Newspaper Article 2006 – Stalwarts of town’s Nordic community

OBITUARY

Stalwart of town’s Nordic community

SELWYN EDGAR NIKOLAISON
1914-2006

The Scandinavian community of Hawke’s Bay has lost a respected elder with the death, in Wellington, of Selwyn Nikolaison, formerly of Dannevirke.

It is timely, too, to recap the story of Selwyn’s father, Peter Arran Olsen, who arrived at Napier from Denmark on the Fritz Reuter in 1875 and with his parents and family travelled to settle at Ormondville.

So numerous were the Olsen families that in 1904 Peter changed his name, adapting his great-grandfather’s Christian name of Niclas, adding “son”; and, for the last century, the name has been spelt Nikolaison.

Selwyn’s father married in 1878 and it was at his first farm at Matamau that two babies died of diphtheria while Peter was away bush-felling on contract. The little grave has never been located.

A move to “Willow Dell” at Norsewood followed in 1892 where enterprising Peter built a dam on Butcher’s Creek and installed a water wheel used to drive a separator and churn. He bought milk from neighbouring farmers, made butter and took it to Dannevirke to sell at 3d a pound.

He was widowed in 1907 and left with seven children from seven to 27 years of age. He married Mary Anne Pallesen in 1908 and they took over her parent’s farm at Whetukura.

Peter invented a double-disc reversible plough, patented in 1911 as the Nikolaison Plough. Many years later, son Selwyn located an old model at Taihape which is now at the Norsewood Museum.

Selwyn was born in 1914 and attended the Whetukura School (Peter had 14 children in all).

He worked on the home farm before working at the Norsewood and Ormondville Dairy factories. He moved to Dannevirke to become first assistant at the Tiratu Cheese Factory during the war. He could not enlist but right at the end of the war was conscripted.

The Nikolaisons were proud to be involved with the welcome of Queen Margrethe to Dannevirke

He married Tiratu girl Edna Peck and they settled into their York Street, Dannevirke, home for the next 65 years. A change of job had Selwyn as a carpenter at the Dannevirke Hospital for 23 years, working on many of the ward blocks now in the throes of demolition.

The St John Ambulance Brigade was an interest and he and Edna were involved in the sporting interests of son Cliff and daughter Melda, especially in roller skating where their daughter competed at national level. This period of time saw the construction of the outdoor rink at the Dannevirke Domain and later the Sports Centre was used.

The Nikolaisons were founding members of the Dannevirke Scandinavian Society in the 1980s and proud to be involved with the welcome to Queen Margrethe of Denmark to Dannevirke and the luncheon held for her in the Lower Domain. Also in the 1990s a Danish television crew interviewed and filmed Selwyn and Edna at their home as part of a documentary series covering immigrant life in New Zealand.

Retirement brought a new interest to Selwyn with the making of wooden models, the first being a Norsewood “Scandi” wagon with its unique wheel design which he remembered from childhood.

He created models of many horse-drawn vehicles and implements, complete with horses, and also a Viking ship.

Another project was the compilation of a booklet of Dannevirke street names and their origins.

With Edna concerned that much of Dannevirke’s history was being lost to demolition crews and the relocation of fine old houses, they set out to photograph much of the town, street by street, and the resultant seven albums of coloured photos are now often referred to at Dannevirke’s Gallery of History.

Mrs Nikolaison died in 2005 and Selwyn will be remembered for his love of family, his Danish ancestry, and the respect he gained in the community.