“To all who come I wish my home to seem a pleasant home,” is a remark which Miss Collins accredits to Nina. So indeed we found it in the months of August and September of 1877. The dear Miss Whipple had just stepped into the boat at Chicago which carried her to the farther shore. Miss Collins was mourning over her departed comrade while making out the visit to her friends. By appointment I met on the way, Gen. Charles H. Howard of the Advance, who, with his family, was bound for Fort Sully. We were prospered in our journey up the Missouri, and gladly welcomed into the mission home on Peoria bottom. The two sisters met and passed some happy weeks in the home of the younger one. Mrs. Howard thus describes that home in those August days: “Its treeless waste lay under a scorching sun. Beneath a bluff which overlooks the river lowlands, nestled a solitary green enclosure around a long, low dwelling, whose aspect was of comfort and of home. The sunshine which withered the surrounding country was not the gentle power under which had sprung up this oasis in the desert. The light within the house, whose sweet radiance beautified the humble dwelling, and shone forth upon the wilderness around, was the fair soul, whose heaven-reflected glory touched all who came within its ray.”
To the same effect is Miss Collins’ testimony: “I think no one ever entered her home without feeling that the very house was purified by her presence. I remember well just how she studied our different tastes. She knew every member of the family thoroughly; and our happiness was consulted in all things.” So we all thought. Nina presided in her own home, albeit that home was in Dakota land, with a queenly grace.
About the middle of that September our annual Conference met in their new and not yet finished chapel, on Peoria bottom. Miss Collins did not get back until the close of the meeting. Besides her guests, Mrs. Nina Riggs had a good deal of company from Fort Sully and the agency. But it was all entertained with the same quiet dignity. Of this visit to her sister, Mrs. Howard wrote afterward: “I do not know how to be grateful enough that we spent last summer (1877) together; it is a season of blessed memory.”
To this I add: I too have one last picture of Nina in my memory. I was to return to Sisseton with the Indians who had come over to our annual Conference. They went up on Monday to Cheyenne agency to get rations for the journey. On Tuesday afternoon Thomas arranged to take me out fifteen miles to meet them. Thinking they would go out and return that evening a party was made up. The two sisters, Mrs. Howard and Nina, and little Theodore and Thomas and myself in a buggy, and Gen. C. H. Howard and “Mack” on ponies, we had a pleasant ride out. But it was too late for them to return. The Dakota friends gave us of their fresh meat, and with the provisions Nina had bountifully supplied for my journey, we all made a good supper and breakfast, and had an abundance left. The next morning we separated. That was my last sight of Nina.
In midsummer of 1878, the time for her departure came. She seemed to have a premonition of its coming. Miss Collins writes: “The last summer of her precious life seemed a very fitting one for the last. She labored earnestly for the conversion of her boy, and said: ‘If I should die and leave my boy, I should feel so much better satisfied to go if he had that stronghold.’”
In the Word Carrier for September appeared this notice: “Our beloved Nina Foster Riggs, wife of Rev. T. L. Riggs of Bogue Station, near Fort Sully, has heard the Master’s call, and gone up higher. She was taken away in child-birth, on the 5th of August. Hers was a beautiful life, blossoming out into what we supposed would be a grand fruitage of blessing to the Dakotas. It is cut off suddenly! ‘Even so, Father, for so it seemeth good in thy sight.’ We are dumb, because thou didst it!”
Two days after her death, Thomas wrote: “Dear Father—Mitakosh Washta has been taken from us. My good Nina has gone. She was taken sick Saturday night. Before the light of the Sabbath, violent convulsions had set in. We got the post surgeon and Mrs. Crocker here as soon as possible; but, though every effort was made, the spasms could not be prevented, and our dear one sank gradually out of reach. Early Monday morning, after child-birth, the mother seemed to brighten a bit; but soon our gladness was turned to sadness, for she did not rally. God took her. She was his. We buried the body—the beautiful house of the more beautiful spirit—in the yard near her window, yesterday. May God help us.”