Jacob Berven, 1866-1932
BERVEN, JACOBSON, KNUTSON, PETERSON
Posted By: Emmet County IAGenWeb Coordinator (email)
Date: 1/23/2011 at 19:20:35
Prosperity has crowned the efforts of Jacob K. Berven in the operation of his home farm on section 36, Swan Lake township, to which he has given the name of the Instenes Farm for his father's old farm in Norway. He is a native of that country, born July 7, 1866, and is a son of Knute and Christi (Jacobson) Berven, who never left the land of the midnight sun. Both have passed away but with one exception all their nine children survive them.
In the schools of Norway Jacob K. Berven obtained a good practical education and early became familiar with farm work in all its phases. Believing he would find better opportunities for advancement in the new world he came to America in 1883 and first located in Lee county, Illinois, where he worked as a farm hand for ten years. At the end of that period he went to Montana, where he spent thirteen years engaged in railroading and ranching. Since then he has made his home in Emmet county, Iowa, having purchased a farm on section 36, Swan Lake township. He has made many useful and valuable improvements upon the place, erecting good and substantial buildings and placing the land under excellent cultivation.
Mr. Berven was married in 1889 to Miss Bell Knutson, and to them were born seven children, namely: Kearney, George C., Clarence, Edmund W., Jacob A., Elmer L. and Emma C. The wife and mother died in Montana, June 10, 1903, and Mr. Berven was again married in 1906, his second union being with Miss Marie Peterson, a native of Denmark, by whom he has three children: Evelyn, Martin L. and Oscar J.
Mr. and Mrs. Berven are faithful members of the Lutheran church, and he is also identified with the Modern Woodmen of America and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, having filled all of the chairs in the local lodge of the latter organization. The republican party finds in him a stanch supporter of its principles and he served as assessor of Swan Lake township for one term. He is now a school director, having been a member of the school board for the past ten years, and he always gives his support to any enterprise calculated to promote the moral, educational or material welfare of the community in which he lives.
CC Note: Jacob Berven (died 1932) and first wife Bell (Ingeborg) are both buried in Swan Lake cemetery, Swan Lake township, Emmet county, Iowa. Marie K. Peterson (died 1982), second wife of Jacob, is buried in East Side cemetery, Estherville, Emmet county, Iowa.
Source: History of Emmet County and Dickinson County Iowa: A Record of Settlement, Organization, Progress and Achievement, The Pioneer Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois, 1917.
Interment in Swan Lake cemetery
Emmet Biographies maintained by Lynn Diemer-Mathews.
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