N. P. CLEMSEN.
An industrious and enterprising farmer of Oakfield township, Audubon county, Iowa, who has made commendable progress as a farmer since coming to America at the age of eighteen, is N. P. Clemsen, who was born on July 28, 1871, in Jylland, Denmark, and who is a son of Nels A. and Anna C. Clemsen. His parents were farmers in their native land, although the father was a sailor for several years, and also served as a soldier in the Danish-Prussian War of 1864. The only members of the Clemsen family who have ever come to America, are N. P. and Andrew, of Sharon township in this county.
N. P. Clemsen, after having received a fair education in his native land, worked at farm work after leaving school until he reached the age of eighteen years, when he came to the United States, and, after landing at New York city, came on directly to Audubon county, Iowa. Here he obtained employment on farms, and after continuing in this line for four years, rented land in Sharon township for two years. After his marriage Mr. Clemsen removed to Texas, where his father-in-law had given him a tract of land. After living four years in Texas, he returned to Audubon county and purchased eighty acres of land in section 17, Hamlin township, but he owned this farm only one year, when he traded it off and acquired eighty acres, where he now lives in section 10, of Oakfield township. Mr. Clemsen has built a house, barn and other outbuildings since he acquired this farm, and has planted many trees. Most of his fences are made of woven wire, and altogether his farm has been improved and developed, until it is one of the best in the township. In the meantime, he has purchased eighty acres more land and rents forty acres in addition to that which he owns, farming in all two hundred acres.
On October 3, 1893, Mr. Clemsen was married in Audubon county to Nena Esbeck, who was born on January 29, 1874, in Guthrie county, Iowa, and who is a daughter of Andrew and Christina (Christensen) Esbeck, natives of Jylland, Denmark, who came to the United States soon after their marriage and who were among the very early settlers of Oakfield township. Their farm which was about seven miles west of Exira, was a lonely spot on the prairie at the time they moved there, as there were no other houses between their farm and Exira. Mr. Esbeck paid five dollars an acre for his first land. He was one of the charter members of the Elkhorn Danish Lutheran church, and Mrs. Clemsen attended school in one of the private homes of the neighborhood for a year or two before a school house was built near her home.
Mr. and Mrs. N. P. Clemsen are the parents of seven children : Arthur H., born on June 15, 1895; Mabel A., March 20, 1898; Anna C., May 2, 1900; Henry, December 1, 1902; Bula A., August 30, 1906; Ethel M., September 13, 1909; Christena C., November 8, 1912. All of these children are unmarried and are living at home with their parents.
Mr. and Mrs. Clemsen and family are all faithful and earnest members of the Danish Lutheran church at Elkhorn. A Republican in politics, Mr. Clemsen has held only minor offices in Oakfield township. Having combined general farming and stock raising and by the profits from the dairy products of from six to fifteen cows annually, Mr. Clemsen has been enabled to realize most satisfactory results from his farm. He is progressive, broad-minded and industrious; a man who is well known in this community, and who has a host of friends in the township. The sterling reputation which he enjoys in Oakfield township is not a matter of accident, but is founded upon very proper relations with his neighbors and fellow citizens.
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Transcribed from History of Audubon County, Iowa Its People, Industries and Institutions With Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens and Genealogical Records of Many of the Old Families, by H. F. Andrews, editor, Indianapolis: B. F. Bowen & Company, 1915, pp. 775-776.
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