JENS P. SCHOUBOE.
Perhaps no man living in Audubon county has broke up more prairie sod than Jens P. Schouboe, a retired farmer and merchant of Sharon township, who was born in Denmark, May 4, 1855, the son of Peter P. and Christina Schouboe, and who came to America in 1874, locating first at Oxford, New Jersey. Mr. Schouboe's father was a brick layer and carpenter by trade, and died in Denmark in 1906. His wife, the mother of Jens P. Schouboe, died four years previously, in 1902. Of their five children only three are now living, Jess, Jens P. and Marie.
Jens P. Schouboe received his education in the schools of his native land and after leaving school took up the carpenter's trade and also the mason's trade. After working at Oxford, New Jersey, at his trade for four years after his arrival in America, he removed to this county, located in Viola township in 1878, where he worked at his trade and as a farm hand. He was engaged in breaking up the tough prairie sod for a period of seven years, and during this period broke approximately twelve hundred acres in Audubon and Shelby counties. From his savings he was enabled to purchase eighty-seven acres of land at eleven dollars an acre in Jackson township, Shelby county, and here he farmed and broke prairie until 1890, when he came to Audubon county and purchased a hundred and sixty acres of land in Sharon township. Later Mr. Schouboe added eighty acres to the original tract and now owns two hundred and forty acres altogether. In 1908 he built a store in Sharon township, and calling the place Sharon engaged in the mercantile business for two years. Jens P. Schouboe has achieved a flattering success in a material way in his adopted country and he is one of the many citizens of Audubon county to whom America has spelled and rightly so the word "opportunity."
Mr. Schouboe was married in 1882 to Mary Michelsen, daughter of Chris Michelsen. They have no children. Mr. and Mrs. Schouboe are members of the Danish Lutheran church, and in politics Mr. Schouboe is a Democrat. He has been more or less active in the councils of his party, serving as road supervisor for six years, and also as township trustee, a very important office in this state. Mr. Schouboe discharged the duties of the office with credit to himself and to the people of his community. He enjoys an enviable reputation in the community where he lives and is a worthy citizen of the great state of Iowa, which has smiled upon him so benignantly.
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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. 610-611.
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