Fraternal Portrait: Nathaniel E. Wilson

“Furthering through perseverance”

Our brothers’ careers have been productive, constructive, spirited, and prosaic. They displayed impressive skills, talents, and abilities They were, and we continue to be, a beautiful and lively expression of our enduring fraternal beliefs, and that underlying harmony is far-reaching in expectation for all brothers’, undergraduate and graduate. It is the core of what our fraternal founders asserted in 1848 and 1874 and 1899: to live active, commendable, and responsible lives, and to build up community. Clearly and compellingly, they added, and continue to add, positive value at the local, state, national, global, and fraternal level because they engaged life fully and responsibly. In short, they were authoritative pillars throughout life. They were-are exemplary in their citizenship, character, and their sense of dutiful responsibility, and, in many instances, they were leading voices in their career fields. They prove that success of any kind does not occur by luck or accident, and we remember them because they continue to provide that message for our time. We have long been, from one generation to the next, proud to be Omega Mu Fijis. We continue to cherish our fraternal friendships, our shared memories, and our evolving, forward-focused history at the University of Maine. These things, above and beyond everything else, are the underlying rooted connections that make us proud to be Omega Mu Fijis. Why, after all, should we believe otherwise? We have been doing it well since 1874, and we will continue to do so. Perge.

Fraternal Portrait:
Nathaniel E. Wilson,
1888

Maine State College, 1888

The second Q.T.V. Chapter Hall where Nathaniel E. Wilson would have lived his senior year, 1887-1888. This picture was taken during graduation week activities in the early 1890's.

The second Q.T.V. Chapter Hall is first on the left, behind Coburn Hall and next to Holmes Hall. 

A portion of the 1891 map of the campus. #9 is Coburn Hall, #10 is the second Q.T.V. Chapter Hall, and #11 is Holmes Hall.  

His Q.T.V. Brothers

Harry Butler and Dudley E. Campbell

William J.Hancock and John W. Hatch

Charles L. Phillips and Frank A. Smith

Managing Editor of the campus paper, The Cadet.

Class Day 

Senior speeches at the 1888 Maine State College graduation.

The year after he graduated from Maine State College, Nathaniel E. Wilson spent one year as an assistant chemist at the University of Vermont Agricultural Experiment Station.

TAfter working one year in New Jersey, Nathaniel Wilson moved to Reno, Nevada, and taught at Nevada State, later the University of Nevada. Over the course of the next fifty years, Nathaniel Wilson became a beloved citizen in Reno as an educator, author, civic leader, and business owner. He was a rugged individualist who succeeded in the aforementioned fields because he believed in the dignity and worth of hard, honest work. And, from all indications, Nathaniel Wilson was a great man, a humanitarian. He was poised and authentic, and he exhibited a soundness of good judgement and a steady fidelity in all of his professional endeavors, undergirded by an inborn grace and depth of human feeling in dealing with his students, colleagues, business associates, and the citizens of Reno. And, to be honest, to do both is an accomplishment. Consequently, he had a far-reaching effect in always working for, and ultimately achieving, the greater good for the University of Nevada, the city of Reno, and his business, The N.E. Wilson Drug Company. He contributed to the welfare of so many people that he established a positive, enduring public image, acclaim even, and it was authentic. If truth be known, in my view, Nathaniel E. Wilson unswervingly lived up to our conventional fraternal wisdom, our shaping fraternal wisdom, that we always embracingly claim we believe in as Omega Mu Fijis: persistence and determination. These two words comprise the beautiful historic arc of our fraternal success at the University of Maine. They are simple, wise words, and we are unwilling to give up in believing in them. Broadly speaking, time and again, these bedrock fraternal words of courage that demand work and effort have produced outstanding accomplishments in our brotherhood, whether as undergraduate or graduate brothers. Single-mindedly, as Omega Mu Fijis, we would not have it any other way, and we are better off for it. Quite simply, we do not give up, and with faithfulness, patience, and good work we continue into our 147th fraternal year because there is no alternative, and there never will be because that is not our way. Nathaniel E. Wilson understood them, professed them, lived them, and increased them throughout his life, and he lived a long and dignified life, dying in 1961 at the age of 94. One of Saint Paul's best assertions in the New Testament encapsulates the ideal and the reality of  our Omega Mu history and the lived-life testimony of Nathaniel E. Wilson: "You are the evidence of which you speak." Below is a small portion of a newspaper article about Nathaniel E. Wilson that echoes the sentiment of Saint Paul and our enduring fraternal beliefs:

“The influence he wields point to him as an outstanding example of what a man earns when he lives his life as a trust, set up in accordance with certain definite principles from which no deviation is permitted. For though he is not rich in world goods, he is one of the world’s wealthiest men in public esteem, confidence, and reputation for honesty and integrity which no man can attack…the reputation of Wilson must be earned, and there’s only one way it can be earned, by being the kind of person he is.”

Educator at the University of Nevada

Head of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Nevada

Author

​President of the N. E. Wilson Drug Company

N. E. Wilson Drug Company bottles

His pharmacy journal

Omega Mu Brother

Our Omega Mu brothers: Nathaniel E. Wilson and John W. Hatch, 1888

“What if the space be long and wide,
That parts us from our brother’s side
A soul-joined chain unites our band,
And memory links us hand in hand.”
​(Phi Gamma Delta song)

Fraternally,
Chip Chapman, ’82
​Perge