Olsen, Gertrude M. 1838 - 1901

OLSEN, OLSON

Posted By: Joy Moore (email)
Date: 5/19/2024 at 21:00:38

Source: Decorah Republican Sept. 12, 1901 P 2 C 2

A SAD, SAD STORY.
An Aged Widow of Pleasant Township lost in the Timber.
FALLS INTO A DEEP DITCH.
And Lies there with a Broken Thigh from Saturday Night to Tuesday Forenoon.
Gertrude M. Olsen, widow of Thomas Olsen, living alone on her farm on Section 18, Pleasant township, between Locust and Springwater, Saturday evening went to see her neighbor, Ole Thorgrimson, on a matter of business and had to wait until he returned from Decorah. By this time it had become dark, and she lit a lantern and started homeward by a path through the fields and timber. The lantern went out, but she found her way back to her neighbor's. It was then ten o’clock and they urged her to stay all night, but she could not be persuaded and started again.
Tuesday morning, some of the neighbors' boys going by noticed that the house was vacant and that the cows in the pasture evidently had not been milked for some time. An alarm was sounded, and the neighbors rallied in search for her. She was found about 11 o’clock, lying on her back, in a ditch somewhere about eight feet deep, with her thigh broken. She had been out in all of the forty-eight hours of Sunday and Monday, enduring three nights of the rainy, cold weather we have had since then. She was taken to her home and the facts telephoned to town to Knut Thompson, who had been her business adviser. He secured Dr. Hoeg, and they started as fast as a team could carry them for the place.
Mrs. Olsen is sixty-two years old and strange to say had lived through all this privation and starvation. The first task was to bring natural warmth back to the body and give food to the stomach. Her condition was such that Dr. Hoeg decided it would be impossible to do any surgical work until her normal condition was restored. This may be to-day, when if possible the limb will be set and all further possible service will be rendered.

Source: Decorah Republican Sept. 19, 1901 P 2 C 1

Mrs. Gertrude M. Olson, the Pleasant township woman whose injuries and exposure we told of in last week’s paper, died on Friday and was buried Sunday, the service being held at Pastor Seehuus’ church.

Transcriber’s Note: Find a Grave shows Mrs. Thomas Olson buried in Big Canoe Lutheran Cemetery who was born in 1838 and died September 12, 1901.

Big Canoe Lutheran Cemetery
 

Winneshiek Obituaries maintained by Jeff Getchell.
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