HANS NELSEN.
Hans Nelsen, a farmer and stock raiser of Douglas township, Audubon county, Iowa, who owns a highly productive farm of eighty acres in this township, was born in Denmark, February 10, 1850, the son of Nels and Carstin (Mathsen) Nelsen, the former of whom was a farmer and who owned about sixty acres of land in Denmark. Neither the father nor the mother ever came to this country. Of their six children, three are living in America, two in Denmark and one died in the native land. Mr. Nelsen has one brother living in Shelby county, Iowa, and another living in Minnesota.
Hans Nelsen quit school at the age of fourteen and worked on the farm for his father until he reached his majority. Upon coming of age, he joined the army and served the period of his enlistment, after which he came to America. At this time he was thirty-four years of age. Coming to this country on a German ship and landing in New York City, he came from New York to Iowa, and settled in Shelby county, where he worked as a ditcher for about two years. Mr. Nelsen then rented a farm in Shelby county, consisting of forty acres, and farmed until 1894, when he came to Audubon county, at which time he purchased eighty acres of land in section 22, of Douglas township, and here he still lives. His principal crops are corn and small grain. He feeds almost all the grain he raises to his stock, and markets about thirty-five head of hogs every year. He has invested about four thousand dollars in various kinds of improvements on the farm.
Mr. Nelsen was married on November 13, 1878, to Bodel Marie Mathisen, a native of Denmark. No children have been born to this marriage.
Hans Nelsen is a well-known citizen of this township and a devoted member of the Danish Lutheran church. For a number of years he served as a janitor of the church. In politics he is identified with the Republican party.
|
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. 623-624.
|
|
