Ole C. Olson, 1867-1926

OLSON

Posted By: Emmet County IAGenWeb Coordinator (email)
Date: 2/28/2009 at 13:14:51

PIONEER RESIDENT DIED SUDDENLY LAST FRIDAY

Ole C. Olson Dropped Dead in His Home at Wallingford

WAS ILL BUT A FEW HOURS

Came to Emmet County Over Forty years Ago--Born in Norway--59 Years Old

Ole C. Olson, a resident of Emmet County over fifty years, dropped dead at his home in Wallingford at 12:30 Friday afternoon [Feb. 26, 1926 at the age of 58 years, 11 months, 18 days.] It was a great shock to the people of Wallingford as he had been at his place of business, the oil station, and was working there waiting on customers and said nothing about not feeling well. About 10:30 in the forenoon his son came in the station and Mr. Olson told him he would go home until after dinner. When he reached home he complained of a pain in his chest and laid down on the bed for an hour or so and then got up and sat in a chair near the stove. He ate a light dinner and Mrs. Olson took a lunch to the boy at the oil station and when she returned Mr. Olson made an effort to get up from the chair he was sitting in and fell dead to the floor. A doctor called immediately pronounced his death due to heart failure.

Mr. Olson was born at Gol, Hallingdal, Norway, on March 8, 1867, and came to this country when thirteen years of age. He came direct to Wallingford where he had relatives living. He worked on the farm for many farmers in that vicinity and proved himself a good workman. In the year 1888 he was married to Miss Tena Peterson and they settled on a farm in High Lake township. As years passed by he bought more land and continued to farm until nine years ago when the family retired from farm work and built a home in Wallingford to enjoy the latter part of their lives. He was too active to sit around and not work and later bought the Crim Oil Station at Wallingford and has since conducted it. Deceased had always been a very healthy man until the day of his death. He had made many friends during his residence in the Wallingford vicinity and a cloud of gloom hovers over this little city on account of his death. He was a good man and everybody was his friend. It was the writer's good fortune to have known him well for many years and a finer man we never knew. He was a man always in good humor, courteous and accommodating and will not only be missed by his family and relatives but by his many friends.

Left to mourn his death is a loving wife and five children, three boys, Clarence, Lloyd and Norman, and two daughters, Myrtle and Mrs. Glen Young. Two children died in infancy. He also leaves four sisters to mourn his death, Mrs. O. L. Rustad, Mrs. Edwin Osher and Mrs. O. O. Refsell, all residing in Wallingford, and Mrs. James Johnson, of Inwood, Iowa.

Funeral services were held at the church east of Wallingford at two o'clock Monday afternoon and remains interred in the cemetery near the church. Rev. T. Hansen, pastor of the Norwegian church at Wallingford, had charged of the funeral service. All to whom he was known extend their sympathy to the bereaved family.

Contributed by: Ruth Hackett. Source: a clipping from an Estherville newspaper, March 3, 1926 found in a scrapbook belonging to Mrs. John K. Johnson of High Lake Township, Emmet County.

Note: Following his mother Kari's death in Norway Ole came, at the age of 12 years, to Iowa with his father, Colburn/Kolbjorn Olsen. His father died at the age of 84 on Jan. 29, 1903 in High Lake Township and was buried in the Brugjeld (Wallingford Lutheran) Cemetery.