NIS CHRISTENSEN

CHRISTENSEN, EVENSEN, FROST, SORENSEN

Posted By: Norma Nielson (email)
Date: 5/15/2004 at 18:18:09

"Nis Christensen owns and operates an excellent farm embracing two hundred and forty acres on sections 14 and 15, Grand River township. His birth occurred in Germany on the 22d of May, 1867, his parents being Nis A. and Kathrina (Evensen) Christensen, both of whom are natives of Denmark. The father still resides in Germany, but the mother has passed away. To them were born six children, four of whom survive.

Nis Christensen acquired a common-school education in his youth and when seventeen years of age set sail for the United States, desiring to test the truth of the many favorable reports which had reached him concerning the opportunities and advantages of this country. After landing on American shores he made his way to Council Bluffs, Pottawatamie county, Iowa, and began working as a farm hand, being thus employed for three years. Subsequently he cultivated a rented farm in Audubon county, this state, for several years and then purchased eighty acres of land in Cass county, operating the place for four years. On the expiration of that period he disposed of the property and purchased his present home farm of two hundred and forty acres on sections 14 and 15, Grand River township, Adair county, where he has carried on agricultural pursuits continuously to date. He has made a number of sustantial improvements on the place and in connection with the production of cereals makes a specialty of raising and feeding hogs, both branches of his business proving profitable. In its neat and thrifty appearance the farm indicates the supervision of a practical and progressive owner, and the well tilled fields annually yield golden harvests.

Mr. Christensen has been married twice. In 1890 he wedded Miss Louise Frost, by whom he had ten children, namely: George A.; Theodore; Clarence E.; Dora, who is deceased; Hans H.; Harry W.; William; Walter; Julius; and one who died in infancy. The wife and mother passed away in 1907 and two years later Mr. Christensen again married, his second union being with Mrs. Christina Sorensen, who is a native of Denmark and emigrated to the United States in 1908. By her first husband she had two daughters, Christa and Esther.

Politically Mr. Christensen is a stanch republican and he has ably served as school director for two years. Fraternally he is identified with the Modern Woodmen of American, while his religious faith is indicated by his membership in the Lutheran church, to which his wife also belongs. The hope that led him to leave the old world and seek a home in the new has been more than realized, for here he found the opportunities which he sought and by dint of untiring industry and energy has won a place among the prosperous and respresentative citizens of his community."

Source: The "History of Adair County Iowa and its People," Volume II. (Chicago, The Pioneer Publishing Company) 1915.