John Olson
OLSON, ANDERSON, COLE
Posted By: Gordon Felland (email)
Date: 5/5/2006 at 04:12:11
John Olson has since 1911 been cashier of the First National Bank of Forest City but for a much longer period has been identified with financial interests in Winnebago county and has been a close student of the grave and important financial problems of the day. He is actuated in all that he does by a spirit of enterprise and public opinion accords him place with tbe representative citizens of part of the state. He was born in Iowa county, Wisconsin, June 8, 1873, a son of 0. B. and Gunhild (Anderson) Olson, both of whom were natives of Norway but became residents of Wisconsin during their childhood days. At the time of the Civil war the father responded to the country's call for troops, going to the front with a Wisconsin regiment and thus aiding in defense of the Union. In 1880 he removed to Worth county, Iowa, where he purchased a farm, devoting the greater part of his life to general agricultural pursuits. He has now passed away, while his wife resides at Lake Mills, Iowa.
John Olson supplemented his public school education by three years' study in the Valder Business College at Decorah, Iowa, and on the 20th of July, 1896, arrived in Forest City, then a young man of twenty-three years. He became official stenographer with Judge C. H. Kelley, with whom he remained for a year, after which he spent a year as deputy county treasurer. Since then he has been closely identified with banking interests. He first entered the Winnebago County State Bank as cashier, in which capacity he served for a decade, after which he filled the office of state bank examiner for two years. On retiring from that position be entered the First National Bank of Forest City as cashier in 1911 and is the present incumbent in that office, contributing in large measure to the success of the institution by reason of his fidelity and thorough understanding of banking in all its various phases.
On the 16th of December, 1896, Mr. Olson was married to Miss Maude Cole, a daughter of A. T. and Phoebe Cole, who were pioneers of Winnebago County. They have four children, Vance, Ruth, Eunice and Mark. The son Vance, a senior in the Forest City high school, enlisted in the United States army in the signal corps May 7, 1917, at the age of nineteen.
Mr. Olson is very prominent in fraternal circles, holding membership in Truth Lodge, No. 213, A. F. & A. M., in Bethel Chapter, No. 116, R. A. M., of Garner; in Forest City Lodge, No. 440, I. 0. 0. F.; in Linwood Camp, No. 717, M. W. A.; in Forest City Homestead, No. 498, B. A. Y., and with the lodge of the Mystic Toilers, No. 132, of Forest City. He was national delegate to the Modern Woodmen Head Camps, held in Milwaukee, Wis., in 1905, in Peoria, Illinois, in 1908, in Buffalo, New York, in 1911, in Chicago, Illinois, in 1912 (special session) and in Chicago Illinois in 1917. He was also a delegate to the national convention of the Brotherhood of American Yeomen in Colorado Springs in 1905, in Minneapolis in 1909, in Oklahoma City in 1913 and in Detroit, Michigan, in 1917, and he is in thorough sympathy with the spirit of fraternity that underlies these organizations. Mr. Olson is also recognized as a prominent factor in political circles. A stalwart republican, he has been a member of the city council and also a member of the school board and he has done much to further the interests of his party as chairman and as secretary of the republican county central committee, while on four different occasions he has been a delegate to the republican state convention. His position is never an equivocal one. He stands loyally for what he believes to be the best interests of the community and his progressive spirit has carried him into important public relations.
Source: History of Winnebago and Hancock Counties, Iowa, 1917,Vol II, page 362
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