O. E. Dakken

DAKKEN, HALVERSON, LARSON, THOMPSON, HELGESON, FREEMAN

Posted By: Gordon Felland (email)
Date: 8/16/2007 at 09:45:46

After many years of active life, mainly devoted to agricultural pursuits, 0. E. Dakken is living retired in Lake Mills, Iowa, enjoying a well earned rest and the fruits of former toil. He was born in Norway on the 1st of September, 1849, and is a son of Eric and Margaret (Olson) Dakken, who were likewise natives of that country, where they continued to make their home until 1851, when they took passage on a vessel bound for the United States. They located in Dane county, Wisconsin, where the father purchased land and turned his attention to farming. There he died in 1864 and his wife, who long survived him, passed away in 1905, at the age of eighty years.

0. E. Dakken was only two years of age when the family crossed the ocean and took up their abode in Dane county, Wisconsin, where he passed his boyhood and youth with the usual educational advantages. His father was an invalid for two years prior to his death and our subject took charge of the farm and assumed the responsibility of caring for the family. As soon as large enough to reach the plow handles he began work on the farm and gave his mother the benefit of his labor until he reached mature years. Mr. Dakken came to Winnebago county, Iowa, in 1869, and purchased land in Mount Valley township, where he followed farming for six years. At the end of that time he sold his place and bought a farm in Worth county, which he successfully operated for seventeen years. Prosperity having attended his efforts, he was able to lay aside business cares and for the past eleven years has practically lived retired in Lake Mills. In addition to general farming he was quite extensively engaged in stock raising, making a specialty of Percheron and Norman horses, high grade cattle and thoroughbred Chester White hogs, and he is now a stockholder in the Farmers Elevator Company of Joice, Iowa.

On the 12th of June, 1870, Mr. Dakken married Miss Signa Halverson, who died October 16, 1900. By that union eight children were born, namely: Sena, who died in 1890 at the age of nineteen years; Edward, now a resident of Wisconsin; Henry, of Lake Mills, Iowa; Annie, who married Dr. P. A. Helgeson and died in 1911; Martin, a resident of Lake Mills: Nora, the wife of Henry Freeman, of Minneapolis., Minnesota; Lewis, of Lake Mills; and Mamie, at home with her father. Mr. Dakken was again married June 7, 1906, his second union being with Mrs. Lena (Thompson) Larson, a daughter of Gunder and Nellie Thompson, of whom mention is made in the sketch of Henry Thompson on another page of this volume.

Mr. Dakken is an earnest and consistent member of the Methodist church, and, being a strong temperance man, he votes the prohibition ticket, believing that the liquor traffic is one of the nation's greatest evils. He served as school director and constable in Mount Valley township, Winnebago county, and has ever taken a commendable interest in public affairs as every public-spirited citizen should.

Source: History of Winnebago and Hancock Counties, 1917, Vol. II, page 467.