HANS FABRICIUS.
Hans Fabricius, a farmer and stockman of Douglas township, Audubon county, Iowa, who was born, February 29, 1868. in Denmark, is the son of Hans and Anna Fabricius, both of whom were natives of Denmark, and the parents of eight children. The children were, H. M., Mary, Hans, Katrina, the elder, George, Katrina, the younger; Mike and Anna. The father for many years was a sailor on the Baltic sea, and being caught in a tornado was drowned. The Fabricius children, with one or two exceptions, have all come to this country. H. M. lives in Idaho; Katrina, the elder, died in infancy; George is a farmer in Audubon county; Michael is a farmer in Audubon county; Anna died in her native land, and Mary still lives in Denmark.
Educated in the public schools of Denmark, Hans Fabricius left school at the age of fourteen, and, after working on a farm for three years, worked in a blacksmith shop for four years. At the age of twenty-one he came to this country with his brother, Mike, and after landing in New York city, they came direct to Audubon county, where Hans worked on a farm for three months. He then conducted a blacksmith shop at Audubon for a year, after which he lived on the farm for three months, and then removed to Elkhorn, Iowa, where he started a shop of his own. After owning and conducting this shop for nine and one-half years, he bought a farm of fifty acres near Fiscus, and two years later purchased forty acres more. Mr. Fabricius kept on adding to his land, until he owned two hundred and fifteen acres in Douglas township. He is accustomed to feed all of the grain he raises to live stock. Ordinarily he feeds about one carload of cattle and about eighty head of hogs every year. He keeps a thoroughbred Shire stallion on the farm, and since owning his present land has invested about six thousand dollars in buildings, fences and ditches.
In 1893 Mr. Fabricius was married in Elkhorn to Caroline Tovil, of Elkhorn, the daughter of Soren Tovil. Mr. and Mrs. Fabricius are the parents of five children, Hans, Anna, Einar, Harry and Martin, all of whom are living at home. The three youngest children are attending school.
A Democrat in politics, Mr. Fabricius served as school director for two years. Religiously, the Fabricius family belong to the Danish Lutheran church. Fraternally, he is a member of the United Danish Brotherhood. Like so many of the Danish farmers who have come to Audubon county, Mr. Fabricius has established a comfortable home in this county, has lived to rear a family of children, and to take a commendable part in the government of our country. During the years of his life in this country he has become a thorough-going and enthusiastic citizen, and by his wisdom and his counsel has added to the stability of our institutions and the well-being of our government. It is men such as he who have made the raw prairie teem with growing grain and bountiful harvests. This is one of the contributions which the diligent and industrious Danish citizens have made to our civilization.
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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. 516-517.
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