Herman, Soren, Ernest, and Adolph Wohlk (died March 16, 1920) were four young
Ryder, North Dakota brothers who died during a
blizzard as they made their way home from school.
[Jackson, William, ''The Best of Dakota Mysteries and Oddities, Valley Star Books, Inc.,'' 2003, , p. 110] The
three-day blizzard, which lasted from March 15 to March 18, 1920, killed 34 people across the state, including the more famous
Hazel Miner
Hazel Dulcie Miner (April 11, 1904 – March 16, 1920), a student at a rural Great Plains one-room school, died while protecting her 10-year-old brother, Emmet, and 8-year-old sister, Myrdith, from the spring blizzard of 1920 in Center, Oliver Co ...
.
Adolph, 14, Ernest, 13, Soren, 10, and Herman, 9, were the four oldest sons of Gust Wohlk, a German emigrant from
Schleswig-Holstein,
Germany. Their father was the former bodyguard to
Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg. The boys, who were the only students to attend school that day,
[Henke and Albers, p. 264] decided to drive their horses and sled the two miles home from their
one-room school. They made it to within three quarters of a mile from the farm, but had to stop when their horses could pull the sled no further. The eldest brother, Adolph, bundled up his siblings and left them to find help. His father, Gust Wohlk, found the 14-year-old's body within a quarter mile of their farm. Gust Wohlk found his three younger sons curled up together in the box of the wagon. One of the boys was dead and the two others were dying.
Notes
References
*Henke, Warren, and Albers, Everett G., ''The Legacy of North Dakota's Country Schools'', The North Dakota Humanities Council, , 1998
*Jackson, William, ''The Best of Dakota Mysteries and Oddities,'' Valley Star Books, Inc., 2003,
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wohlk brothers
1920 deaths
People from Ward County, North Dakota
American people of German descent
Year of birth missing
Natural disaster deaths in North Dakota
Deaths from hypothermia
American children
Brother quartets
Child deaths