Читать книгу History of Fresno County, Vol. 6 - Paul E. Vandor - Страница 37

Living on a ranch of the late George Pilegard, one and a quarter miles north of Bowles, in the Oleander district, Mrs. Carrie Pilegard presents an exalted example of widowed motherhood by keeping up the Pilegard home — bringing to bear the qualities that make a most excellent housekeeper and homemaker, as well as conservative business head.

Her husband died on the ranch September 22, 1906, and is buried in the Washington Cemetery. He was born at Fyen, Denmark, December 13, 1860, and grew up on his father's forty-acre farm in Denmark. Educated in the Danish public schools, young George was brought up in the tenets of the Lutheran faith and confirmed at the age of fourteen. At twenty-three years of age he sought a wider field for his energies and embarked for the shores of America. His first stop in the new land was at Marshalltown. Iowa, where he worked on a farm for one year. From thence he came to California and worked on the flume at Enterprise, Madera County. He was with the Flume and Lumber Company two years, and was employed a part of that time in making shakes. While working there he was united in marriage with Karen Nielsen Krog, daughter of Niels Hansen Krog and Annie Katrina (Christensen) Krog, natives of Fyen, Denmark, and the owners of a fifty-acre farm in that place and country. Her parents lived and died at Fyen, Denmark, the father attaining the advanced age of ninety-three before his demise, and the mother living to be eighty-three.

George Pilegard and Karen Nielsen Krog were schoolmates in Denmark and were betrothed before young George came to America. In 1885 Karen Krog started for America to link her destiny with that of George Pilegard. After their marriage they lived in what is now Madera County from July 4th to December, 1886. Hearing of the fertile lands and the reasonable price of land in the Washington Colony at Oleander, a friend induced them to buy forty acres of land there. They built a small house with their own hands, began to improve the property and were happy in their new home. Eight children were born to them. Their 'oldest child died in infancy. Andrew, the oldest living child, is a fruit buyer and lives in Fresno. He married Lilly Kringel and they are the parents of one child, Helen Katrina by name. A daughter named Anna Katrina, died in infancy. Another daughter of the same name, Anna Katrina, graduated as a trained nurse from the Burnett Sanitarium at Fresno, and is now a Red Cross nurse in France. Christine also graduated from the same sanitarium and is likewise a Red Cross nurse in France. The sixth child, Karen Marie, died in infancy. George, who is seventeen, attends the high school at Easton, and Carrie, the youngest of the family, is also a student at Easton high school.

George Pilegard improved land and sold property several times, and at the time of his death the home ranch comprised eighty acres. Mrs. Pilegard sold twenty acres of the property to her son Andrew, retaining sixty acres.

Mr. and Mrs. Pilegard were among the prime movers in the organization of the Danish Lutheran Church at Easton, Cal., of which they were faithful members and consistent Christians. Mrs. Pilegard is a tireless Sunday School teacher and worker. She is a hospitable, generous, public-spirited woman, and both she and her children are prime favorites in the community. Her husband, a pioneer of the Oleander section, was looked up to as the leader among the Danes in the Washington Colony in Fresno County, Cal., during his lifetime.