Yolo-Sacramento-Solano County CA Archives Biographies.....Knudsen, Peter 1869 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com December 13, 2005, 7:03 pm

Author: Tom Gregory

PETER KNUDSEN

    The years between that of his birth, August 30, 1869, and that of his
immigration to the United States in 1887 were passed by Mr. Knudsen in his
native country of Denmark. The earliest memories of existence are to him
associated with the picturesque environment of the Baltic sea and the stern,
gloomy isolation of Danish isles. The island of his boyhood home was that of
Fyen lying between the Great Belt and the Little Belt and there his father
cultivated a little farm near Odense on the fiord of the same name. Such were
the surroundings of the first eight years of his life, but a change came then
with the death of his father. The children were scattered and he was taken into
the home of relatives at Odense, where he attended the public schools and where
at the age of fourteen he began to earn a livelihood by the driving of horses.
However, there seemed to him to be little hope for the future if he remained on
the sterile and stern island of his birth, so he decided to seek a home across
the great ocean in the new world. The year 1887 found him at Greenville, Mich.,
where he worked in town for two years and on a farm for a similar period.

   After arriving in California during 1891 Mr. Knudsen first took up the work
in which he has since achieved his life's success. As a helper he secured
employment in a Sacramento laundry owned by Fred Mason, with whom he continued
for fourteen years, meantime working in every department and becoming thoroughly
familiar with every detail of the business. During the period of his employment
in that plant he and an associate started a laundry in Vacaville in 1901, but
this they sold after having conducted it for thirteen months. After he left the
Mason laundry he embarked in the restaurant business and for two years he
carried on such an enterprise in Sacramento. April 1, 1909, he came to Woodland,
where he bought a very small laundry at No. 419 Main street, this being the
nucleus of the present Woodland Steam Laundry. The building was small and the
equipment meagre, making the work so unsatisfactory that December 4, 1909, he
removed to another building, which he remodeled for a laundry, putting in new
machinery and doing satisfactory work with his up-to-date equipment.

   A disastrous fire, January 28, 1911, caused the total destruction of the
building and the plant. The energetic proprietor refused to stop work in the
face of the heavy disaster. Renting rooms in a brick structure adjacent to the
former laundry, he continued the business as best he could with his heavy
handicap. Meanwhile he had immediately started a new building and on the 28th of
February he was able to open up for work in the building at No. 315 College
street, where he has a plant 74x60 feet in dimensions. The latest machinery has
been introduced. Competent judges assert that, for its size, this is the finest
laundry in the west. The owner, who has seen the remarkable improvement in
laundry machinery since he first became connected with the occupation, believes
that it is economy to buy the best and most modern. Accordingly the washers and
mangles, and indeed all of the machinery are of the most approved types, while a
twenty-five horse power steam engine is utilized for power and for heating. The
trade is not limited to Woodland, but extends to adjacent cities, shipments
being made back and forth on the trains.

   Since he became a naturalized citizen of our country and attained his
majority Mr. Knudsen has voted with the Republican party. In religion he adheres
to the Lutheran faith, in which he was reared from his earliest recollections.
Fraternally he holds membership with the Dania Order, the Modern Woodmen of
America and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, while commercially he is a
leading member of the Woodland Merchants' Association. In Sacramento, December
19, 1900, he married Miss Birdie Dreyer, by whom he has two sons, Peter and
Henry. Mrs. Knudsen was born in Stockton, this state, but was reared in
Sacramento from the age of one year and received an excellent education in the
schools of the capital city. Her father, Henry Dreyer, a native of Berlin,
Germany, and a pioneer of California, died in Sacramento, where also occurred
the demise of her mother. From childhood she has been in sympathy with the
doctrines of the Baptist Church and has contributed to its maintenance. In
social circles her attractive qualities have won for her many friends, while she
is likewise popular in fraternal work and a leading member of the Rebekahs and
the Marguerite Circle of the American Foresters.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from

HISTORY OF YOLO COUNTY CALIFORNIA
WITH
Biographical Sketches
OF
The Leading Men and Women of the County Who Have Been Identified With Its Growth
and Development From the Early Days to the Present

HISTORY BY
TOM GREGORY
AND OTHER WELL KNOWN WRITERS
ILLUSTRATED COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME

HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA [1913]




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