Читать книгу History of Fresno County, Vol. 4 - Paul E. Vandor - Страница 8

Everybody in Kingsburg has a kind thought and a good word for Nels Hanson, who was born at Lund, Skaarn, Sweden, on December 8, 1858, and reared in the old university town, where he began his education at the public schools. His father was Hanson, a farmer in modest circumstances who lived to be only thirty-three years of age and died in Sweden. His mother, Elna Peterson before her marriage, also lived and died where she was married. As a lad of seven, Nels, while attending the Lutheran Church, in which faith his parents brought him up, worked in a woolen mill at Lund, continuing there for five and a half hard years. After that he served a three years' apprenticeship to the tanners' trade, working for the well-known tanner and capitalist, Thelander, and becoming a journeyman in 1879.

Having thus equipped himself for a definite line of labor in life, Nels, in the latter part of 1880 sailed from Copenhagen for New York, and once safely within the borders of the United States, he made his way to Chicago where, for three months, he worked at the tanner's trade. Then he joined a construction gang on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway in Iowa, but in a short time he came back to Chicago and in the fall of that year went with some companions to Ishpeming, Mich., and there undertook to work in the mines. In time he became foreman and inspector, and received the highest wages paid to anyone there. After several years he became an independent mine contractor; and while saving his money, he sent it to a partner, Charles Carlson, at Kingsburg, now deceased, with whom he had purchased some eighty choice acres, which Carlson was farming to grain.

As a result of this investment, Nels arrived in Kingsburg early in the spring of 1888. He liked the town from the very first, although he was fated to suffer heavily in the panics during the Cleveland administration. In May, 1888, Mr. Hanson, longing to see the scenes of his native land, made a trip back to his old home at Lund. He wished also to meet again his fiancée, Cecelia Hanson (of the same name, but of no kinship), to whom he had been engaged for ten years; and the result of this meeting was that Miss Hanson came out to America, and they were married at Kingsburg on September 25, 1888. Now they are the parents of four children: Frank, who was in Company B, Three Hundred Sixty-fourth Regiment, Infantry. Washington, and at Camp Lewis, later served with the Ninety-first Division in the Argonne in France, became automatic gunner, was gassed, arrived home and was honorably discharged at Camp Kearney and reached home April 26, 1919: Alfred, who married Emma Peterson of Kingsburg, and is a rancher: Victor, who lives at home; and Henry, a graduate of the Kingsburg High School, Class of 1916, and who was in the military police at Camp Fremont. When Messrs. Hanson and Carlson sold the eighty acres referred to, they accepted, as part of the sale price, a note for $1,800, but the purchaser having defaulted in his payments, Mr. Hanson had to take back part of the land — for him a disappointment through which, at the time, he saw only misfortune and the necessity of his remaining at Kingsburg. Instead of a loss, however, it has proven a most valuable holding; half of it lies within the incorporated limits of Kingsburg, and such is the location that it is constantly advancing in worth. For six months Mr. Hanson remained at Kingsburg making improvements, and then he went to Portland, Ore., and became a bridge carpenter.

At the termination of three months, Mr. Hanson came back to California and Kingsburg, and continued improving the land. He planted twelve and a half acres to muscats, and the balance to alfalfa. He put up the customary outbuildings, and erected a comfortable, ornate residence, so that as a home-place he has succeeded in evolving a choice country property. Mr. Hanson also owns a vineyard of twenty acres one and a half miles north of Kingsburg, which he has set out to zinfandels, and twenty acres set out to Thompson's seedless grapes; and he has forty acres four miles west, all in muscats, planted by himself and now ten years old.

As a public-spirited citizen, Mr. Hanson has done his full duty in serving on federal and trial juries; while he has contributed to the social life of the community in his activity within the circles of the Masons and in particular within the Traver Lodge, No. 294, at Kingsburg. He is well-informed, progressive and withal a man of large heart; and his excellent wife is a true companion.