Wilhelmine’s Tribute

(Part of the Haunting of Hebron Public Library October 2021)

Recast from my own dream,
Now you dare wake me!

Transplanted into strange lands
That harvested me unseasonably early,
And still your dreams grew.

My torrential tragedy a mere tributary
For your every joy, flowing from me
Further, I fade from August’s memory.

Your grand education useless to my unanswered question:
Do you live through me, or past me?
Tribute, or betrayal?

My bones’ dust windblown across your fields
That stretch beyond my vision,
I watch you drowning in all our promised riches.

Wilhelmine’s Tribute was part of an art installment that Atrocious Poets put together at the Hebron Public Library in October of 2021. The library is an old church building near a very old cemetery and we were given short biographies of some of the people buried there. We were tasked with writing a poem to haunt the library. Artists created word art from our poems and they were installed in the library for the week or two leading up to Halloween 2021. The biography this is inspired by is Wilhelmine Nogel Walters:

August Walters was born in Ortenberg, Germany, in 1828. “He received a good education in his country, attending school eight years continuously. When he reached manhood he resolved to come to America, and although with limited means persuaded his betrothed Wilhelmine Nogel to accompany him. They landed in New York, Sept. 30, 1849, and were married there May 8, 1850, and then came to McHenry County, Ill., and had but $3 in money but went to work with a determination to make themselves a home.” After two years, they brought Wilhelmine’s mother and brother to Hebron (from Germany). Wilhelmine died in July 1855; August “lost his young wife and companion of his home in a strange land.” Wilhelmine left behind two surviving children. (One child had died previously.) Three years later, August married Catherine Hoffman, a native of Germany. They had seven children and eventually accumulated 115 acres of farmland.

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