Robert Wikman came with his parents, brother, and sisters from post-Depression Chicago to a small patch of scrubby clay and woods in northern Indiana in 1933. When his father died suddenly in 1945 Bob became the patriarch and took over the farm. Over the next sixty-five years he treasured the land, knowing that he was only borrowing it from me, his son, and future generations like my own daughter.

This is the story of the land, and of our family; how both have grown and shaped each other over time, and the enormous shift in 2022 that has transformed Wikman Farms into Helios.