P. M. Martens, one of Roland's early merchants and an implement dealer, was born in Hardin County in 1883. He married Bertha Hegland, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Lars Hegland, in 1908. Bertha was born in 1885 on the Hegland family farm east of Roland.
Pete Martens farmed the Hegland farm until the death of Lars Hegland, when the family moved to Roland. Mr. Martens purchased the Grove Hardware Store (now Borwick Plumbing) and continued in the implement business until his retirement in 1946. Mr. Martens died May 6, 1966, and his wife is a resident of Bethany Manor in Story City.
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John Michaelson (Grindem) left his native Norway in 1853 at the age of 22 years and came to America, settling in Lisbon, Illinois. He was married two years later in 1855, and in that year the first Norwegians came to Howard township. That group purchased 80 acres of land for him, located one mile south of the present town of Roland. In 1858, Mr. Michaelson borrowed $30 from his brother-in-law and joined a group enroute to Howard township. Because it was an exceptionally wet spring, the trip required six weeks and four days of travel.
The first summer Mr. Michaelson plowed up his "eighty" and that fall picked corn for another farmer, receiving 12 bushels of corn for each day of work. He obtained his first pig by trading a dog which he had brought with him from Illinois. He received $2 per bushel for his first wheat crop, and that paid for his land. He purchased a log house and moved it to his eighty. Mrs. Michaelson had no stove, but cooked outdoors on a contrivance of stone. In the fall she had made enough butter to buy a stove, and Mr. Michaelson went to Des Moines and got her one.
He moved to Roland in about 1888 and later went into the lumber business, at first alone and later in partnership with S. O. Hegland. He also went into the mercantile business with Iver Johnson and continued this until 1899
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