John E. Thorsell, Rapides Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Mike Miller

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John E. Thorsell has effectively proved his initiative and executive 
ability in connection with productive industry, has achieved success 
through his own efforts, and is to-day a prominent representative of 
the wholesale lumber trade in Louisiana, with residence and business 
headquarters in the City of Alexandria, Rapides Parish.

Mr. Thorsell was born in Sweden, September 4, 1876, and was about four 
years of age at the time of the family immigration to the United States.  
He is a son of John Peters Thorsell, members of sterling old families 
of Sweden. and about the year 1880 the family came to the United States 
and settled near Carroll Junction, Missouri, where the father engaged 
in farm enterprise and where his death occurred a few years later, about 
1883, his widow having long survived him and having passed away in 1921,
both having been devout communicants of the Baptist Church.  Of the nine 
children six are living at the time of this writing, in 1924. and of the 
nine the subject of this sketch was the sixth in order of birth.  John 
Peters Thorsell was well fortified in his religious convictions, which 
were at variance with the tenets of the Lutheran faith, in which he was 
reared, and his desire to avoid further contribution to the support of 
the Lutheran Church had much to do with his decision to come with his 
family to the United States.

John E. Thorsell was a mere boy at the time of his father's death, and 
such was the financial status of his widowed mother, with her large family 
of children, that he was denied more than meager educational advantages.  
He left home when he was a lad of eleven years, and has been dependent 
upon his own resources during the long intervening years.  He thus has 
full appreciation of the dignity and value of honest toil, has been one 
of the world's industrious workers, and incidentally has gained experience 
that has broadened his mentality and made him a man of excellent judgment 
and of strong mental forces.  As a youth he served an apprenticeship in a 
machine shop and foundry at Pittsburg, Texas, and with this line of industrial 
enterprise he continued his association until 1907.  In 1901 Mr. Thorsell 
established his residence at Alexandria, Louisiana, and here he was employed 
at his trade, that of machinist, until 1907, when he became associated with 
the Caddo-Rapides Lumber Company.  He was vice president and sales manager 
of this company until 1916, when he severed his connection therewith and 
continued in the lumber business in an independent way.  He has proved 
successful in his operations as a wholesale dealer in lumber, and in this 
connection advances money to various mills from which he receives products. 
He ships lumber to various states of the Middle West, as well as to the 
Southwest-notably Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, 
and he now controls a substantial and prosperous business.  Mr. Thorsell is 
affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and the Rotary 
Club of Alexandria and gives his political allegiance to the democratic 
party.  His wife and children are communicants of the Catholic Church.

The year 1902 recorded the marriage of Mr. Thorsell to Miss Lucy I. Lingard, 
who was born and reared in the State of Arkansas, and the children of this 
union are two daughters:  Esther is the wife of Joseph Wakeman, assistant 
manager of the B. F. Avery Company, New Orleans, and they have a son, John 
Joseph.  Sarah Ruth, the younger daughter, is, in 1925, a student in Providence 
Academy of Alexandria, Louisiana.

NOTE:  The referenced source contains a black and white photograph of the 


A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 203-204, by Henry E. Chambers.  
Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and 
New York, 1925.