When you head out from Bismarck, North Dakota, taking Highway 83, and pointing due north, you can readily enjoy the vastness of the Dakota Plains. Just as you are reaching the town of Wilton, taking a left on 318th Avenue Northwest, soon enough you will come onto the Riverview Memorial Cemetery.

As you begin to walk around, you will inevitably be drawn to the large obelisk situated in the midst of the many headstones that are spread out at Riverview. Many of the original immigrant families from the late 1800s to early 1900s, that farmed and lived in Burleigh County are buried at Riverview. German, Dutch and Skandi families are among the many. In the photograph below, my Great Grandparents Gerda (Miljander) & Anders Nelson, rest peacefully on the flat lands of North Dakota.

On May 30th, 1921, my Grandfather, Frank Gustaf Severin Erickson (standing 8th, to the left of the US flag) along with brother in-law Sture Albin Nelson (front row, holding the US flag) came together with other North Dakota personal of the military to commemorate the unveiling of the Riverview Obelisk.

The Riverview Memorial was dedicated to those who served in the war. Below, there is a photograph of that ceremony. In 2016 (3rd photo below), Riverview Memorial was officially added to the registry of the The World War I Memorial Inventory Project in Washington D.C. The Memorial Project honors the centennial of the Great War, by assembling an inventory of all World War I memorials and monuments in the United States and U.S. territories. The project is working in partnership with the United States World War I Centennial Commission.

Many thanks to Director Mark Levitch, for his diligent work on the Project. Much appreciation goes to him, for adding Riverview to the inventory of WW1 Memorials. In the memories of many, this will stand well for all the Dakota families, who lost their loved ones, in what was refereed to back then, as "The War to end all Wars."

Like many memorials across the states, specifically dedicated to it's local men lost in the war, Riverview is a sanctuary where one can go to honor Dakota service personal that gave their lives in France in 1917 and 1918. My Uncle Ernest Julius Erickson, Frank's older brother, is buried there along with other members of the Erickson and Nelson families. Ernest Julius was felled by a sniper's bullet on October 10th, 1918, one month before the Armistice.

My father Lt. Ernest Anders Erickson, a veteran of the 95th Bomb Group, a B-17 pilot, flew 35 missions with the 334th Squadron, out of Horham Airfield in England in 1944. He will have his ashes interned at Riverview someday.