Jonas Duea (1824-1910)

DUEA, CHRISTIAN, GROVE

Posted By: Dorian Myhre (email)
Date: 2/7/2017 at 22:57:29

From Nevada Representative July 19, 1910 (front page)

OBITUARY

DEATH OF JONAS DUEA

Jonas Duea, one of the pioneers of Howard township and for very many years one of the most influential men in the Norwegian settlements of this county, died Thursday at Roland at the age of 86, and his funeral was conducted Sunday from Bergens church by Rev. Sandven. The funeral was a great one, and the tributes paid to the departed patriarch were the most sincere expression of whole communities.

Mr. Duea was a native of Norway, where he was born in 1824, and he came to this country as a young man, locating first, as did many of his people in northern Illinois. But the Norwegian migration to the United States was getting started, and conditions were favorable for the starting of anew colony in the new country farther west. So a meeting was held and a delegation of capable young men selected to go out as "spies", look over the new country beyond the Mississippi and pick out the right location for the new colony. The names of all of this delegation may not now be recalled with certainty; but it included Jonas Duea, his brother, Sam Christian; his brother-in-law, Mons C. Grove; Ole, Hans and Samuel Johnson and Lars Sheldahl. The journey of investigation was made in 1855 and in June of that year they all entered land in what is now Howard township of Story county. The standards of good land generally entertained were not then the same as they are now; but this delegation appear to have had a remarkable eye to the future and they picked out a piece of country which has stood the practical test of development as well as has many a similar piece in Iowa, and if the township they then picked out is not now the best in Iowa, then the one that beats it is certainly a beauty. And such was the beginning of the Norwegian settlement in Story county. The next year these men and others moved here with their families, and gradually the colony grew in numbers and territory; but always, while they lived and their vigor lasted the men who thus made the beginning were among the most honored and trusted representatives of the community.

Not long after the colony was fairly established the civil war came on, and when the call for soldiers became earnest, the colonists responded patriotically to the call of their adopted country. Jonas Duea was then about 38 years of age and older than the great majority who went to the war and made a success of soldiering; but he went out in Company K of the 32d Iowa in 1862, served as a sergeant and endured and survived the trials and hardships of the campaignings with that regiment. After the war he came home and continued the work of up-building the colony which he had helped to found. For years and years he was habitually a delegate from that township to Republican county conventions, and it is recalled that once before the war the Democrats of the county tried to enlist him for a county office and that he indignantly refused the nomination. He was all-round representative of his community, prospered with it, and outlived nearly all of the men who were his associates in the early settlement. Of course his passing at so advanced an age is the occasion of exceptional tributes and honors.