Hans J. Wulfsburg (ca. 1827-1907)

WULFSBURG, HANSON

Posted By: Dorian Myhre (email)
Date: 5/5/2017 at 21:27:54

From Nevada Representative May 20, 1907

OBITUARY

DEATH OF H. J. WULFSBURG

The sad news of the death of H. J. Wulfsburg formerly of Roland, is conveyed in a note from his granddaughters, Dana and Belle Hanson. Mr. Wulfsburg died at Pasadena, California on Tuesday, May 14 aged eighty years. His death was sudden being the result of neuralgia from which he suffered slightly for two days. On Monday evening however, the pain reached his heart and his death followed as stated.

Mr. Wulfsburg was a man of the most sterling character and of very varied experience. He was one of the comparatively early settlers in Howard township of this county where he bought and improved a fine farm and continued to reside until he was ready to retire. Before this, however, he had been a sailor attaining the command of a vessel while yet a very young man and entering New York harbor first on a ship which he himself commanded. He was an early associate of John Ericson, the great Swedish engineer and inventor, assisted the latter in the never to be forgotten work of building the Monitor and at another time was interested in Erickson's endeavors to make a practical hot air engine for marine use. In this effort a vessel was constructed and equipped with such an engine and a voyage made from New York around to Chesapeake or Delaware bay. The engine worked; but things got too hot, and the vessel, and the vessel came near burning up. It was not long after this experience that Mr. Wulfsburg concluded that he had had enough of the sea and of untried experiments and that he would prefer a ore quiet life with fewer chances of fire or disaster. So he went back and married the girl he had left behind in Norway, brought her and his savings to Iowa and established himself as noted in Howard township.

In the community of which he thus became a part he was always a prominent citizen. He was successful as a farmer, zealous and patriotic as a citizen, possessed of wide information, and a most delightful man with whom to sit down and talk. His wife was no less attractive than himself; and though her training had not been such as to accustom her at all to the trials and rations of pioneering yet she met the necessities of her situation in a new country with unfailing courage, proved herself an ideal house-keeper and extended most cordial welcome to the visitors who crossed her threshold. They has an only daughter, Anna, who made friends of all who knew her and who attended the Nevada high school in the first years of its organization. Her friends of her own age and older, soon became acquaintanced with her home and parents, and "Wulfsburg's" was a popular place with many townspeople many years ago.

In time the daughter married and after a few years died, leaving two little girls. These girls went home to their grandparents; and thus it came about that the old people reared another generation. The desire to be relieved of farmwork and the interest of the grandchildrens' schooling took the family first to Roland and later to Jewel. Still later they moved to California, established themselves handsomely at Pasadena and enjoyed there their later years. Mrs. Wulfsburg died there two or three years ago, and now Mr. Wulfsburg has followed at a ripe old age. The news of his death will be received in and about his old home with the most profound regret and the appreciation of his character are worth among those who knew him is universal. He was typical of the best of the people who have come to his country to assist in the up-building; and none there have been among those who really knew them, who commanded higher esteem. His near surviving relatives are his grand-daughters who will in their bereavement have the warmest sympathy of his friends and theirs.

More than anyone else we have ever known did he suggest the familiar lines in Longfellow's "Skeleton in Armor" that story of the bold young Norseman who wooed and won the high-born maiden and with her fled to the western lands.

"She was a prince's child.
I but a Viking wild;
So though she blushed and smiled,
I was discarded."

Her parents looked on his suit with no more favor than did old Hildebrand of the poem upon that of the hero of the story; but like the hero of nearly a thousand years ago, Mr. Wulfsburg won the object of his affection; and on these western prairies he made good in every sense of the phrase.