This image is a portrait painting of Nina Farley of Wishek, North Dakota, shown in profile facing a bearded man. Nina is depicted with curled dark hair styled high, wearing a high-collared dress with a ruffled trim. The soft, muted background keeps the focus on the finely detailed facial features and period clothing, giving the artwork a timeless, classical quality.

The years between 1879 and 1886 brought a great settlement boom to northern Dakota Territory. Many were homesteaders, immigrants of Scandinavian or Germanic origin. In the area around present-day Wishek, Germans from Russia were planting roots, staking claim to land, and trying their luck with homesteading. This is how Nina Farley came to McIntosh County.

She arrived in 1887 with her family. Much was unknown about their future, about what lay ahead for them in the years following. Little did they know, young Nina Farley would become a historically significant voice, not only in McIntosh County, but across North Dakota as well.

In 1888, Nina began her career in education. When the morning bell rang at the first school in Ashley, Miss Farley was welcoming students to the classroom. She also spent time educating students in several county schools in the early days of her budding career. On December 26th, 1891, she married John H. Wishek, who, in the nearly seven years he had been in Dakota Territory, had made quite a name for himself. He played a pivotal role in the founding of the towns of Wishek and Ashley, helped bring the Soo Line Railway to McIntosh County, and was key in attracting German Russian settlers to the area. Together they had eight children.

Besides being a beloved educator, Nina Farley would become an artist, poet, and historian. Nina wrote the books Along the Trails of Yesterday: A Story of McIntosh County, and Rose Berries in Autumn. Her manuscripts paint a picture of life on the prairie and highlight the cultural significance of Germans from Russia as they settled in North Dakota. Dedicated to preserving history, Nina spent eight years as chairman of the history department in the Federated Womans’ Club and later became the director of the State Historical Society of North Dakota. She died in 1957.

Nina Farley Wishek’s love for North Dakota is shared through her writing, including the following, which was taken from her poem, “Well, I’m back in North Dakota”,

But, oh, you dusty, wind-swept prairie,
With your sun-kissed spaces flat–
Never could I, would I, change you,
For I like you, just like that.