Barbara Bowen—Husby—Wick

My Great Aunt Barbara was born 31 March 1893 in Kodiak and died from breast cancer 15 December 1948 in Seattle, Washington.

Barbara was first married to Edward Husby, then to Arne Wick. She had no children. She always lived close to us, so was there when she was needed. Grace Hennington was living at our house after she divorced her husband and had a son Billy Joe. She contracted tuberculosis and left her son with Aunt Barbara. His grandparents later took him to raise.

I don’t know anything about Husby. Her second husband Arne Wick owned a boat the Saint George. I did a lot of baking for Aunt Barbara and Uncle Arne when I was young. When I turned 13 he decided to repay me for all the bread and cakes I baked.

I think he was rewarding me for sneaking him the cake batter bowl that auntie Barbara wouldn’t let him have. He took me to Anchorage to stay with my Aunt Sue for a month. It was my first big trip out of our village, and was quite a shock. On our trip, which took three days, we went first to Illiama to bring supplies to the small village. My Aunt Elsie came to Anchorage to visit at the same time. She would take me to town and the cars scared me as they came too fast and were too many. In my village we only had one, and I only had been on it once at a kindergarten picnic.

The Saint George sunk late one night, I believe it hit a rock. My brother Thomas was on board. He said the boat went down so fast that all he saved was one shoe. No lives were lost.

On a tape at the Kodiak library I found the following. On 28 November 1906 at the Baptist Mission School in a play, Barbara was a pilgrim and her brother Fred was a spirit of the past.

Barbara lived in a house above our log house and across from Marshall Anderson’s house. She always had chickens. I remember my brother Thomas when he found a huge egg, I think that it was a goose egg. Thomas put the egg under a hen in her hen house. She was so excited that her hen laid such a huge egg that she bragged about it for years. Barbara had a cellar that looked like an old well. It had a ladder that went way down to the bottom. She kept supplies in the cellar where they always kept cool; it must have been dug during the depression to keep food hid. It was such fun to be around my Aunt, she always was a tease and we all liked to tease her. When we walked to back way to her sister Florence’s we would scare her that there was a bear and she would start running and laughing. This was mean, but she never scolded us. One time I was sitting in the movie theater, and I had braided my curly hair. She came in and took my braids out while everyone watched. I was so embarrassed.

When my cousin Sally Hildonen, who was the granddaughter of my Great Uncle Rufas, was about ten years old, she came to live with her. She was very strict with Sally and made her do a lot of work about the house and also she taught her to sew. By that time she lived in Aunt Florence’s house when Florence went to Seattle. We stayed with her quite often. Barbara had diabetes and I remember her drinking a lot of soda pop. She would give us girl’s quart bottles of our own to drink. Uncle Arne married again, but only lived for three months after marrying. Arne came over to the US illegally as did his Uncle Oscar Wick.

Two girls in lacy dresses and a woman holding a baby on a divan.
Baby—mother—held by Barbara Bowen Wick.
Young woman wearing a blouse and skirt, older woman in a dress, and a man in shirt, tie, and suspenders. Two cars and a tree are behind them.
Elsie Johnson (Hattie’s sister), Barbara Bowen Wick (Hattie’s aunt), and Arne Wick.