Zionsbote 11 April 1900:
Our dear father
Gerhard Willms was overtaken by a stroke on March 6th in the
morning when he wanted to come to breakfast and he was outside when suddenly he
was so wonderfully taken. It was 40 feet
from his door to our door. He said he
wanted to go left, and he was irresistibly moved to the right, so that he
didn’t have his own will, and fell to the ground. It cannot have been longer than 5 or 10
minutes that he laid there, because I had looked at the thermometer glass only
a short while before; he had already been there because it was his first job
first thing in the morning when he got up.
The thermometer hangs on his house.
When little Peter, who always slept with him, came to say, “Grosspapa
[grandpa] is lying outside,” we all ran to him and because he was a healthy
[robust, heavy?] body, I could not lift him well; we brought him into the house
as good as we could. He had settled with
his hands in the snow and since was 24 degrees cold, his fingers were somewhat
frozen. When we had him in bed, he could
speak again after an hour. He could no
longer move the right side, however, which was so-to-say dead from head to
foot, just how we laid him. We had to
lift our dear father out of bed, and again lay him down throughout the entire
time that he spent this way. He could
still speak for three days, then he lost his speech entirely and so he could
only nod and turn his head. When he had
laid so for three days, we asked him whether he had a joyous hope, when he
should depart from this world. Yes, he
said, he could believe that Jesus’ blood had redeemed him. Then we sang to him several songs, especially
this one:
There shines in the distance a land,
Our eyes of faith can see it well,
And
led by the hand of Jesus,
His
people will enter there in peace.
Chorus
Soon,
yes, soon, Oh how lovely,
We
will also enter there with rejoicing.
Then he said,
“Soon, soon, I am there.” He had kept
very quiet till the end. On March 12th
at 7:30 the hour came when he could go over into the dwelling above, where the
struggle has its end, where there is no more affliction and pain. It is so, as the apostle says, “Death, where
is your sting? Grave, where is your
victory?” On Friday, March 16th,
we accompanied him on his last journey to his resting place [buried him], to
which a number of neighbors and brothers and sisters [in faith] had been
invited. The Lord gave us his blessing
there. May this serve as a report to all his children and grandchildren,
because his children live scattered; one still [lives] in Russia by the name of
Gerhard Willems, specifically in the Crimea, and one in Nebraska by the
name of Johann Willems, and others in Minnesota. The dear father Gerhard Willems
reached the age of 79 years, 4 months and 1 day. He produced 16 children, seven of whom have
already preceded him into eternity. As
much as we know, he became grandfather to over 76 children, 21 of whom have
gone before him. He became
great-grandfather to three children. He
is from the Crimea, South Russia, immigrated to America in 1875, and settled in
Minnesota and lived there until 1899. In
that year on April 18th we moved from Minnesota to Saskatchewan; in
about two weeks he followed us. He has
always been quite active and lively; only now and again he had pain in his body
[abdomen]. He lived with us almost eight
years and it always went well for us with him.
We now greatly feel the loneliness, yet we do not deny him the
rest. The condition of health is rather
good; winter still doesn’t want to lessen, in spite of the fact that spring
stands at the door. Today it is very
nice. We wish all of the brothers and
sisters and readers of the Zionsbote a heart-felt “live well”
Johann Quiring*
*Translated by Peggy
Goertzen, 13 June 2006, on behalf of Loretta Willems. Peggy is the Director of the Center for MB
Studies at Tabor College, Hillsboro, KS.
