and Vin were there, as I recall. There was a sense of excitement, a sense of expectation. “The door of the veranda creaked. Aunty ‘Cindy entered. She was dressed in a long white dress, or was it cream? “Take care, take care!” Aunty Cinda held the skirt up tight. The fear of getting a soil mark was always a threat. The red earth was notorious! A sheet was spread on the table. Aunty ‘Cinda still clutching the skirt, tried gracefully to first mount one of the chairs to clamber up onto the table. There she stood on display. She turned this way, then that. There were oohs! And ahhs! The Grandma began the job of pinning up the hem. “Why have I remembered such an incident? Our family only made fleeting visits to the Old Home. Yet, of all my childhood experiences, it is one event that I recall. I suspect that t was the joy and the eager expectation of the moment, the special aura associated with such a unique occasion. The fun of it! Fancy being up on the table, slowly turning around being pinned up!” In 1948, an emergency was declared because of the Communist insurgency, and was not to end until 1960. “Politically speaking, conditions in Malaya have markedly improved during the past two and a half years,” Dad wrote in 1953. “Several thousands of the terrorists have been killed, captured, or surrendered the to the government forces. Perhaps the lowest point of civilian morale was at the time of the assassination of Governor Gurney near the gap on the road to Fraser's Hill.” A half million Chinese were resettled to about 500 New Villages, and my parents worked in some of these towns. “One of my most poignant memories was to return one evening to hear that a seventeen year old girl, who was teaching me Hakka, had been strangled to death by the Communists,” Dad writes. “Probably not because she taught us the language, but because she was friendly to the local government officer, and may not have cooperated in giving rice to the Communists.” Dad writes in 1957 that “there were several round ups carried out by police and security forces during the year. As a result of one of those, our language teacher Mr. Phang was taken on January 5th, and required to live outside the district. Since the round ups, visiting in the homes have been more difficult and we have been less welcome. They appear to be afraid of us and may think we are part of the government.” In another letter, Dad writes that “during the night of August 28th, four terrorists were shot and killed near the perimeter fence at Bukit Siput. We heard the shots at about 9:00 p.m.” A news clipping confirms that “men of the 2/10 Gurkha Rifles last night killed four terrorists at Bukit Siput New Village” where we were living. Malaya obtained independence within the British Commonwealth in 1957.ut not without bloodshed. “The 31st of August was a significant milestone in Malay’s history as that date marked the birth of independent Malaya,” Dad wrote at the time. I was born on furlough in Australia on March 9, 1955, and was only two weeks old when the family made the crossing by ocean liner to San Francisco, the ship’s youngest passenger. “So far, we’ve had very comfortable sailing,” Dad writes in a letter dated March 28, 1955. “The sea has been very smooth. The SS Orion is a British ship of 24,000 tons and 1,400 passengers. We are located on the H deck, which is about the water line. We brought a basket along for Philip and Paul sleeps on one bottom berth and Lucinda on the other. Little Philip has been a pretty good boy on the trip. We have been having calm sailing weather, at most there has been a mile roll of the ship. Lucinda and Philip have been sleeping on deck part of the time.”

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 5

My parents spent a few weeks at the farm in South Dakota. “Philip was a baby and Paul was an ambitious two year old,” Aunt Grace writes. On another occasion at the farm, Mom and Anne saved the garden by picking worms of the vegetation, Paul drove a temperamental truck into a ditch, and I painted a shed. On the trip back to Malaya, we sailed on the majestic 80,000 ton RMS Queen Mary, which is today permanently berthed in Long Beach, California. In a letter from Newington Green, London in October 1955, Dad wrote that “we traveled tourist class on the Queen Mary. We were on D Deck and traveled in comfort in a four berth cabin. “Of London, Dad wrote from Newington Green that “the weather here has been dry and there has been a great deal of fog. The sun here seems to shine through the fog with about the same degree of brightness as the moon at home. It appears as a blood red ball through the fog. I’ve been impressed with both the compactness and the vastness of the city. A bomb or mine had dropped very near the CIM home here destroying buildings on three sides, but the property here stood intact apart from its shattered windows, Today, we visited St. Paul’s Cathedral—a huge building with a high dome—has been used as a center of worship for 1,300 years. We also saw the outside of some other places of note, including Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, the Parliament buildings, Big Ben, and Hyde Park.” Apart from land travel in Australia and the United States, we traveled around the world by ship. My consciousness dawned in the small Chinese village of Bukit Siput, a village of about 2,000 Hakka-speaking people three miles from Segamat in Jahore State, about halfway between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. My parents describe the village in 1956 letter: “The tropical scenery, with an abundance of luscious, green foliage, the rubber trees, the palm oil plantations, and the road signs had not changed. A number of the signs declared that it was unlawful to carry food on that stretch of road. At the gates of the barbed wire perimeter fence were guards on duty to check on those who passed through. Along the village street, the children played. The women were occupied in various ways. Some were washing clothes, others were buying vegetables for the midday meal, while others sat nursing a baby. There were many rubber tappers to be seen. We live in a shop house on the street of the village. The house has a cement floor and the front door open out to the sidewalk. We are glad for the upstairs which gives us added room, but miss a proper yard for the children to play in. Near the village gate is a large temple that appears to be well patronized. I hear a sound tonight that grieves my heart. It is the “bing bong” of the drums as the Buddhist priests perform a ceremony over the body of a woman who died yesterday.” Among my earliest memories are music from the wind-up record player: “How Much is That Doggy in the Window” and Walt Disney’s “Paul Bunyan.” We lived there for almost five years in a two-story house with a kitchen and six rooms. “The children seemed to adjust to the village life without too much difficulty,” Dad wrote in a letter to Mom. “Philip is enjoying his new tricycle. They are running outside a fair bit. I’ve been changing Philip at night as he still wets. I painted their throats one night before retiring, but they made so much fuss about it, that I haven’t been carrying on since. Did you want me to start with the (whip) worm treatment?” I was a sickly infant, as my mother’s diary from 1956 suggests: “Friday, May 4th. Bubba woke up at 4 a.m. Gave him a bottle. “Saturday, May 5th. Philip not well. Took him to the clinic at Tana Rata. Had temperature of 104.6. The both of us looked after him. Had little sleep. “Sunday, May 6th. Philip on sulp. tabs. Still very sick. Temp. raging again at night. “Monday, May 7th. Bubba still has a temp. Unable to roll or stand up. Looks knocked out.

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 6

“Tuesday, May 8th. Seen again by doctor. Said we should take him to the hospital for blood tests, etc. “Thursday, May 20th. Bubba slept well and so did we.” In a March, 1957 circular, my parents wrote that “we have had a distressing time with Philip of late. For about three months, he has had one bout of sickness after another. The cutting of his tooth seemed to lower his resistance to the many germs that are floating around. We are so thankful to the Lord that he is fit again.” By the time I was a toddler, through God’s grace and my mother’s medical skills, my constitution had improved. I spent my waking hours following my older brother Paul into all kinds of adventures and mischief.

Grade School

I began school at first grade five years later on another furlough in Australia. I went to Redland Bay State School, the same school my mother attended as a child, where I learned “This Old Man” and “Here We Go Looby Loo.” The next three grades were at Chefoo, a boarding school primarily for missionary kids in Cameroon Highlands, the central hills of Malaysia, about four hours drive from where Mom and Dad lived. (Chefoo was named after a city of 100,000 on the coast of China where the boarding school was first established about 120 years ago. Dad accompanied 55 cows and other relief to China’s Chefoo in north Shantung in 1947 and reported that “it has an excellent harbor and the city nestles down along the sea coast. On the other side, there are hills that rise up to about 1,000 feet above sea level.”) Diesel yellow-roofed Mercedes Benz taxis would take us to the school but not before negotiating countless fantastic hairpin curves. The verse “I shall lift up my eyes until the hills” had a special poignancy to me, as Mom and Dad would give me a final hug and then leave around the playing field under the ridge to vanish. There was loneliness and homesickness. But the friendships would come and the adventures and the lasting memories. There were about 50 children at the school, between the ages of five and ten. Chefoo, patterned on the English boarding school system with its emphasis on reading, mathematics, and memorization, gave us strong academic skills. Some Chefoo alumni challenge this assessment. My brother Paul would have preferred home schooling, and many parents objected to the lack of report cards. Paul took after his grandfather N.O. Wik in his mechanical knack. While other children would take a teddy bear to bed, Paul would often take under the covers a half-dissected clock or camera, entrails dangling. Mom was always taking out screws and bolts from his laundry. In Ivyland, perhaps in despair of his academic progress, the Grays gave Paul a workshop in the basement of the mansion that was filled with humming instruments and bubbling liquids. After graduating from LeTourneau College in Texas in 1975, Paul went on to a successful career as a semi-conductor engineer for Intel and other companies. In a 1966 letter, Mom writes that the “teachers at Chefoo are fine and are doing their best for the children but the Churchville school our children attended in Ivyland is hard to beat. This is a difficulty at Chefoo and quite an assignment for the teachers because the children come from a mixture of countries and the teachers themselves are English-trained. I mentioned this to my sister who was teaching in India that it would be an advantage to have American and Australian teachers on the staff.” We nevertheless liked being around kids our own age and background. My brother Tim’s favorite memory of Chefoo was Sports Day, where he jumped four feet on the high jump. “I jumped seven feet on the long jump,” Tim writes in 1967. “I rand in a race and won it.” Chefoo also left me with a life-long accent that can only be described as a hybrid of English, Australian, and South African.

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 7

(The accent of mother and my relatives in Brisbane is more British than the classic Australian cockney accent that was derived from the early settlers, who were mostly convicts from London east-side.) On Sundays, we walked about a mile to All Souls, of the Church of England, where I came to appreciate a tradition that was different from my Low Baptist heritage. Slims, a nearby school for middle and high-school children of British military personnel, also provided worshipers to All Souls. (That school is today a training center for a Malaysian commando unit.) At an elevation of about 5,000 feet, the average temperature was a salubrious 70 degrees. Sometimes, misty clouds would sweep through the school. We felt none of the heat and humidity of the plains where my parents toiled. Four-fifth of Malaysia, about the size of Florida, is covered by tropical forest covering mountains up to 7,000 feet high. This jungle is inhabited by tigers, elephants, bison, monkeys, gibbons, deer and bear, and is alive with all manner of insects, including malaria-bearing mosquitoes (we would always sleep under nets), bloodsucking leeches, pythons, and multi-colored birds, where orchids and rhododendron flourish. As a boy, I liked nothing better than to “jungle bash”—hike through these sometimes treacherous, always beautiful jungles. The hazards of jungle living was starkly demonstrated when a fellow student Peter Cox almost lost his life to a viper bite. Once, I threw a rock at a hornet’s nest. As I raced over the playing field followed by an angry swarm, I thought that might not have been the best idea. I went to bed that night with a throbbing head and new wisdom. While visiting my parents in Malaysia with sister Anne in the summer of 1972, I described the mountain jungle to Grandmother White. “What I enjoyed most about the Highlands is the landscape and the atmosphere,” I wrote. “Thick, indolent sunshine, a heavy gold light balancing the green and black jungle shadows—great lazy black butterflies and the scent of unseen flowers and a sweet afternoon languor.” Chefoo exists now only in fond memories: our little gardens where we cultivated mainly mud; our go-cart, the Silver Streak; King, the Alsatian, who was eaten by a tiger (“Does anybody remember the tiger at the padang in Tanah Rata that a park ranger had shot?” Bill Hanna writes. “Its head was propped up on a chair, and all us kids were admiring it. Suddenly it rolled off the chair but looked like it was rolling over the get up. Scare the wits out of us!”) ; the bamboo strands and the Rajah Brooke butterflies; the jungle jim and sandpit; allowance day; marmite sandwiches and milk at “tea” time; building dams in the stream that wended through the property; sports day on the ridge (Leo forever!); looking for bullets in the Gurka military base near by (I once found a revolver that the teachers inexplicably confiscated). And so the memories that bless and burn keep tumbling out. I wrote to a Chefoo newsgroup that “my memories of Chefoo are positive, and I feel that I’ve lived a childhood of incredible adventure and privilege. But in these sunlit gardens of youth, there were snakes and shadows and sadness.” There was in my view an excess of collective punishment and sometimes cruel teachers. One such incident occurred perhaps around 1963. David Houliston, who is several grades ahead of me, picks up the story. “About that time, we visited the ridge with a lady teacher. We asked if we could go and explore— which we did. Only problem was that we got lost! I suggested we follow the sun and strike out due east—as that would bring us back down to the school. Which it did. Once back, there was a big hoo-hah. The smaller kids were queued up outside the headmaster’s door and whacked with a sneaker. We older boys were not beaten—this is where the psychological stuff comes in. We had to wait to be called to go to Fred Collard’s office. The first victim reported back that we would be reduced to tears—there was no possibility of holding out. Sure enough, we were shown in the Bible about how much God hates sin and that we should repent. We were then ordered to write “confessions” that would be sent

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 8

to our parents (they never were)—which we did in our now blubbery state.” I was one of the little boys in that party, and so I was duly thrashed. With my over- active imagination, I wondered who would get us first—the tigers or the head hunters. I was also spanked for not eating rhubarb—and to this day I will not eat rhubarb. The punishment generally for talking after lights out was to stand outside the dorm memorizing a time tables. Needless to say, I had mastered the entire times table by fourth grade. In April 2001, Dave and Fred again met in England, and this reunion perhaps is a fitting coda to our Chefoo experience. “The reason for our meeting is that I had written him a letter telling him about the hurt I felt he had caused me by wrongly punishing me at Chefoo School when I was 12 years old. I received a Zooty cartoon postcard from him saying that he apologized if he had misjudged me in the past and suggested we meet. He drives me to his house and after a cup of tea Fred and I set off for the pub for a lunch and a chat. Over the superb meal, we talk about Chefoo, about our families, and every now and then we touch on the more emotional issues that I had brought up in my letter. It is obviously not that easy for either of us—we both feel a bit nervous about it but at the same time don’t want to avoid it. He doesn’t remember the particular incident I was referring to although he does remember some of the incidents that happened around the same time. He say’s he’s glad I was open enough to write to him and was only sorry it had taken so long for us to come to talk about it. I begin to feel as if it was I who had misjudged. I also realize that he had not been at Chefoo very long when this happened. So what really happened to me emotionally when I was 12 years old? Time shifts things and makes a mystery of things. “Strangely, I’m not surprised that Fred is so open to hearing the way I feel. That’s why I felt OK about writing to him. This is the intuition that I remember I had back in 1963. So the 12 year old me was right in that respect. “Well, three cheers for Uncle Fred! Who else would have been so gracious? And three cheers for the 12 year old me! You did just great, kid!” One morning, a teacher told us at breakfast that the BBC had said that Kennedy had been killed. I didn’t know who Kennedy was, and why the teachers were sad. (Nancy’s family had just bought a TV, and Nancy remembers the non- stop coverage and frequent tears, and with it a pall that seemed to fill their world.) Elsie had seen the president moments before his assassination, and describes the epochal event in her 1963 Christmas letter. “It was an unusually lovely morning. It had rained earlier and the air was crisp and sparkling—like a whiff of champagne. The fall colors were bright—at Lee Park along Turtle where I had gone to wave my welcome, the yellow leaves drifted downward from time to time on the sun-flecked lawn. Promptly at 12:10 the party came by …the motor escort – the president’s car, with JFK looking our way with a smile, and Jackie in a pink suit leaning forward looking at the people on the strip that divided the highway … the car with Lyndon Johnson … Senator Yarborough – other I didn’t recognize, two large buses for the press, one marked White House Press Corps. “Almost before we had time to react, it was gone. One awe-struck teenager remarked, ‘And to think I actually saw them.’ Wanting to share a bit more of this historic event, I decided to go to the airport—have lunch there a wait for the presidential party to return for the take-off at 2:45 p.m. For many of us there, the news struck like a thunderclap – a couple of passengers had transistor radios; they were surrounded by a group that seemed to be struck dumb … rumor multiplied, the president and the governor had been shot… some Negro had gone berserk…the governor was dead…shot in the head…Parkland Hospital. Unable to hear for myself and there was no TV around, I dashed home, only to hear as soon as I entered the door—the President is dead…Ray was sobbing in pain and fury … and I knew such pain and desolation such as

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 9

I’ve never known before. It was like the pain when mother died, but with a different dimension. “Now this isn’t much of a Christmas letter, is it? But we shall be remembering Another Young Man—who died young and whose years of active service were few…but who left the world a better place in which to live. “May your Christmas be happy.”

Missionary Work

In the early 50s, my parents worked within the villages. “My first serious efforts in attempting colportage work began in March 1958,” Dad writes. “Leaving my wife and family in the village where we resided, I made a trip covering several days to some neighboring towns. I loaded a supply of around 150 copies of Dengta magazine into my rather old but still usable Hillman car and started off. In due time, I arrived at the town of Tangkak about twenty miles away and prepared to go to work. I then noticed to my chagrin that I left my tract bag behind. As it was too far to go back after it, I decided to use my brief case instead to hold the literature that I was getting out. I slipped a belt through the handle of the brief case and slung it over my shoulder. With some fear and trepidation, I went to work systematically contacting the shopkeepers. By evening, I had sold around 40 copies of Dengta and a number of scripture portions. This day was one of the highlights of my missionary experience as I realized that I was at last finding my niche in missionary work.” During the late 1950s and the early 1960s, Dad investigated service on other missionary fields, in Argentina, Chile, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Taiwan, Laos, and Cambodia. In a letter from 1960, Dad wrote to the New Testament Missionary Union in Argentina of his interest in “the city of Buenos Aires and the surrounding grain and grassland area” that reminded him of the Dakota prairie. But Dad continued to work as a colporteur—selling Christian magazines to Hindu and Chinese villagers throughout Western Malaysia. “My records show that in the twelve month period from August 1, 1967 to August 1, 1968, I sold approximately 15,697 single copies of Dengta, for which I collected approximately $3,909.15. (This was the Malaysian dollar, worth at the time about thirty US cents.) Total receipts during the period came to $7,546.02, traveling by car 8,121 miles through ten different states. “Last week, the Lord gave a solid but good week of colportage work,” Dad wrote in a typical letter from May 1964. “I drove across the state of Pahang to Kuantan, the present capital of Pahang, where I finished out the day and worked there the following two days. I then drove north up the east coast of Malaya to Kota Bharu near the Thai border. This was a further journey of 230 miles. I worked through until about 10:30 there that night, and the next day worked my way back to Kuantan. I made the return trip to Rawang on Saturday. A total of 510 single copies of Dengta were sold on the trip and 33 people took a year’s subscription. I also sold 19 English New Testaments and around 160 scripture portions. The trip covered 841 miles of travel." Dad also worked hard to make the Christian Training Center at Rawang self-sufficient, mainly through egg production, but also with pigs and vegetables. In 1964, Mom wrote to Aunt Elsie that I write a thank-you for the Johnson’s Christmas presents. “Philip was eager and enthusiastic about it even with the drawing of Tigger, who is a wonderful pet. I am afraid that Tigger looks more like a tiger—but never mind because Philip has a heart to try his hand at drawing.” I reported to “Auntie Elsie” that “we had a good Christmas. I liked my presents. Thank you for the records. We like to listen to them. The record player is working. Hope that you and Uncle Ray are well. Love Philip.” I still have some of the books and Jack and Jill magazines that the Johnsons sent us.

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 10

Mom conducted seminars and correspondence courses, and was a visitation team leader for Emmanuel Evangelical Free Church. She had a busy schedule of counseling and women and young people’s meetings. In the same letter from 1964, Dad comments that Mom “had a DVBS for English speaking children here, April 28-May 1st. On the last day, those who wished to make a commitment to Christ were invited to return and a number did so and were personally counseled and prayed with.” On longer trips, Dad wrote letters back to Mom, with nice words for us kids as well. “Hello Paul, Philip, Anne, and Timmy,” he wrote in 1961. “Daddy thinks about you often and remembers to pray for you each day. Daddy has a quiet place to pray out in the car and is able to spend about an hour each day out there reading the Bible and praying. God is very great and wise and He can help us. We should learn to talk to him in prayer much as you would talk to mummy or daddy. Only remember that God is very much greater than daddy or mummy.” Dad enclosed a stick of gum for Paul as a reward for memorizing Acts 4:12 (“Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”) Both Mom and Dad greatly respected honest toil. On the back of a snapshot of my father from the early 1960s, Mom wrote: “Dad is almost hidden by the Dengta magazines. It’s a pile to get out. Dad is not afraid of work. He is a good example to us all.” Every four years, my parents would return to the states and sometimes to Australia for furlough. Mom and Dad would usually fly to Los Angeles and then drive across country, visiting with the relatives often on family reunions. We would stay on the Ivyland estate in the “Gate House” facing Jacksonville Road. On occasion, we would visit other churches that were supporting my parents, would sometimes have to sing in Chinese. This is an example of the transliteration of Acts 4:12 that we would try to sing:

Choo liao Yeh-su e-wai, choo liao Yeh-su e-wai Mey-yu bish –d joe fa, mey-yu bief-d joe-fa Yin-way dzai ten sha run gen Yin-way dzai ten sh ren shun Bey-yu tz’u sha bieh min K’o cow jaw deh joe.

Retirement

Towards the end of their time in Malaysia, my parents helped the boat people that fled Viet Nam after the war came to an end. After about 70 years of combined service, they returned by way of Athens, Jerusalem, and Amsterdam to retire in the United States on May 17, 1982. “At Singapore, we changed planes for the flight to Athens where we spent four days,” my parents wrote in a circular shortly after their trip. “The main tourist attraction there is the Acropolis. Nearby was Mars Hill, which we climbed and read Paul’s sermon as recorded in Acts 17:22-34. We also visited the National Archeological Museum at Athens and took a bus trip to Delphi, a round trip of about 200 miles. On May 3, we flew to Tel Aviv and when the plane touched down many passengers clapped their hands. The next day, we took a guided walking tour outside the walls of the old city. On two occasions, we walked completely around the old walls. This takes about 45 minutes. On Sunday morning, we joined a large group of Christian worshipers at the Garden Tomb for a Sunday morning service, and were thankful that the tomb in which our Lord was laid is empty. Christ is risen! While we remained based at Jerusalem during our stay in Israel, we were able to visit such places as Bethlehem, Jericho, Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee, and Masada by the Dead Sea. While we did not need to visit Israel to validate our

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 11

Christian faith, the trip did add to our understanding of our Judeo-Christian heritage.” Mom and Dad later flew on to Amsterdam where they visited famous masterpieces in the National Art Museum and marveled at the beautiful tulip fields. I’m so glad that Mom and Dad were able to visit Israel as it puts a fitting cap on their many years of Christian service. “Truly goodness and mercy have been following us a family and will continue to do so,” they wrote in their last letter from Malaysia, dated April 25th. Thirteen days earlier, Paul and Joyce sent them a telegram informing them of their new grandchild: “PETER NATHANIAL BORN 723 AM APRIL 12 9 LBS 8 OZ 21-1/2 INCHES ALL ARE WELL LOVE PAUL AND JOYCE”. My parents noted in a letter to me that “we appreciate Joyce with her talents and high aspirations. She has put a lot of sparkle into our family.” Today, both of my parents now in their 80s live active lives in Roslyn, a suburb north of Philadelphia, residing at their home at 1561 Birchwood Avenue. The death of Grandma left Mom money to buy the home. They paid $49,000 for the left side of the 25 year-old ranch duplex, on a lot 39 by 110 feet. Twenty years later, the other side of the duplex sold for about $150,000. Mom enjoys walking to Willow Grove Mall a few blocks away where she can greet a dozen or so of the regulars while Dad likes tending his garden in the back yard of tomatoes and lettuce. He also likes the routine, exercise, augmentation of income, and occasional opportunities for witnessing by working part-time removing trash from some local strip-malls. “Spud, I think you’re the only in the family who is still working,” Uncle Reyn wrote Dad in 1994. “The rest of us are unemployed and on welfare, all waiting for a raise in Social Security.” Ten years later, Dad was still toiling at his jobs at Regents Park and elsewhere. Mom and Dad are both involved in Berachah in Cheltenham, their local church, and the lives of their four children and seven grandchildren. (My sister Anne Birch and her family and brothers Paul and his family and Tim live in the area, all within about an hour of each other.) On February 10th 2002, we honored their fifty years of marriage with a dinner of baked sugar-cured ham and chicken marsala at Williamson Restaurant in Horsham. Sister-in-law Joyce did much of the planning and constructed a beautiful album of photographs and letters from friends and relatives. “In a time where so much is expendable, it’s wonderful to look to something that has stood the test of time,” I wrote for my family. “Your fidelity through five decades is a model to Nancy and me. And, someday, Zachary and Benjamin will also look to your example with appreciation. Your life’s journey has taken you to distant lands and fantastic adventures. But, through it all, your love for each other as endured. And from your commitment to each other has come your love for us, and I remember with fondness your tender words and actions over the years. Bukit Sepit. Rawang. Chefoo. What memories those names evoke! Ivyland. Chicago. Scottsdale. Although separated by many miles, your love for us has never wavered. And so it is therefore right that we honor and celebrate fifty amazing years of marriage. Nancy, Zachary, and Benjamin also join me in expressing their love for you and in rejoicing in this celebration.”

Ivyland

In 1965, we left Malaysia for Australia by the ocean liner Oranje. Tangerine and blue paper streamers between us and those on the dock stretched and snapped as the ship pulled away. After my parent’s furlough, my parents left Paul and me at a home for missionary kids in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The law office of Grubb & Guest had my parents transfer guardianships to the Grays in the Orphan’s Court of Philadelphia County, “wherefore petitioners pray your Honorable Court to enter a Decree appointing the said Kenneth T. Gray as guardian of the persons of Philip G. Wik and Paul

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 12

R. Wik.” The sign facing Jacksonville Road read Happy Hollow Farm, but no one called it that, especially after a neighborhood kid painted one day over the word Hollow, as if the farm was an institution for the “differently abled”. We called it “Ivyland”, after the name of the small town where we got our mail. The borough of Ivyland takes on aspects of a Victorian painting at Christmas time, with streets lit by luminaries, skating, and caroling. The boarding home was a colonial-era Georgian mansion on a country farm of about thirty acres. The walls were white with the classic green shutters that are familiar to many colonial homes in Bucks County. It had a two-acre lake fed by a stream that bisected the property, a large red barn with pigeons cooing in the rafters, horses and pastures, and between ten and fifteen other MKs. We went to the local public schools, and I graduated in 1973 from Council Rock High School, in Newtown. Although I was in the choir and the drama club (I was Edward in Charles Dicken’s Christmas Carol), most of my extracurricular activities revolved around Ivyland, with my five-mile paper route and eight pet rabbits. “I do not think you will have to do much to prepare the children for the new adjustment,” Kenneth Gray wrote to my parents in 1965. “We have animals (ten rabbits, six horses, chickens, ducks, goats, and cats) down here, and the barn and the family are usually sufficient drawing cards for the kids to spend a good deal of their free time down here. We’ve yet to see a child really homesick, for there is almost too much life throbbing around here for them to be lonely for more than an occasional moment. “There have been trips to the shore, with hilarious times of riding the breakers or sunning on the sand—drinking in the beauty of the riot of color that is Longwood Gardens-- fountains, colored lights, and gorgeous flowers everywhere. Other times, we have gone to Philadelphia, and push buttons in the Benjamin Franklin museum, where there is a seemingly endless array of electrical gadgets to demonstrate some principle or other. All these activities afford wonderful opportunities to get to know the kids better, hearing their chatter and enjoying their enthusiasm. “Your enthusiasm for the place is the best preparation that you can possibly give your kids. Keep in mind that the sacrifice is on your part far more than on theirs. Our family is very happy, and the kids adjust to life here at home in a wonderful way. You are the ones who take the gaff, and, believe me, we feel for you, but our field experience helps us to know that there is no real alternative worth considering. We have also had enough experience here at home to realize that the educating of children all the way through high school on the field is not without very serious problems for the children when they come home to the States for further education.” We seemed to have adapted well to our new surroundings, as we read in a letter from Maybeth Gray to Aunt Elsie in 1967: “Paul and Philip both seem happily settled in. They obviously have a good time. The snow and ice-skating has been sheer joy to them, and it’s fun to see them laughing and shouting as they toboggan or skate or build snow forts. I was measuring and weighing Philip this evening—a ritual we go through on the night I wash their hair and he really is gaining and getting taller—at least an inch taller than last September and several pounds heavier too. He weighs 72 pounds now . . . Best wishes to you and your work and thank you so much for all your interest in the Wik boys. You have been so good to them and I know they really appreciate it.” Christmas in Ivyland was special. Presents piled high around the towering Christmas tree. Outside, neighbors cut figure eights with us on the ice to the music of Broadway tunes, Strauss waltzes, and Gilbert and Sullivan:

My good little butter cup My dear little butter cup

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 13

I earned a few battle wounds playing ice hockey, including stitches in my chin and a gouge in my leg. To get a flavor of the holidays, here are excerpts from letters I wrote in 1970, 1971, and 1972: “Two weeks ago, we decorated our ten foot evergreen tree with lights, tinsel, and colored balls,” I wrote in 1970. “A small layer of icy snow is on the ground with periodic flurries helps set the Christmas scene. We have had great fun sledding on the hills. The ice isn’t strong enough to skate on yet. Many people are home for the holidays from college. For Christmas, we had about 40 people eating here. My favorite gifts were the presents you gave me—clothes, games, gloves, a radio, and a book about a lioness called Born Free. “Thank you so much for the gift of the art supplies,” I wrote in 1971. “We didn’t get any snow this Christmas. As a matter of fact, the temperature is about fifty degrees. We did the play The Christmas Carol at the intermediate school in Newtown. On Wednesday night, we put on the lay for the public. On Christmas Eve, we went to a candlelight service at church. When we came home, we opened our stockings. On Christmas day after diner, we opened our presents. I received many things but I especially liked the paint supplies you sent me.” “I hope you had a merry Christmas in Malaysia,” I wrote in 1972. “On the 16th, the concert choir (in which I sing baritone) put on a Christmas concert. All the Christmas trimmings this year were homemade. Frankly, the result was a mess. Naturally, everyone likes their own creation of half-baked ginger-bread men, fermenting cherries, and roasted popcorn. Periodically, groups of carol singers would start to howl in front of our house. Once, a group of seven came caroling on horses. We woke up early on Christmas morning, ate breakfast, had our devotions, and opened our presents. At about four o’clock in the afternoon, we ate the annual Christmas bird. The Christmas in Ivyland, although quite enjoyable, is but a glimmer of the grand Christmas we had in August in Malaysia together!” The Grays retired in 1971 to Stroud, Canada. In April, 1973, Ken lifted the oxygen mask off his face and said to Maybeth “Now I’m going home.” There was no funeral as Ken had made arrangements to donate his body to science, but there was a memorial service. In a letter to my parents at the time, I wrote “I shall always remember Uncle Ken for his dynamic, caring personality spiced with a pinch of whimsy. I shall never forget how he helped me countless times in school—on my science projects, on reports, and at home—weeding, seeding the corn, mowing, racking leaves. The fun we had in the snow on Christmas day, reading Dickens around the cackling fire at night, going to Canada’s Expo, New Hampshire’s White Hills, the New Jersey shore, Longwood Gardens, and the operettas in Philadelphia shall always remain in my memory, and I will feel a loss.” In 1987, an Ivyland Alumni Fred Fry passed on Maybeth Gray’s address. (Leslie Lyle, Maybeth’s brother, was a missionary who traveled with Dad from Shanghai to Hong Kong.) “You get the sense from Fred’s letter that Ivyland casts long shadows over the lives of those who lived there,” I wrote to Maybeth. “That’s certainly true with me. On balance, however, I think the Ivyland experience was good for me. I probably wasn’t the easiest person to manage, and it must have been hard to run things-- taking care of a dozen kids with different abilities, ages, temperaments, and backgrounds, the mansion, and the farm. This is a roundabout way of saying ‘thank you’ for your contribution in raising me during my formative years. “As time goes by, the past recedes into a misty nostalgia bringing back a collage of associations. Do you remember these snapshots from the past?

Sledding on the hill by the Big House Canoeing, fishing, swimming, skating Our pet cats, rabbits, and horses

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 14

Our dogs Dale (beagle), Rufus (Irish setter), and Friskie (mixed) Building elaborate hay tunnels on the second floor of the barn Chicken picking under a full moon Uncle Ken playing “Red River Valley” on the living room piano The mountain of presents around the fifteen-foot Christmas tree The Gate House, where we would stay during furloughs Dorney Park with its rickety wooden roller coaster Salty breezes and taffy on Ocean City’s boardwalk Sipping a malt at the Tanner Brothers Farm Store in Northampton Strawberry and cherry picking on a blue and gold autumn day Annual trips to downtown Philadelphia to see Gilbert & Sullivan The Philadelphia Zoo and museums Marcia Haynes, David Cox, Beth Carlson, David Almond Canada geese swooping down over the lake in autumn Summer vacations in Franconia Notch, New Hampshire

I’m sure we could go on forever.” “What a surprise!” Maybeth wrote. “A delightful surprise! After these 16 or more years, it was just great to hear from you and get caught up on your life history so far!” In the summer of 1972, my sister and I visited my parents in Malaysia. We visited many familiar places of our childhood, including Rawang, Chefoo, and Port Dickson. On the flight from Singapore to Bahrain, the British Caledonian Boeing 707 with its 197 passengers had to make an emergency landing at Changi airport because of a fuel line rupture. We spent a few days at the swank Imperial Hotel, before flying on to London. We visited Westminster Abbey, St. Mary’s, Number Ten Downing Street, The Mall, Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, and took a trip down the Thames before flying on to Philadelphia. In all, I’ve lived in Malaysia with my parents for just under nine years. The mission sold Ivyland in 1982. The grounds have been subdivided, the barn razed, and the mansion remodeled. “It’s in a state of decay, with the old marble mantels long gone, paint pealing, extensive water damage, and an overall look of faded grandeur,” I wrote in 1993, before the remodeling began in earnest. “The lake hasn’t been maintained and is half empty. A paved road called Gwyn Lynn Drive meanders through the old horse pastures, now replaced by ten homes selling for $450,000 each. (The Big House is now 148 Gwyn Lynn Drive, but the entire property was 186 and then later 657 Jacksonville Road during my time.) The mansion is on one acre and an additional twelve acres of wetlands were sold to a doctor’s group for $350,000. (In the mid-50s, the OMF bought the farm for about $60,000 and by the mid-70 it was appraised for under $150,000.) Brambles and poison ivy cover the lawn. (When I had just arrived in Ivyland at the age of ten, I made the mistake of confusing the Malaysian vines with Pennsylvanian vines, and made good use of calamine lotion. I thought we should modify the name Ivyland by the word Poison!) Most of the old trees still exist and I could still see some of the remains of my old tree houses.” I enjoyed climbing some of the two-hundred year trees. A row of mature oaks, pines, sycamores, and spruces mark the path of the original gravel road that now runs through the back yards of the houses that were built in the 1990s. I climbed some of these trees. The lake is now called Spring Mill Pond and no doubt it will someday be but a marsh. But, when I was a kid, it was perhaps six feet higher and far broader and wider, maintained by an input pipe from a dam at the far end of the property that has since washed away. What memories we have of that lake! I learned to swim in that lake and we had a diving board, dock from which to fish for Sunnies, home-made rafts, and canoes. The bottom of the lake was black goop and yellow algae spread across the lake as the summer months went by. But

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 15

we still loved that lake with its willow trees and painted turtles. In contrast to the almost impassable brambles of today, a dozen horses would keep the pastures surrounding the lake trimmed to look like a park. In the winter time, we would sled down the hills from Almshouse Road toward the lake or skate and play ice-hockey with the kids from Traymore. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that sometimes hundreds of people would crowd that lake in the winter, while music played from loud-speakers throughout the day. Towards Hunt Drive was the remains of an ancient carriage house. I used to find weathered nails amid the brick. When I went to Churchville Elementary, I would wait for the school bus at Hunt Drive and North Traymore Avenue. But for middle and high school, we would trek through the fall leaves to the end of the lane on Jacksonville Road. Two white stone pillars that no longer exist marked the entrance of our property. Moving leftward was the garden where we weeded carrots and cabbage, the 1950s era ranch called the Canfield House, a shed for tractors and plows, a gasoline fuel pump, and a large sixty-foot-high L-shaped barn. It was brown stone with red wooden walls trimmed in white and with massive interior beams. Further in the back was a pen for chick. At the bottom level of the barn were work shops, stalls for the horses, pens for the chickens, and cages for my rabbits. On the top level was bales of hay. Paul would drive the tractor that pulled the carts up the dirt ramp. We would often arrange these bales into tunnels, sometimes going down thirty feet. We used to play kick the can near the manure pile that was behind the barn. There was also more farm land for corn and potatoes. Continuing our walk in memory was the two-story brick Lane House, which was also of colonial-era vintage. We would stay here on furlough. Today, it has been resurfaced with brown-stone, but the walls used to be white plaster. The gravel path ended in a circle around the Big House. The only other structures was a horse shed behind the barbed wire and a crumbling smoke house below the lake that is still a home to suckers and toads. I would mow this lawn and join the others in raking the fall leaves. Next to the dock with a diving board below the large Eastern White Pine that still exists were several picnic tables and canoes. As we open the door to the Big House, we would see a couch with perhaps the Daily Courier, Christian Science Monitor, and back editions of Popular Mechanics. To the left was the living room with its high ceilings, fireplace, many books, and a grand piano. Here is where we would celebrate Christmas. On the other side was the dining room with the marble fireplace. At Christmas time, Maybeth would thread the many cards together to deck the room. We would find letters from our parents and also lists of chores that would be posted each day on the bulletin board, such as “Pots & Pans” or the much dreaded “Eggs”. A staircase ascended to the rooms above. I was adept at sliding down the banisters from my room on the top floor near the roof floor by floor. Moving past the dining room was the powder room – a room that probably hasn’t changed much over the years—and the kitchen—a room that has probably changed a great deal. Ken would snip our hair here while Maybeth and Pat would bake the pies or mix the ice-tea. I remember the distinctive bang! of the screen door when I came in with by school books each days. Stairs for the servants would ascend from one side of the kitchen. On the other side, Dale, our friendly, corpulent beagle, would gaze into the fireplace. My bedroom was always on the top floor, while the girls enjoyed slightly more opulence in the floor beneath. In the back was a walk in freezer—an entire room kept to negative ten degrees. We also had shelves where we could keep our things, such as boots, gloves, and school books. I enjoyed taking black and white pictures with my twin lens Yashika camera. But perhaps my favorite pastime was biking. I bought a red three-speed Schwinn and put it to good use, making money by distributing The Daily Intelligencer for a few years. I especially enjoyed going on bike hikes, sometimes as far away as New Hope and New Jersey. I bought quite a number of antiques at the flea markets in Lahaska and that perhaps honed my interest in American history. I

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 16

biked with David Cox (whose father worked for twenty-one years among the Mien (Yao) of North Thailand after fighting piracy as a chief officer in the British Navy along the China coast before he joining the CIM). But generally I traveled alone, usually on the back roads that even today retain their verdant beauty. Sometimes, I just had to leave what my brother Tim calls “a feudalistic dreamland” with its weeding and its rules and peddle furiously with the brisk autumn wind in my face through flurries of gold and red leaves down the curving Dark Hollow Road to the Neshaminy Creek. It is hard to believe that as I write this in 2004, some Ivyland alumni are now in their sixties. “I personally like it when my kids put my wheelchair close to the fire with my dentures close by so that I can munch on health snacks that Anne finds in Prevention Magazine,” Fred Fry writes, with tongue firmly in cheek. “As my head droops in exhaustion, usually about 6:30 or so, I drift off into my memories. Many of my fondest are from that era so many years ago in the big white house …or was it grey…with the Whites…or was it the Grays …? “ “Someone could, and should, write a book about Ivyland,” Fred continues “Is that native Bucks County resident, James Michener, still in business? Who built that big white house? Who lived in it between 1790 and 1958? Our era would occupy many chapters. Who took the marble mantles? Where did all the wood and stone from the barn go? Do the current occupants of those $450,000 homes even know that there was a time when an old John Deere tractor would drag a line of sleds through the snow on the sites where they now watch Oprah and water their petunias? “I wonder if on some quiet mornings, their eyes play tricks on them and they think they see silent, misty figures up in the trees, riding horses, fishing off the dock, taking out the garbage, ice skating to the amplified Strauss waltzes, playing tackle football, painting shutters, doing dishes, putting together jigsaw puzzles, swimming, studying, driving trash to the dump in the cut-off Chevy, feeding a roly- poly beagle, playing capture-the-flag in the barn, walking the quarter mile to the bus stop at 6:45, gazing longingly at Bobbie Arbor, mowing the lawn a stocky balding bespectacled man doing his accounts at his desk in the hall, a woman in her mid- twenties doing laundry, a lady with her graying hair in a bun reading stories to her own infant daughter, spreading manure behind that same John Deere, celebrating twenty to thirty birthdays a year, stringing barbed wire and yes—slaughtering, picking, and gutting chickens. I wonder. “If there were, they’d all have names that are very real—Maybeth and Ken, Bob, Peter, Bill, David, Wendy, Pierre, John and Josie, Ian, Doris, Ruth, Pat, John, Esther, Anne, Miriam, Marcia, Paul, Beth, Sue, Timothy, Pam, Margaret, David, James, Ralph, Kathryn, Ian, Sylvia, Rachel, and many, many more.” “I loved the picture of your two little boys,” Maybeth wrote to me in January 1997. “I bet they are going to have a lot of fun playing together as the baby gets a bit older. Enjoy your children while they are young, for they do grow up so fast and before you know it they are leaving home. I’m fine as I go into my 84th year with no aches or pains, and just very thankful to God for good health. I do tire more easily though and am ready to go to bed when the time comes. It has been nice to hear from quite a number of our Ivyland gang and learn more of what they are doing. But I must stop. I did want to thank you so much for your newsletter and the picture of your darling boys. God bless you in the year 1997. Much love to you both and the boys. Love in Christ. Maybeth Gray.” Three months later, I got a letter from John Cox. “I assume you will have heard about Maybeth Gray’s death on April 12,” he wrote. “Your letter was the first I heard of this and of course I feel a great deal of sadness,” I wrote back. “ My most recent letter was from January of this year, which I’ve enclosed. I was glad to have renewed our relationship over the past few years, giving me the chance to express my gratitude for her role in shaping my character and interests. Only last week I came across a paper Aunt Maybeth typed for me when I was in fifth grade. It says much for her as a Christian and a person that she is remembered fondly by

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 17

so many people despite the passage of time—in my case about a quarter of a century. As one of the little boys, I only vaguely remember you. I of course recall Elizabeth and Peter, and I thought of David as one of my best friends. The shadows of Ivyland are long. And in the lingering gloaming, lights and shadows play in the kaleidoscope of memory: Uncle Ken reading “The Christmas Carol” by the fire and playing “Red River Valley” on the grand piano. Aunt Maybeth, much like the card she sent me, looking past her African Violets over the sloping green, watching us swim or play…chicken picking in the morning and an operetta in the evening…bike hikes and vacations, the barn and the lake … lots of work, lots of animals, lots of fun, some tears, but much joy as well.” “She died on Saturday in her sleep, peacefully and without pain,” John wrote. “I called a travel agent on Monday and explained the circumstances, requesting bereavement fare. She asked Maybeth’s relationship to me, and I said she was my foster mother. The agent said, “Let’s just make that “mother,” so I didn’t argue with her. “People in Vancouver were extraordinarily kind. Pam, Esther, and I borrowed a pick-up truck from someone at Clarendon Court (where Maybeth had lived) and ran errands with it. One of them involved making photocopied enlargements of photographs that were to be displayed at the reception following the memorial service. One of these was in color, and we were unsure how to use to color copier at the little shop where we were doing the copying. The proprietor came over to help us and paused when she saw the picture. “I know that woman,” she said. Esther told her that it was her mother and that she had just died and why were making the copies. The woman gulped and showed us what we needed to do. When we went to pay for the copies the woman told Esther that she recently had cancer and chemotherapy. “Your mother was so kind to me,” she said. “No one else was such a comfort to me.” This from a complete stranger at a shop we just happened to walk into! Esther burst into tears, and the woman became very apologetic, but none of us could explain that the tears were not so much for sorrow as for this chance encounter with evidence of Maybeth’s unfailing goodness to everyone she met. What an amazing legacy. “The memorial service was wonderful. We sang “I Sought the Lord and Afterward I Knew” and Pam played “Amazing Grace” very impressively on her violin, beautifully accompanied by a pianist from the church. Ian delivered a wonderful eulogy. And at the end of the service, we sang “How Firm a Foundation” to a traditional American melody (rather than Adeste Fidelis) that I remembered singing with Ken around the piano at Ivyland and that I have heard many times as one of the airs that Aaron Copeland weaves into “Appalachian Spring.” We sang all six stanzas, but for the last two Pam grabbed her violin and played along by ear, inventing descants and harmony as she went. Those of us sitting at the front had been doing pretty well for the first four stanzas but we all fell silent when Pam’s violin began to sing. “It was an utterly satisfying trip, and I was glad I was able to make it. It was sad of course and I still feel sad at the loss of Maybeth, but it was triumphant and happy at the same time. Being whom I am and doing what I do, I inevitably think of something from Shakespeare at this juncture, so I’ll close with Prospero’s loving praise of Miranda in The Tempest, because it applies so perfectly to Maybeth: “She will outstrip all praise and make it halt behind her.”

Wheaton College

In January 1974, I entered Wheaton College in Illinois, majoring in Political Science. The competition for grades was fierce, but I had good instructors who took me to a higher level. Wheaton Record advisor Paul Fromer, Political Science Professor Dr. Mark Amstutz, Literature Professor Helen deVette, and ROTC

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 18

Director Colonel Charles Wallis come to mind. My overall assessment of Wheaton is positive. It had a blend of piety and brainpower that I needed at that time in my life. Perhaps its most famous graduate was evangelist Billy Graham, who earned an AB in anthropology in 1943 and is my mother’s age. Wheaton is generally recognized for its selectivity, intellectual stature, National Merit Scholars, high average SAT scores (about 200 points over the national average), and its high proportion of graduates that attain doctoral degrees. It also has an impressive collection on the works of C.S. Lewis, JRR Tolkien, and other Christian writers. On the other hand, Wheaton does reside in the heart of DuPage, one of the most Republican counties in the United States, and that shapes the sometimes narrow politics of most of the students that go there. In my senior year, I was the assistant editor of the college paper The Wheaton Record, got first places in the poetry and short story annual literary competition, won several national literary contests, a third prize (a gold watch) in a contest sponsored by the Soviet Union, and was president of Pi Gamma Mu, the Wheaton chapter of the National Social Science Honor Society. Wheaton above all taught me to write and to overcome all things. During the school year and also the summers, I worked on the campus as a boiler-room engineer, which involved monitoring electrical, chemical, and natural gas systems and the three 500 horsepower gas boilers. I graduated with honors in May 1977. In my swan-song column in the papers, I wrote “I see a just and decent administration staffed by those who’ve often walked that second mile in love. Now I leave Wheaton. But I go forgetting no one, remembering everything, including the words of Prince von Metternich of Austria: ‘Because I know what I want and what others are capable of, I am prepared.’” As it turned out, I was at that point far from prepared. In 1983, I was on the planning committee of the Wik reunion that was held at Wheaton College. During that weekend, we went on a cruise on Lake Michigan and visited the Museum of Science and Industry. We enjoyed coffee at Eloise and Leroy Nelson’s house in North Park and Sunday morning worship at Joanne and Vern’s funeral home in Wheaton.

Manhattan

Although I was accepted to the American Graduate School of International Management in Arizona and the University of Denver’s Graduate School of International Studies, I had no clear idea what I would do after getting an advanced degree. Also, I didn’t like the notion of taking on more debt. So, after completing a four-week summer course in publishing at the University of Denver, I flew to New York City to find work in journalism. For seven months, I looked for work. I lived frugally in room 809 at the George Washington Hotel on 23rd and Lexington Avenue near Gramercy Park, and, for a short time, went on welfare. On my first night at the hotel, I watched a mob marching below my window shout “Johns go home!” and cocaine (“snow”) vendors were on my doorstep. By the time I got my first job in January 1978, my unemployment insurance of $59 dollars a week from working at Wheaton had run out, and so had my savings. “I had hoped that this letter would be the one that would report that I found work,” I write in September, 1977. “Unfortunately, not so. I’m learning to have a high tolerance for frustration.” I mention that in the space of two hours, I saw a car hit a man and someone snatch a purse from a woman. A month later, I got a job selling l advertising space sales on commission for the Teamsters on Fifth Avenue a few blocks from the Empire State Building. I told Aunt Elsie somewhat prematurely that I was giving advanced warning to jungle that I would succeed. “OK, OK . . . but don’t underestimate it yourself,” she wrote. “It has doubtless destroyed more men and women than have conquered it. So beware, beware!” But I made no sales and so I started to root around for another job.

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 19

Career

My first post-college job was as a computer operator at United States Surgical Corporation in Stamford, Connecticut that I got through an ad in the New York Times. I lasted under two months. In Manhattan, I met a college friend who was about to enter seminary after working for Tyndale Publishing, in Carol Stream, Illinois. That job fell through, but I was able to find another job in the area at Four- Way Systems, a subsidiary of the Christian Service Brigade. My starting salary was $7,000 a year—but it jumped $3,000 after my boss saw me toiling at the local McDonalds during the night shift so I could meet my rent. I used to enjoy working late at night at the CSB office without any distractions. One night, I rounded the corner for the office and lo! there was a computer operator as naked as the day he was born about to hop on the photocopying machine. “Sorry!” he gasped. Later that evening, I had to make some copies, but before I did so, I very carefully wiped the glass of the copying machine. Three years later, I started work as a computer programmer at the First National Bank of Chicago’s Credit Card Division in Elgin, a town of 70,000 people about 38 miles west of Chicago on the Fox River that at one time manufactured watches and clocks. My salary went from $11,000 to $19,500. The project manager looked a bit like Morticia in the 1960s sit-com “The Adams Family”, with blue sage suit, padded shoulders, long black hair, and a vitriolic disposition, so I tried to keep a low profile. Her boss had an even more vitriolic disposition, and in 1989 she was fired. I never was a distinguished performer, but I did get some promotions. “Because of his continued commitment to the goals of the corporation, I am recommending the promotion,” writes my manager in 1989. “Phil is organized, hardworking, and conscientious,” writes another manager. “We wish to commend you for approving yourself as ‘an extremely hard worker with an exceptionally good work attitude’,” my parents wrote to me in 1982. My main goal was to maintain a flow of stable income that would help fund my real estate while allowing me to take some risks in other areas. Much of the programming I did is now obsolete or is done in India, with my main languages being PL/1 and CICS. I resigned in 1997 and at a good time. For, after First Chicago’s merger with Banc One in 1998, every programmer at that location was fired. My income gave me the capital to buy my first property in 1983. The spark for buying the property was a fire in the apartment complex where I was living that took the life of a seven-month-old girl in the unit beneath me and left the father critically injured. My cat Rex woke me up at about two a.m. and I remember the utter horror of the moment when I saw billowing clouds of orange come towards me from the first floor, a horror that was compounded when I had to fight through thick, black smoke in an apartment that had no sprinklers or alarms. Little Jaclyn Wallace’s clothes, toys, and crib lay twisted in a puddle of soot and glass. At the intersection of Dundee Avenue and Seneca Street near Summit Street in Elgin was a sixty-year-old two-story flat-roofed red brick building that contained two stores and also a smaller two-story house on 11,500 square feet of land. I paid $76,000 for the property with an interest rate of 13.5 percent in October, 1983. I was scared when I bought it, but was reassured somewhat by the favorable commercial location—there was a constant stream of cars past the stores. I correctly intuited that I would never have a problem getting leases. On one side was Ray’s Tattoos and Roll-N-Donut and on the other side was Harry ThieI’s Dundee Avenue Auto Body Rebuilders, so it was perhaps not a place where gracious living was a way of life. I owned 434/468/438 Dundee Avenue for seven years until Elgin razed them in the name of urban renewal. The idea was to replace the six acres of houses and stores with a 65,000 square-foot shopping center. However, when I last returned to Elgin in 2002, the lot was still vacant were my stores used to be. City documents described the area as “visually blighted”, but

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 20

I liked it for its ethnic vitality. My tenants were African-American, Hispanic, and Laotian, and I was probably the only white person within several blocks. Some postcards from that front: Two FBI agents came up to my office and showed me a photograph of a murderer with some fingers missing, asking me if he was my tenant. My answer: Maybe. Once, I called the police after someone started shooting from one of my apartment windows. They declined to come until someone had been shot. Across the street from my house next to the liquor store was a black social club where the thrum of disco would continue from Saturday afternoon into Sunday morning. Fist fights would spill out into the street and there was an occasional knifing. One day, a photograph of my stores appeared on the front page of the Daily Courier News showing inspectors removing raccoon road-kill from one of my stores. “Conservation officer Kevin Stover removes frozen raccoons from the HG Fish Market in Elgin as manager Tommie Former looks on,” reads the caption to the photograph. I’m not a social animal, but I have learned to observe people, to size them up, and deal with them with individuality, confidence, and humor—bankers and lawyers as well as the Latin Kings and the Black Gangster Disciples. Elgin was my finishing school. After the condemnation, I bought a large wooden house with a wrap-around veranda and fruit trees on the main lake in Lake in the Hills, a small town between Elgin and Crystal Lake. The lake was about a mile long, and I enjoyed my thirteen- foot sailboat and silver steel rowboat. I liked skating in the winter, but the ice seemed a lot harder than I remembered from my Ivyland days. When I bought the house, it had a postcard-like country charm—of flocks of trumpeting geese skimming the lake and the smell of burning leaves wafting through the pines in the crisp eventide of autumn. But all of that has now changed. Many of the surrounding cow pastures have since turned into cookie-cutter developments and the village no longer allows leaf burning. In 1984, Prentice-Hall published my first book How To Do Business With the People’s Republic of China, with 336 pages. My publisher told me that this book accompanied President Reagan’s staff when he went to China and got generally good reviews. Cornell University, for example, said it was “an excellent choice for public, business, and commercial libraries” . Business Book Review listed it as one of their top ten best written and useful books. In 1987, Prentice-Hall published my second book, the 297-page How to Buy and Manage Income Property. The columnist Edith Lank said that this book “will be absolutely tops, an excellent introduction to the field. She said “My work as a syndicated columnist brings me many readers’ letters every day, and their main concern these days is real estate investment. The interest is fueled by those snake-oil salesmen on late-night cable TV who pitch expensive real estate seminars and home-study courses. I would be happy to recommend this book as an antidote to the current hysteria. It’s a readable, authoritative guide to the basics of investing and management.” Neither book made me a lot of money, but the discipline of writing about ten pages each night for two years honed my thinking and kept me off the streets. The 1980s began and ended with family weddings. My older brother married Joyce Hamilton on May 24th, 1980. Paul adopted Joyce’s son Timothy David, who went on to achieve distinction as a high-ranking Navy submariner. My younger sister Anne married Wayne Birch, a successful computer executive, on November 18, 1989. With her two BS degrees, Anne is the most educated of the siblings in our family. It was my good fortune to be near an uncle and aunt and cousins that provided a gracious home away from home. Uncle Ivar and Aunt Elvera lived during my college years in a cottage in Gages Lake and then retired in 1979 to The Holmstad in Batavia, a town fifteen miles to the south of Elgin. With his gentle erudition and broad interests (racing pigeons, bantam chickens, stamps, ham radio, Lincoln histories, rabbits, accounting, and theology), Uncle Ivar reminded me of Kenneth Gray from Ivyland. Joanne and Vern Hultgren bought a funeral home in

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 21

Wheaton across from the public library where I spent many golden hours during my college days. They facilitated my trip to Sweden in 1991 and invited me to their October family reunions in Sister Bay, Door County. LeRoy and Eloise Nelson live in North Park, Chicago, a community that still has an ethnic Scandinavian ambiance. Some of the cousins are fluent in Swedish and often visit the old country. During the holidays, their homes are an oases of Currier & Ives beauty, sweet with the scent of Swedish pastries and twinkling candles. It was a joy to grow up with their children and get to know their beautiful grandchildren. In a letter that Eloise and LeRoy wrote for my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary, they remembered “the many years Philip was in the Chicago area and joined us for Christmases (and brought unusual and original gifts), Thanksgiving (and brought a good appetite), for summer days at gages Lake, and for many other happy times. Then his marriage to Nancy, the birth of their sons, and their joining us for weekends in Door County every October.” My cousin’s attachment to their heritage no doubt fueled my own interest in my heritage. They provided a morale-boosting environment for me much along the same lines as Aunt Lillian and cousins Gordon and Dee Stewart provided for my sister Anne in South Dakota, and Aunt Elsie and Uncle Ray provided for my brothers Paul and Timothy in Texas during their college years. And for all of this I shall be forever grateful.

Nancy

World War I was a watershed for this nation’s social development. Increased mobility and modernity, but also disillusionment, materialism, urbanization, immorality, and racketeering began to shape the cultural landscape. With the Volstead Act of 1919, the Noble Experiment of prohibition began. And with it came bootleggers and speakeasies and bullet-plated cars roaring through the Chicago loop, tommy guns blazing. In Chicago, John Torrio, the chairman of the Chicago syndicate, killed his uncle Big Jim Colosimo, to gain control of his empire of brothels, gambling parlors, and 700 hoodlums. His partner, Al (“Scarface”) Capone, would orchestrate the 1929 St. Valentine’s Day massacre to dominate the underworld. The poet Carl Sandburg described Chicago as “stormy, husky, brawling” and “proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.” He could have been describing Nancy’s great-uncle John Joseph (“Bathhouse”) Coughlin (1860-1938), who ran the first ward for four decades. (I haven’t yet been able to prove the link between Nancy’s great-grandfather and one of the four sons of Michael. But the story has been passed down and the family resemblance to Bathhouse John is also striking.) Michael Coughlin, his father, had come from County Roscommon, Ireland in 1857 at the age of 13. A year later, he married a Johanna Hanley, a colleen from County Limerick. Michael was prudent and industrious and on the way to becoming a rich man when the Chicago fire of 1871 wiped out the store and the family home. In newspaper stories of later years commemorating the holocaust of 1871, Bathhouse was quoted: “Why, money didn’t mean anything to me. I’m glad that fire came along and burned the store. Say, if not for that bonfire I might have been a rich man’s son and gone to Yale—and never amounted to nothing!” John was called “Bathhouse” because he once worked as head rubber at the Palmer House and later bought a bathhouse on East Madison Street. He was a chesty six-footer with a handlebar moustache and billiard-table green suits, known for his good nature and love of verse.

On with the dance, Let the orgy be perfectly proper Don’t drink, smoke, or spit on the floor

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 22

And, say, keep you eye on the copper.

Well, it isn’t Shakespeare.

MICHAEL COUGHLIN JOHANNA HANLEY 1844-? M. 1858 ?-1865 Immigrated from Ireland in 1857

JOHN JOSEPH COUGHLIN MICHAEL, JR. JOSEPH GEORGE 1860-1938 c. 1867 -? c. 1862-? c. 1868-?

EDWARD MACK SOPHIA BONIKOWSKI c.1890-1982 CHRISTINE JOHN COUGHLIN c.1890-1962 HANS A. KURE KATHLEEN ERFURT Immigrated from Poland PEARSON HANNAH BRUHN ANDERSON ?-C.1940 1862-1939 ?-c.1920 1866-1943

JOHN JAMES JOSEPH ELEANOR BARBARA MACK COUGHLIN M. 1931 HAROLD HANS BROWN 11/22/11-1976 3/31/09-1975 3/2/1892-4/30/1981 M. 1915 ELLA IRENE KURE Immigrated from Sweden to 7/3/1893-1974 USA in 1908

JOHN EDWARD WILLIAM COUGHLIN JOYCE AUDRY BROWN M. 1957 7/6/34- 4/8/35-

NANCY LOUISE COUGHLIN PHILIP GRANVILLE WIK 7/7/58- M. 1993 3/9/55-

BENJAMIN PHILIP COUGHLIN ZACHARY JONATHAN LOGAN WIK WIK 2/9/94- 8/3/96-

In 1893, the Bath was elected to the city council, a notorious band of crooks whose capacity for graft was legendary. He built an organization of saloonkeepers, gamblers, pimps, pickpockets, and brothel owners that would help him and his associate, Michael (“Hinky Dink”) Kenna, hold their seats in city hall through Democratic and Republican administrations. Coughlin once accused a Civic Federation leader of libeling him after a particularly damaging report denouncing him as a crook. “You said I was born in Waukegan. That ain’t true and I demand a retraction,” he insisted, with Kenna at his side. On election day, Coughlin and Kenna filled up shabby bathhouses with derelicts, plied them with liquor, money, food, and women, and marched them out to vote the straight ticket. When their protégée Big Jim was murdered, Bathhouse knelt at his bier and recited the Catholic prayer for the dead. Coughlin kept his seat until his death in 1936, operating out of Capone’s Lexington Hotel. (A Mary Coughlin married Al Capone, but she isn’t related to our family.) Bathhouse John’s most memorable legislation was a law requiring 12-foot walls around Chicago’s cemeteries. Once the mayor asked Kenna: “Tell me Mike, do you think John is crazy or just full of dope?” Kenna answered, “No, John ain’t dotty and he ain’t full of dope. To tell you th’ God’s truth, Mr. Mayor, they ain’t found a name for it yet.”

Joyce Coughlin

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 23

Nancy’s mother Joyce is the youngest child of Harold and Ella Brown. Harold was born in the coastal city of Malmo, Sweden, in 1892. He and is brother Ovie immigrated to this country in 1908, leaving in the old country his sister Anna and brothers Edwin and Wilhelm. Harold at first worked in Hammond, Indiana, and then later as an ice man—conveying blocks of ice in his horse and buggy. He eventually established a coal and oil distribution business in Chicago. Harold named his red coal trucks after his grandsons and his pleasure boat “Joycee” after Joyce. In 1929, they bought their house in Sister Bay, in Door County, Wisconsin, and in the early 1940s, they retired. Harold and Ella enjoyed watching their grandchildren play Frisbee or ride motor scooters on their park-like lawn surrounded by lilac bushes and white birches. Grandma Brown would sometimes tie a milk carton around the children’s waist so they could pick raspberries and other fruits. “I was particularly guided by my grandparents,” Nancy writes. “They modeled love and grace and taught me that God’s faithfulness is great.” Nancy’s grandparents didn’t just talk the talk; they waked the walk. On Nancy’s 35th birthday, I commissioned a Door County artist Kari Anderson to paint her grandparents house, a watercolor painting of the two story frame house that is in our dining room today. I wanted it to be a surprise, so we drove the back roads of Door County to the studio. Concerned that the surprise might not be quite what she wanted, Nancy asked, “You didn’t get me a horse?”

THE BROWN FAMILY

NAME BORN MARRIED DIED Harold Hans Brown 3/21/1892 Ella Irene Kure 1915 4/30/1981 Ella Kure 7/3/1893 Harold Brown 1974 Harold Elsworth 9/1916 Avis Carolyn Berquist 200? Child: 11/1938 Linda (Discher) Pearl Marie 10/5/1918 Earl Berquist (cousin to Avis) 200? Children: 1941 Sandy (Karnatz) 1944 Warren Donald 1946 Karen (Samuelson) Evelyn Louise 1922 John Gazley 199? Children: 4/16/1954 Ronald Hart 8/20/1958 Rick Harold Shirley 6/17/1923 Kenneth Swift 4/15/1999 Joyce Audry 4/18/1935 John Coughlin Children: 7/7/1958 Nancy (Wik) 6/19/1960 Kathy (Kehoe) 11/18/1966 Kristin (O’Shea) 12/10/1968 Kara

From Joyce, Nancy inherited her Baptist faith, exemplary cooking skills, sensitivity towards others, and love for children. Joyce and I are both half-Swedish in our ancestry, and perhaps our little club helps moderate the unrelenting veneration of all things Irish in that part of Chicago.

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 24

John Coughlin

John Edward William was born in 1934, the son of a Chicago policeman John James Joseph (1909-1975) and the grandson of John Coughlin, who died in the 1940s and was the sheriff in Freeport, Illinois. John won seven department commendations, two department credible mentions, 21 honorable mentions, and was promoted from probationary patrolman to patrolman first class by an act of the city council for successfully apprehending and prosecuting a serial rapist. He was a detective, sergeant of police (during the 1968 Chicago Democratic convention riots), and, from 1986 through 1990, a lieutenant of police. After his retirement in 1990, John was a potentate of the Chicago Medinah Temple with 10,500 active members. He earned one million dollars for the temple budget and prepared the $20 million budget proposal as a member of the Board of Governors of the Shriners’ Hospital for Children. Nancy was born at 5:20 p.m., July 7th, 1958, at Augustana Hospital in Chicago, nine pounds four ounces and 21 inches. John wrote to his wife on a card, “To the most wonderful wife and beautiful daughter. With all my love, Daddy.” “As a child, I was always proud to say that my Dad was a policeman,” Nancy said at the service. Because of his work schedule, he could attend many of their school functions. John loved Chicago sports, and passed on that love to our boys. (One of Zachary’s proudest possessions is a Note Dame football that “Papa” gave him.) He also loved restaurants. “Even as little girls, our Dad always took us to the nicest places to eat. John liked music and singing, and, as Nancy noted, “the ‘Notre Dame Fight Song’ was a lullaby to me and my sisters.” “In April, we went to Chicago to spend Easter with Nancy’s family,” we write in our 2003 Christmas letter. “It was during this visit that we first learned that Nancy’s Dad John Coughlin was sick. Four days after returning to Scottsdale, we found out that her Dad had taken a turn for the worse. Over the phone, Nancy told John that she loved him and was proud to be his daughter. Nancy made plans to return to Chicago, but he succumbed to colon cancer at the age of 68 the day before she arrived.” An American flag draped John’s wooden casket to salute his service as an army infantryman. John rested under a gold Irish cross and a drawer with school pictures of our children. At the funeral, Nancy spoke fondly of her love for her Dad. “On July 6th, 1958, John Coughlin turned 24 years,” she said. “On July 7th, 1958, I was born.” From that day to this, he has been loved and respected by me.” John was buried in Acacia Park Cemetery in Chicago.

THE COUGHLIN FAMILY

NAME BORN MARRIED DIED John Coughlin 7/6/1934 Joyce Brown 9/14/1957 4/30/2003 Susan Uding 1980 Joyce Brown 4/8/1935 John Coughlin Nancy (Coughlin) 7/7/1958 Philip Wik 4/10/93 Wik Children: 2/9/1994 Zachary Jonathan Logan 8/3/1996 Benjamin Coughlin Philip Kathy (Coughlin) 6/19/1960 9/30/89 to Matt Kehoe Kehoe Children: 9/28/1991 Melissa 6/3/1993 Emily Kristin (Coughlin) 11/18/66 12/16/95 to John O’Shea O’Shea Children: 8/10/1999 Grace Elizabeth

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 25

1/15/2002 Patrick James 1/15/2002 Liam Thomas 1/15/2002 Ryan Christopher Kara Coughlin 12/10/68

Marriage

I started to attend Willow Creek Community Church in 1985. This church, located in South Barrington about a half-hour away, had at the time about 5,000 attending each week. This attendance would increase to about 15,000 by the time we left for Scottsdale. This church was Bible-based with an active young people’s group, so it was to my liking. There were more than 1,000 people in Focus, the above 30 year olds. It was broken down into smaller teams. One such team was called Badlands. We would deepen friendships by going bowling, camping, or sitting together at the Wednesday night New Community services. A typical outing was a rafting trip we took on Memorial Day, 1991, to the Wolf River in northern Wisconsin. “About 15 of us were at the camp, about 300 miles to the north,” I wrote to Mom and Dad. “We carpooled up, and arrived at three in the morning because we got lost. The camp was heavily wooded, with the barest of amenities. I spent a surprisingly good night sleeping in a puddle of water. The next day, most of us rafted down the Wolf River. The sun was out for the most part, but the river was swollen from the previous night’s rain. The rapids were quite treacherous, and it took no small effort to avoid hitting submerged tree stumps and boulders. Sometimes, the water dropped or rose a dozen feet in a churning, boiling spray. The trip down the river was about 12 miles and took several hours. The next day we struck camp. Before leaving, we hiked about a dozen miles through the tick- infested woods.” In the same month, I met Nancy at a roller skating event, and then lived happily ever after. Nancy grew up in Chicago, and worked in several day care centers. I wrote to Mom and Dad that she is “extremely personable and cheery and is also a wonderful cook.“ Nancy eventually started her own child-care business from her Wheeling townhouse, and then was a nanny to wealthy families who lived on Chicago’s affluent North Shore. We first met at a roller skating and pizza party. On February 2, 1992, Nancy agreed to go to a Sunday buffet at the Barn of Barrington restaurant in South Barrington. As we went out together on other activities—movies and museums, and long walks through the forest preserves and along the beaches of Lake Michigan—we found that we had a lot in common, enough so to ignite the spark of romance. Nancy’s mother’s family were Swedish Baptists. They spent many happy summers in Door County, Wisconsin. I fell in love with Nancy’s beauty and vivacious personality, and was impressed by the fact that she loved children and was doing well in her own business. On April 4, I told Nancy that “I think I’m falling in love with you.” And, on June 6, at Schulien’s Restaurant in Chicago where a magician made the diamond ring materialize in a magic trick, Nancy said “yes! yes! yes!” to my proposal of marriage. We later went “up the tower” at Wheaton College’s Blanchard Tower. We pulled the rope that rang the bell and added our names to the graffiti on the wall. On a clear spring day on April 10, 1993, on the day before Easter Sunday, Pastor John Wendel married us at Forest Glen Baptist Church at Foster and Elston Avenue. (Nancy’s grandparents Harold and Ella Brown were charter members of the church that was founded in 1943.) Both families were well represented in the wedding parties, with Nancy’s Dad walking with her down the aisle and my Dad making some remarks. The service ended with the congregation singing “Blest Be The Ties That Bind”, a hymn with elegiac resonance that has marked through the years the sorrow of separation:

When we asunder part,

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 26

It gives us inward pain, But we shall still be joined in heart, And hope to meet again.

As we left the church for the reception at Fountain Blue Restaurant in a black 1941 Buick, hundreds of black and white balloons filled the sky. Since we got married, we try to capture the highlights of the year into our annual Christmas letter. Here are excepts from our letters that will bring us up to date. It italics are additional events that were not included in our Christmas letter.

1993

In April, we were married at Forest Glen Church in Chicago. We had a wonderful honeymoon in Florida, and on a cruise through the Caribbean on the SS Norway. In June, we were thrilled to find out that we were going to be parents in February, 1994. Nancy and our baby-to-be are both doing well. Philip continues to work at First Card. Nancy still enjoys caring for children as a day care provider. Rex, our Persian cat, is playful and cherished. We enjoyed our two trips to Door County, Wisconsin, where Nancy has memories going back to her childhood, and one trip to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where Philip grew up and his parents, brother, and sister and family live. We attend Willow Creek Church regularly and visit Forest Glen Church monthly. Our marriage at on April 10th was the culmination of months of planning. We had two entrees—London Broil at thirty-two dollars a plate and Chicken Kiev at $30.50. It was the most expensive meal I never ate. We were too busy visiting the other guests. Joyce, my sister-in-law, sang a solo “Heirlooms” at the wedding. Dad also said some appropriate words at the wedding as well. We had a wonderful trip on the S/S Norway—what once used to be the S/S France. I especially enjoyed snorkeling in Bermuda. Captain Gier Lokoen presented us with a certificate celebrating out honeymoon “at sea in the Viking tradition.” I think that referred to a bottle of wine they gave us. After we returned to Miami, we enjoyed Wolfi Cohen’s Rascal House as well as Universal Studios, and the light show at Epcot. Several months after returning from our honeymoon, Nancy found that she was pregnant to our mutual joy. “We were delighted to hear of your family news concerning “Baby Roo,” Mom wrote in a card on June 12, 1993. “Since then, we have been remembering the “little one” in prayer and trust that all will be well.”

1994

As the Thanksgiving holiday passes and we look forward to Christmas, it’s a good time to reflect on our many blessings. First and foremost, we welcomed the arrival of our dear son, Zachary Jonathan Logan, on February 9. He weighed in at just over six pounds, but now tips the scale at more than 22 pounds. Zachary is a healthy, curious baby with sparkling, brown eyes and an enthusiastic smile. He has brought so much happiness into our lives. This has been a relational year. In June, we attended the Wik reunion in Phoenix and then went on to California where we drove up the coast from LA to San Francisco. In September, Nancy took the baby to meet his cousins David and Jennifer Birch in Pennsylvania and enjoyed visiting Grandpa and Grandma Wik.

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 27

For both sides of our family, Door County, Wisconsin is a special place of fond memories. In May, Zachary and Nancy and her sisters Kristin and Kara spent an enjoyable week in Sister Bay. In October, we enjoyed the fall colors in Door County with Philip’s cousins. Philip still works at First Chicago. Nancy with Zachary enjoys caring for a five-year-old twice each week about an hour away. This is great for Zachary because he likes playing with other children. “This past year has been so different for you,” Mom wrote to me on my birthday. “ We thank the Lord for Nancy and baby Zachary who are now present to enlarge your horizons, enrich your life, and give you cheer along the way.” The baby announcement card had a drawing of a big cat holding a baby cat and read: “I’M A BOY! I don’t know what that means—but that way my folks are carrying on, it must be something special!” In their Christmas card that year, Mom and Dad wrote that “Our lives have been enriched by the arrival of two grandchildren this year. Zachary Wik was born February 9th to our second son Philip and Nancy. We attended Zachary’s dedication on April 16 at Forest Glen Baptist Church in Chicago where Philip and Nancy were married. We rejoiced with Wayne and our daughter Anne on the safe arrival of Jennifer on March 20th.” 1994 was our first introduction to Phoenix. Paul and Joyce hosted the Wik Family Reunion in Tempe with about 50 relatives. We enjoyed the shops, entertaining, and dining at Arizona Center, close to where I got my first job at Arizona Public Service, the electrical utility. We stayed at Fiesta Inn, a Frank Lloyd Wright inspired resort on 33 areas in the heart of Phoenix. “In October, we spent a warm golden weekend in Door County, Wisconsin for the annual Anderson family reunion, with all 37 of us present,” the Nelsons write in their Christmas letter. Dominating the national headlines was the OJ trial, and that may very well have been one of Zachary’s earliest words.

1995

The Lord has given us another year filled with blessings. The greatest of these has been seeing life through the eyes of our 22 month old son, Zachary. He approaches everything he does with enthusiasm and joy. Zachary’s favorite toys are cars, building blocks, and anything that has to do with Barney the dinosaur. He also enjoys activities outside the house. Besides a weekly “Mom and Tots” group, we’ve had fun at the zoo, library, swimming pool, and circus. Zachary is also crazy about his dad. “Da-dee” was his first word and still is his favorite word. Our relational experiences this year have been many. In April, we celebrated “Gramma” Coughlin’s birthday in Door County with Nancy’s family. Nancy and Philip continued on to Lake Geneva to celebrate our second wedding anniversary. In June, we visited Baltimore, the White House in Washington, D.C., and Grandpa and Grandma Wik in Pennsylvania. In August, we enjoyed roasted corn and bratwurst at the Wisconsin State Fair in Milwaukee. In October, we again returned to Door County to enjoy the autumn colors with Nancy’s family and Philip’s cousins. We’re looking forward to what certainly will be the highlight of the year—the marriage of Nancy’s sister Kristin to John O’Shea on December 16 at Forest Glen Church in Chicago. “I spent most of Saturday in Northbrook about an hour away on disaster recovery,” I wrote to my parents in March, 1995. “I would like to transfer to another group that doesn’t have as much family disruptions. Zachary is in the 75th percentile in both height and weight and now weighs more than 25 pounds. He is very active and is getting better sleeping through the night and sitting in a car. To celebrate our wedding anniversary, Nancy and I are planning a trip to Door County

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 28

and Lake Geneva.” We visited the Fontana Spa at the Abbey on Lake Geneva. While we prattled about our pleasant time while cruising through Lake Geneva, a policeman pulled us over and gave us a ticket. In June, we visited Mom and Dad in Pennsylvania and also saw Washington, DC. Mom and Dad wrote to Reyn and Helen that “we were impressed with all the energy and go in Zachary who was one year old.”

1996

Christmas for the Wiks this year came early with the arrival of Benjamin on August 3. Our dear son arrived in good health ten days ahead of time, weighing 8 lbs. 11 oz. Benjamin is a happy, sweet-natured baby with sparkling, blue eyes. Today, he weighs almost fifteen pounds and is starting to roll over. Zachary at 2 ½ is a boy on the go, endlessly curious and energetic. He can recite all the letters of the alphabet and really enjoys picture books. Zachary also likes parks, zoos, and his friends at church. Our boys are the delight of our life. We have been involved in helping to launch a new church, Springbrook Community Church. About 200 people meet in the elementary school that our children will someday attend. Nancy enjoys baking brownies to welcome guests, and is also involved in the children’s ministry. Philip also helps out where needs arise. We feel blessed to have made so many good friends. In April, we joined Philip’s Mom and sister and her family at Disney World. There was much to see at Epcot, MGM, and Universal Studios. In August, Mom flew in to meet her newest grandson. Mom and Dad came in two months later for Benjamin’s dedication. In October, we drove to Door County, Wisconsin to enjoy the Autumn colors, a quilt of crimson and gold. Zachary enjoyed playing with his Hultgren and Anderson cousins. We had a festive Thanksgiving with Nancy’s family. There’s so much for which we are thankful. We were so happy to welcome our dear boy Ben into our home in August. After enjoying a jumbo shrimp dinner at Floyds Restaurant, Benjamin decided to make his appearance—about ten days early. In 1996, we were one of the fifteen founding couples that helped launch Scottsdale Community Church. Towards the end of the year, about 170 people were attending the morning service each week. In 2005, Springbrook was making plans to open a $4.5 million church in Algonquin. On May 11, Uncle Ivar Anderson died. I had many good memories visiting Uncle Ivar and Aunt Elvera at their home in Gages Lake, and the later on at The Holmstad in Batavia. I remember him as a caring, gentle, well-read and well- spoken man with a love for others and a love for God. The bulletin at his funeral quoted Romans 8:38-39: “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is Christ Jesus our Lord.” I had my 15th year anniversary working at the First National Bank of Chicago. In June, my parents drove to Rapid City, South Dakota, for the family reunion, with about 100 relatives and friends in attendance.

1997

WHAT A YEAR! In February, we celebrated Zachary’s third birthday at an indoor water park at the Wisconsin Dells. In March, Nancy’s Dad had successful bypass heart surgery.

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 29

And after what seemed like a very long winter, we looked forward to our April vacation out west. We enjoyed San Diego’s Sea World and beaches. But Arizona, with its natural beauty, blue skies, and mild winters, was a place we wanted to call home. After considering several career opportunities in the Phoenix area, Philip accepted a consulting position with Interim Technology. Philip looks forward to using his 17 years of computer experience from the First National Bank of Chicago. In June, we put our house on the market. In July, Nancy flew to Phoenix for a long weekend. After looking at more than twenty houses, we found a house in Scottsdale that was right for all of us with its large rooms, citrus trees, and swimming pool. In August, we celebrated Benjamin’s first birthday at Chuck E. Cheese, a favorite place for both of our boys. Although we weren’t able to go to Door County’s October festival, we had a wonderful time with Aunt Elvera, the Hultgrens, and the Nelsons at Chip and Tami’s new home. Before we left for Arizona in September, Philip and Benjamin spent a few days in Philadelphia with Philip’s family. The boys have adapted well to the move. Zach wakes up each morning asking if it’s Sunday. He loves Sunday school at Scottsdale Bible Church. Benjamin can walk and run, and enjoys exploring the many parks and fun places with Zachary. It’s great to have Philip’s brother Paul and family (Joyce, Peter, and Rebekah) about thirty minutes away. In January 1997, I broached the idea of positioning ourselves for retirement by moving to a warmer clime. “Don’t say it if you don’t mean it!” was Nancy’s response. We thought about San Diego, having enjoyed some vacations in that area as well as the mild weather. But on all other categories that we considered important, Phoenix won. Several factors meshed to shape our decision to move from Chicago to Arizona. We enjoyed the beauty and wildlife of 313 Pheasant Trail and the vitality of Chicago, with its sports, museums, and restaurants. But we began to question whether the schools in Lake in the Hills could provide the best environment for our children. Nancy was feeling estranged from the neighbors and some of her family. We had also experienced brutal winters, that brought with it sickness and car accidents. We had talked about retiring to the southwest. But it became clear to us that it was better to move now when the children were small and didn’t have many friends. Finally, I had worked for the bank for 17 years. The transition of computers from the mainframe to the client/server paradigm could make me a dinosaur unless I reinvented. Thus, there were many reasons to move, and so we did. Ben and I visited Mom and Dad in September. In their Christmas letter, my parents wrote that “Benjamin at that time was just beginning to walk and was full of energy.” In Pennsylvania, Dad was anxious to show me Whitemarch Memorial Park near Ambler north of Philadelphia, where they had bought their grave sites. It was a place of natural beauty and serenity with mature trees and ponds. At one point, a red fox trotted past us over the green meadow. We spent the remaining months getting acclimated to the area and also buying furniture. But we did have time to go to some neighborhood potlucks and walk the Arizona Trail at the Phoenix Zoo.

1998

After our Thanksgiving feast with Philip’s family, we wrote on pieces of paper some of the things for which we are thankful. Nancy passed around a “thankful” jar that she had made at her Making Our Mothering Significant (MOMS) group from

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 30

Scottsdale Bible Church. As we read each comment from the jar, it brought to mind the blessings from this last year. We are thankful for our family. Ben, age two, is an active boy who loves playing with crayons and toy cards. Zach, age four, looks forward to his Play and Learning School (PALS) that he attends three days a week. He also loves his “Dalmatians” Sunday School class at Scottsdale Bible Church. They’re both at a great age. But what age isn’t great? Besides her many home responsibilities, Nancy is active in a book club and women’s ministries at church. Philip consults for American Express. In March, we said good bye to Rex, our beloved Persian cat, who died at the age of 17. We cherish his memory. We are thankful for our extended family. In April and October, Nancy’s father John spent a few days with us. We enjoyed seeing the red rocks of Sedona together. Zach was proud to watch Papa share about being a policeman at school. In June, the family enjoyed the Wik family reunion at Pleasanton, California, where we realized how much familiar and new faces mean to us. In November, Philip’s parents spent Thanksgiving week with their two Arizona sons and families. In July, Nancy took the boys on a ten-day vacation to Chicago. They liked meeting with family and friends from church. In August, Nancy flew out again to Chicago for a shorter but equally memorable visit. We are thankful for fun. A highlight of this year was our trip to California, where we attended not only the family reunion, but also walked along Pier 39 in San Francisco, watched the boys play in the surf of the Pacific Ocean, and enjoyed Farmer’s Market, LA. Zach and Ben loved seeing their favorite characters at Disney Land, Anaheim. In Scottsdale, we enjoy biking and hiking amid the beauty of the many parks and greenbelts that surround us. The boys enjoyed The Happiest Place on Earth. Zach, at age four, went to pre-school—Play and Learn School. A teacher asked us with some astonishment, “Do you know that Zachary can read?” We enjoyed spending more time with my brother Paul and his family. Paul’s son Tim married Holly. Peter, at 16, enjoyed his ’91 Dodge Shadow. Rebekah sang in the Phoenix Girl’s Choir Tour Choir. Joyce helped out at Out of Africa, a local wild cat preserve. We were sad to hear of the accidental drowning of the Anderson’s nine year- old great grandson Jake Anderson in August. We knew him and his parents Kurt and Barb from the annual Door County reunion, and he always seemed to me to be caring, energetic, understanding, and gentle. “The committal service was in a place as close as possible to the spot where Jake drowned,” Aunt Elvera wrote. “Relatives and close friends followed through the woods and up and over the high embankment. Kurt has made a five-half foot cross on which he had painted the date of Jake’s birth and date of death on the cross bar and then the words “We love you” on the straight part. Little Karli sent a message to Jake. She had a big helium-filled balloon with the words “I love you.” She let it go and we watched it go high into the heavens and it sailed away as far as the eye could see. Kurt put a small boat in the water that was filled with some of Jake’s favorite things and we watched it sail down stream. The Kurt, brushing away his tears, turned toward us and said, “I want to say something that I know for sure”, and pointed heavenward. “I know here Jake is.”

1999

The orange and the palm trees sway,

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 31

There’s never been such a day, But it’s December the 24th, And I’m dreaming to be up north.

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas Just like the ones I used to know, Where to treetops glisten and the children listen, To hear sleigh bells in the snow.

It’s hard to believe that we’re going into our third year here in the sunshine of Scottsdale. We love it! But warm memories of you “where the treetops glisten” lingers in our hearts. We love you and miss you. 1999 has been a year of growth and grace. Ben at three brings joys to whomever he meets. He amazes his teachers and classmates in his Play and Learning School (PALS) with his love for letters and numbers. In January, Ben enjoyed his first roller coaster ride with Aunt Kara, Zach, and Nancy at Knotts Berry Farm in California. Zach, now five, runs to see what new things Mrs. Anderson will teach him and his friends at Cochise kindergarten. He loves reading, animals (“all of them”), and getting and sending e-mails. Philip and Zachary spent a few days in Philadelphia with Philip’s family in August, where Zachary enjoyed the Philadelphia Zoo with its many interesting and exotic birds and animals. Nancy treasures her involvement in Zach’s class, the PTA, and Sunday school at Scottsdale Bible Church. On August 10th, she was thrilled to be with her sister Kristin for the birth of Grace Elizabeth O’Shea in Chicago. In November, it was fun to have “Gracie”, Kristin, and John for a visit. Philip, a systems developer for Wells Fargo Bank, likes researching family history in his spare time. We’ve seen illness, unemployment, and the loss of loved ones. Yet, despite the challenges of this year, we’ve felt God’s grace. And so, knowing that the future is as bright as His promises, we’ll greet the new century with confidence.

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas With every Christmas card I write May your days be merry and bright And may all your Christmases be white!

In our first full year in Arizona, we enjoyed the pleasures of desert living. Paul, my brother, and Joyce put their home at 2331 East Tahitian Way in Gilbert up for sale and move back to Pennsylvania. They loved their home with the hand painted mural on the swimming pool war, gazebo, pool, and oak stairway. But jobs for semiconductor control engineers dried up and Paul had to look for work elsewhere. He started work in CFM Technologies as a senior product engineer, in Exton. I went through three jobs in this year of transition. I started work at Wells Fargo after totaling my car in their parking lot. The kids enjoyed the Sugar Bowl in downtown Scottsdale and I enjoyed the art museum in downtown Phoenix. The highlight of the year for the children was probably visiting Knottsberry Farm in California. In April, Mom flew to Australia to visit friends and family in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. Here is a prose poem Dad wrote of this occasion:

Hey Dad, where is Mom today? Well, son, listen well and I will tell you. Your Mom, like a dove, has taken flight. And where did she fly? dear Dad, please tell.

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 32

It was to the land of her birth, my son. It is a land far far away Where our night is day and day is night. But Dad—will she come back again? Ah, yes, the news is good, my son. And when, I pray, will she return? In God’s appointed time, my son. And then, dear Dad, will all be just the same? Not quite, my son, for then you see We shall all be just a little bit older, A little bit wiser and we trust A little more like Jesus. So, in balance, my son The flight of my dove To a land far away We will reckon as gain—not loss.

2000

This land is your land This land is my land From California To the New York islands To the redwood forests To the Gulf Stream waters This land was made for your and me.

In July, we attended our family reunion in Baltimore. Our son Zachary, age six, sang Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” to an audience of relatives from around the country. It brought to mind the blessings of living in this beautiful country.

I’ve roamed and rambled And I followed my footsteps To the sparkling sands of Her diamond deserts And all around me A voice was sounding This land was made for you and me.

And it’s in the “diamond deserts” of Arizona that we again recall with fondness this last year. This has been a year of new beginnings. After three years of consulting, Philip joined Wells Fargo as a Systems Engineer. Nancy also started work as a Noon Aide at Cochise Elementary School. When Zachary heard that Nancy would be working at his school, he said “Mom, that’s great!. And the good news is, now you get to wear a whistle!” Nancy especially appreciates the deep friendships that she has developed within our neighborhood. Zach started first grade. Mrs. Kennedy is his new “best teacher I’ve ever had!” Zach is also doing well in Awana at Scottsdale Bible Church, and in karate, where he has gotten his third belt, an orange-white belt.

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 33

Benjamin, age four, started school, a pre-k program that he attends five days a week at Cochise. Ben’s favorite hobby is writing e-mails on the family computer. Both our boys are avid readers. They love taking turns reading bedtime stories to us. This has also been a year of adventure “from California to the New York islands.” In June, Nancy took our boys to Carlsbad, California, where they enjoyed playing at Legoland and seeing Shamu and the shows at SeaWorld. After our family reunion in Baltimore, we enjoyed a week in the Poconos of Pennsylvania. Among our highlights was a trip we took to Manhattan, where we climbed the Empire State Building. Zach was excited to be the first to see the Statue of Liberty. Ben liked riding the subways. In August, Nancy and Zach celebrated Gracie O’Shea’s first birthday in Chicago. One month later, Nancy flew back to Chicago to celebrate her friend Dana Thielman’s marriage to Matt Wolze. In November, Philip went to Philadelphia to spend a few days with his parents. It was good to see his brothers and sister and their families who live in the area. It has been fun to have family visit us through the year. We’re thrilled to have watched Gracie go from a tiny baby to a fun-loving toddler during our many visits. May the joy and beauty of Christmas be yours as we remember that “this land was made for you and me.” In January, Paul and Joyce and family moved into their home in Pennsylvania. “During the first three weeks, we experienced six snowstorms,” Joyce writes. “Due to the impassability of our driveway, it took the moving men, assisted by Paul and Peter, fourteen hours to move our belongings into the house.” “I love you Dad,” Zach wrote to me on my birthday in March. “I love you for 10,000 years.” “The years do rush by, but in a very methodical way,” my parents wrote to me on the same day. “We will be thinking of you on your birthday and thankful too to God for his ongoing goodness to you and yours down through the years.” Anne and Wayne Birch did an expert job in organizing the Wik reunion in Baltimore in July. On Friday, we had a buffet at Snyder’s Willow Grove Inn, on Saturday we visited the Inner Harbor and later had a program, and on Sunday we had a devotional service at the Marriott. For Saturday’s program I put together a “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” game using questions of Wik history. Here are some of my questions, with the answer highlighted:

Several stories came out of N.P.’s trip to America. Which story didn’t occur?

a. The lambskin vest story b. The pie story c. The whale story d. The volcano story

The N.O. Wik kids had their share of adventures. What didn’t they do?

a. Dress up a pig b. Get tattoos c. Try to turn hens into capons d. Have jalopy car races

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 34

In New York City, we made it to the 86th floor and were rewarded with 25 mile views of the island and New Jersey. In the background of a photograph of our family on the top of the Empire State Building were the World Trade Towers. Who would have guessed that only a year later, they would be no more? We stopped by the George Washington Hotel, now a college dorm, where I had stayed twenty years earlier. We finished the day with a sandwich at Stage Deli. “My impressions of the Big Apple after a twenty year absence?” I wrote in an e-mail to a friend. “Endlessly fascinating, noisy, vibrant, smelly, exhilarating, dirty, and crowded—much like I remember. The PR that NYC has turned around is hype. Times Square has a touch of rouge and certain areas of the city such as Fulton Street and Grand Central are without question much improved. But, if anything, the area around the Empire State Building and the Gramercy Park area is much as I remember it, which is without much fondness. I saw signs of insect infestations and read that there were fifty million—yes, million!—rates in that city of about eight millions people. One wonders about the distribution of wealth in which billion dollar skyscrapers sit amid the homeless and the rubbish on warrens of rat nests. I should mention, however, that the people and the police we met were unfailingly kind and helpful.” Ben started pre-school. “Ben is a delightful student and s progressing beautifully in the Best Pals Pre-K class,” the teacher wrote. Teachers also appreciated Zach’s enthusiasm for first grade. In November, Dad, Tim, and I went to Abington to watch George W. Bush give a speech in front of the Keswick Theatre in Abington. We all stayed up on New Year’s Eve to watch 200,000 people celebrate the new millennium in Tempe on television. Each one of us wrote a wish for the coming year. Ben drew some of his favorite letters. Zach said: “I love Mom and Dad and Benj.” Mom wrote: “I wish for health, happiness, and more patience for and towards my family, so we may enjoy vacations, day to day experiences, and especially time spent with each other.” My wish was that “my boys will always love God, us, and learning, and that my boys and Nancy will always be happy, content, curious, healthy, and safe.”

The Note on the Sugar Bowl

In my fishing expedition to the family, among the questions that I asked was what I call my “sugar bowl question.” If you had to write a note—one note—and leave it propped against the sugar bowl on your kitchen table for future generations to read, what would you say in the note?

Dad wrote:

Press the battle. Follow the Lamb. Run with faith with patience the race that God has set for you. Keep looking to Jesus who has saved you and called you. Finish the earthly course with joy, In God’s appointed time and way, Having finished the work God sent you to do.

Mom wrote:

It is wonderful to KNOW Him. There is no disappointment with Jesus as Lord of our life. I LOVE YOU!

Aunt Viola Bossman wrote:

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 35

Life has been good. I hope yours will always be.

Eloise Nelson wrote:

Become involved. The more activities you participate in, sacred and secular, the richer your life will be and the more opportunities you will have to share your Christian faith.

Aunt Grace Wik wrote:

We have all been blessed by having a Christian heritage—one that is real and lasting as the generations go on.

Joyce Wik wrote:

I once saw a marquee that read, “A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are for.” Live fully the abundant life God has given you. Make wise choices, but never allow caution to keep you from the high seas.”

Anne Wik Birch wrote:

If I were to leave a single note to my ancestors, it would be a poem from Aunt Joyce:

He chose this path for thee No feeble chance nor hard, relentless fate But Love. He knew the way was heard and relentless, Knew how thy heart would often sink with fear, But tenderly He whispers, “Child I see This path is best for thee.”

Here are a baker’s dozen of opinions and impressions from our family.

My Father My Mother Favorite color Green Purple Favorite month June May Favorite time of the day Morning Morning Favorite pet Dog Cat Favorite sport Track, long-jump Tennis Favorite food Wheatbread, milk Fruit--apples Favorite book of the Bible Gospel of John Gospel of John Favorite book, not in the Bible RA Toreys’s How to Work for Pilgrim’s Progress Christ Favorite hymn O, Can It Be Jesus, Lover of My Soul Favorite historical figure, not Apostle Paul, Dad’s mother King David, Mom’s mother Jesus Favorite childhood memory Winning at the track meet Going to the ocean Favorite vacation Reunion at the Grand Tetons Visits to Redland Bay Favorite verse “The Spirit Himself beareth “Trust in the Lord with all thine witness with our spirit, that we heart, and lean not unto thine are the children of God.” own understanding. In all they Romans 8:16 ways acknowledge Him, and

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 36

He shall direct thy paths.” (Proverbs 3:5-6) Nancy Philip Earliest memory Nancy, two years old, climbed When I was three, I remember into her old crib that was now seeing grey-green tin roofs occupied by her new sister from an upstairs window, at Kathy Bukit Siput Village, Malaya First car 1975 red Ford Granada, in 1973 red stick shift VW 1975 Squareback, in 1980 Favorite color Blue Green Favorite books/author Cook books; Erma Bombeck C.S. Lewis The Narnia Chronicles. My favorite publication is the Sunday New York Times. I used to like TIME before it got “dumbed down.” Favorite songs/music Baptist hymns, “Great is Thy Baptist hymns, “Blest Be The Faithfulness”; 50s and 60s Ties That Bind”; Beethoven’s classics; Elvis Presley Ninth; Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “When You Walk Through A Storm.” Best school subjects Consumer Education, Social Studies, Art Business Math Best personal traits Empathy, enthusiasm Curiosity, tenacity Most enjoyable vacations A trip to California when Trips to the beach—Port (except for our honeymoon) Nancy was ten years old; Dickson, Malaysia; Long frequent trips to Door County, Island, New Jersey; Tower Wisconsin Road Beach, Winnetka; Venice, California What do you most enjoy? “Watching my boys enjoy life.” My family. We have a rich store of endearing memories of our children. For example, Benjamin wanting a KitKat sweet from me by saying, “Please mister daddy rabbit” and Zachary calling me when he was two “wide world.” We finally figured out that wasn’t a reference to my global travels or expanding waist line, but because I would call him “the best little boy in the whole wide world bar none.” Favorite childhood memories Holidays with friends and Mom reading to us (I still have relatives; being introduced to some of these books: Tom restaurants by her Dad Swift and His Rocket Ship, Rupert* and others.); hiking with the family. *My teddy bear’s name was Rupert as well, named after the British cartoon bear with the red sweater and human hands. Favorite food All kinds of salads, with Rice and beef stew; chocolate

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 37

French and Blue Cheese milkshakes; dressings; crème brulee; Chinese food; Marmite quality buffets (English sandwich spread that most Americans find vile.) First job Drugstore cashier at Musket “Daily Intelligencer” paper boy and Henricksen Note on the sugar bowl “If you look for the positive in “Put your family first.” people, you won’t be disappointed.” Also: “Live, love, laugh,” a necklace Nancy has worn for the last twenty years that her Dad gave to her. Benjamin (age three) Zachary (age six) Earliest memory “Colors.” “Being loved by both of you.” Favorite color Green Green Favorite food Peanut butter and jelly in a Chicken fingers, hot dogs, heart shape; grapes, chips, coca cola strawberries, bananas Favorite TV show Dragon Tales (cartoon) Zaboomafoo (animal show) Favorite animal Bears and giraffes Ring-tailed lemurs Favorite Song Old MacDonalds This Land is Your Land Favorite Saturday activity Eating Going to the Arizona Science Center Favorite toy Blocks Bike; also Hot Wheel cars (I knew them as Match Box cars.) Sleep plush Butsy and Mutsy puppies Barsky and Punky bears What I want to do when I grow Doctor Zoo keeper up Favorite book ABC books Animal books Favorite school activity Crayons Math What I like most about me “That I’m happy.” “A smiley face.” (His favorite expression is an enthusiastic “Sure!”)

Tomorrow

What is our future? The best of times were the early years,” Nancy wrote in this year’s wedding anniversary card. “When it was just the two of us, our love was new and our days were filled with excitement. “The best of times are the precious present. Our kids are growing up and they fill each day with endless questions and joyful laughter. We have each other and life is good. “The best of times will be our future. Watching our boys reach their goals, growing old together, rediscovering ‘quiet’ time together, traveling together. “Spending my life with you by my side is the best of times—past, present, and future.” My interest in researching our family’s ancestry is done out of gratitude for my heritage, my relatives, and most particularly my parents. “There were no statues erected for members of my family,” writes George Lang in his autobiography Nobody Knows the Truffles I’ve Seen. “These words, carved out of admiration, affection, and sorrow should serve as such.” But shining a torch into

My Mall & News Our Story Philip G. Wik 38

the distant past also illuminates for me a greater truth. And that truth is the things that divide us from other people are petty and trivial, while the things that bind us together as humans are vast and enduring, for we are all sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. I don’t shrink from the knowledge that I may be closer to the apes than the angels, and history and experience surely confirms that man can be more beastly than the beasts. (The serial killer John Wayne Gacy killed one of Nancy’s friends Mike Bonin, a high school acquaintance Bobby Sippisich, and 31 other young men.) But I shall nevertheless assume that my ancestry is from the heavens rather than the caves, that love is not just a trick played on us by the forces of evolution, and that life is more than a grotesque and foolish dream.

My Mall & News