TED S. THYGESEN.
Ted S. Thygesen, a general farmer and stock raiser of Douglas township, Audubon county, Iowa, who owns one hundred and sixty acres of fine farming land in this township, was born March 22, 1869, in Denmark, the son of Soren K. and Mary Thygesen, both natives of Denmark, where the former was a day laborer. Soren K. Thygesen served in the War of 1864, assisting principally in hauling the wounded to headquarters. He and his wife were the parents of six children, George, Ted S., Soren, May, Katie and Anna, all of whom except Anna have come to the United States. George and Soren are farmers in Sharon township. Katie lives in Cameron township. May died in infancy.
Ted S. Thygesen, after having received a limited education in the schools of the old country, quit school at the age of fourteen to work on the farm. From the time he was fourteen until the time he was twenty, he was engaged as a farm worker and then came to the United States, in the meantime having accumulated five hundred dollars. After landing at New York City, he went to Brayton, Iowa, and worked on a farm in the vicinity of Brayton for three years. After this he rented a farm in Cass county, Iowa, for three years and then moved to Adams county, where he rented a farm for six years. Finally, he located in Audubon county in 1894 and purchased one hundred and twenty acres in sections 15 and 22, in Douglas township. Three years later he bought forty acres adjoining his original farm and here he now lives. Mr. Thygesen has invested about five thousand dollars in various kinds of improvements on the farm, including ditches, drains, fences and outbuildings. He feeds most of the grain he raises to stock which he keeps on the farm. He sells from sixty to seventy head of hogs each year.
Ted S. Thygesen was married in 1897 to Mary Jensen, daughter of Lars Jensen, a native of Denmark. To this union eight children have been born, Anna, Laura, William, Katie, Bertha, Christ, Minnie and Lydia. All of these children are living at home.
A Republican in politics, Mr. Thygesen has served as director of the township schools and has filled this office for two terms, a period of six years. Religiously, the Thygesen family are members of the Danish Lutheran church of Douglas township.
Mr. Thygesen is entirely unassuming and wholly unaffected by the success which he has achieved in his adopted country. Like so many of his countrymen who have come to America, he has succeeded, no doubt, far beyond what he would ever have been able to accomplish in his native land. He is a man who takes a patriotic pride in the institutions of this country and who believes thoroughly in the American spirit of industry and who himself has labored hard and unceasingly for the fortune he has accumulated. Mr. Thygesen is well liked by all his neighbors.
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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. 670-671.
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