TEGELBERG, CARL

TEGELBERG, CARLSON, BROMARK, LINQUIST, LENANDER, ERICKSON, EKHOLM

Posted By: Jean Kramer (email)
Date: 7/15/2003 at 20:02:59

Biography reproduced from page 384 of Volume II of the History of Kossuth County written by Benjamin F. Reed and published in 1913:

A highly cultivated farm of two hundred acres located in section 15, Swea township, pays tribute to the agricultural skill of Carl Tegelberg, whose birth occurred in Sweden, June 22, 1859. He is a son of Carl and Johanna (Carlson) Tegelberg, who passed their entire lives in the old country, where the father, a farmer, died several years prior to the emigration of his son Carl to America. They were the parents of seven sons.

After graduating from the common schools of Sweden, Carl Tegelberg engaged in mining, continuing to follow that occupation there until 1881, when he took passage for the United States. The first seven months of his residence in this country were passed in the vicinity of St. Joseph, Missouri, where he worked in the mines. At the expiration of that period he went to Chicago, obtaining a position with Marshall Field & Company with whom he remained for two and a half years. In 1884, he came to Kossuth county and bought eighty acres of land on section 15, Swea township, which formed the nucleus of his present homestead. He worked out as a farm hand while the improvements necessary for occupancy were being made on his own place, and upon their completion he began his independent career as an agriculturist. Twenty-eight years have elapsed since Mr. Tegelberg first located on his farm and during that time he has increased his holdings until his homestead now comprises two hundred acres of fertile and well tilled land, which he has brought under high cultivation. Intelligently concentrated energy united with practical methods, systematically executed, have been the dominant factors in the success of Mr. Tegelberg, who is numbered with the representative agriculturists of the county. From his fields he annually reaps harvests, that well repay him for his many years of toil, while he is meeting with equally remunerative returns from raising stock, being one of the extensive shippers of this section of the county. He has a fine herd of Shorthorn cattle, the head of which is registered, and he makes a specialty of Jersey Red hogs.

In this township in July, 1884, Mr. Tegelberg was married to Miss Hilda Bromark, a daughter of Andrew and Anna (Linquist) Bromark, natives of Sweden. The father, who was a carpenter, emigrated to the United States with his wife and family locating in Florida, whence they subsequently removed to Chicago, where Mr. and Mrs. Tegelberg first became acquainted. Later the parents came to Kossuth county, settling on a farm just south of the Tegelberg home, in the cultivation of which Mr. Bromark actively engaged until his retirement. His latter years were spent in Swea City, where he passed away in 1904. He is survived by the mother, who now makes her home with her daughter, Mrs. C. J. Lenander, of Bancroft, Iowa. Mrs. Tegelberg, who is one in a family of three, has become the mother of eight children: Lawrence Frederick, a carpenter, residing in Kingsburg, California, who married Lillian Erickson and has one child, Henrietta Marie; Carl Raymond, who is farming in Swea township; Annetta Elizabeth, the wife of Otto E. Ekholm, a farmer of Seneca township, whose sketch appears elsewhere in this work; Phoebe Irene and Ethel Wilhelmina, who are at home; Gilbert and Emory, who are attending district school No. 5 of Swea township; and Caleb, the seventh in order of birth, who died when three months of age.

The family belongs to the Swedish Baptist church of Swea township, in the work of which the parents take an active interest, Mr. Tegelberg having for some years been a member of the board of trustees and vice moderator, while Mrs. Tegelberg is a member of the Ladies’ Aid Society. He is one of the enterprising citizens of his township, and actively cooperates in forwarding every movement that will tend to advance the interest of the agriculturists. He is a stockholder in the Cooperative Creamery at Swea City, which he helped to organize, and he also owns stock in the Farmers Elevator Company at Armstrong. His political views accord with the principles of the republican party, but in local elections he often casts an independent ballot, giving his support to such men and measures as he deems best qualified to subserve the highest interests of the community. Mr. Tegelberg fully merits the prosperity that has crowned his efforts, as it is the direct result of earnest endeavor and unremitting diligence, applied intelligently in the achievement of a definite purpose.