Oconto County WIGenWeb Project
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OCONTO COUNTY
Wisconsin
FAMILIES and BIOGRAPHIES

 

Charles Theodore and Augusta Dalluge Weise/Wise

This story is contained in the book "Trial and Trumph on a Western Frontier - thrilling stories of Adventist Pioneering" by Adriel D. Chilson. Story starts on page 166:

"In the community of Couillardville, southwest of Oconto, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wise were tenant laborers on the Ritter Ranch. When Elders Bourdeau and Loughborough held a series of meetings in Oconto, the Wise family attended. Although his wife accepted, Charles was not fully decided. One night soon after retiring, Mrs. Wise had a firightening dream from which she soon awakened and told her husband. "I dreamed we were out working in the field. The sky became dark, and a strange funnel-shaped cloud appeared. Then, an angel spoke to me, 'take your family and go to a rise of ground yonder, and there you will be safe. Flee with just your family and the clothes you have on.' We did as directed and the storm became so black we could not see anything. I heard a very loud crash, then awakened, happy to find myself in my own bed." Charles told her to forget the dream and stop worrying, but it had made a deep impression, and she related it again at the breakfast table. Mr. Ritter was not a bit understanding, and remarked to Charles, "Her new religion, and now this dream. I think your wife needs to be put away." July 7, 1877 was a hot, humid Saturday. An afternoon thunderstorm was approaching from the southwest, but work went on as usual. Then, a second storm came from a more northerly angle, traveling on a collision course with the first one. Darkness signaled the cows from the pasture, so Charles began the evening chores. Mrs. Wise explained to her husband that this was the storm of her dream. He just smiled and told her to find shelter if she wished but he would continue with the milking. Her older son, William stayed behind to help. Taking with her Etta, Herman, and the baby Theodore, Mother Wise hurried to the place of refuge. She thought of a package of bright-colored cloth she had just purchased to make a dress. But no, she would not return to the house. She remembered the instructions - "flee with just your family and the clothes you have on." She looked toward the barn in time to see William picked up by the wind and carried a hundred feet in her direction. Her husband was running toward him. Soon, all reached the spot to which she had been directed in the dream, an uprooted stump surrounded by alder brush. Here they huddled and prayed. The fury of the storm snatched some of the clothing from their backs. When it passed, they returned to where the farm buildings had stood. They were totally demolished. The cow Mr. Wise had been milking was blown against the pump and killed. Mr. Ritter was found in a creek bed a mile away suffering a broken hip from which he never recovered. Mrs. Wise could not locate the package of material for her new dress, but among the possessions scattered over the yard was an earthern butter jar she had brought from Germany, now prized by her granddaughter, Hazel Niquette. "Truly your dream was sent by the Lord, and we are spared," her husband observed. Charles soon joined her in the Adventist faith and became a colporteur-evangelist. The storm from which they were saved is known in history as the Pensaukee Tornado because of the near total destruction it caused in this bayshore community."

Wise Family of Lena, Oconto County, Wisconsin c: 1920 Augusta Dalluge Wise is seated front left and her husband Charles Theodore Wise is seated front right. Second row seated left to right: Charles F. Wise,  Cereda Little Wise (Charles F.),  Mary Rydell Wise (John). Third row standing left to right: Henrietta Wise Feak,  William Wise, Emma Fenske Wise (William) Herman Wise, John Wise, Louisa Kottke Wise (Herman)

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