Brown County MN Archives Biographies.....Amundson, Albert O. 1866 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 December 1, 2014, 12:48 am

Source: See Below
Author: L. A. Fritsche

ALBERT O. AMUNDSON.

    Albert O. Amundson, a farmer of Lake Hanska township, Brown county, was born
on March 20, 1866, in Dane county, Wisconsin, and is a son of Ole B. and Julia
(Olson) Amundson, both natives of Numdahl, Norway, where the paternal
grandparents engaged in farming, until they came to the United States in 1849,
when Ole B. Amundson was seven years old. They located in Dane county,
Wisconsin, among the earliest settlers, being among the first Scandinavians to
locate there, and where the father of the subject of this sketch grew to manhood
and bought a farm, which he sold in 1883 and removed to Brown county, Minnesota,
buying forty acres of railroad land, for which he paid six dollars per acre. It
was located in section 17, Lake Hanska township. He added to this until he owned
about three hundred acres at the time of his death in 1906. He helped organize
the present school district and was one of the first members of the school board
here. He was a member of the Koshkonong Norwegian Lutheran church, which he
helped to build, and it was one of the first of its kind in the United States.
His family consisted of seven children, Albert O. being the eldest.

    Albert O. Amundson received his education in the common schools, and he
began working on the home farm when a small boy. Back in the eighties he bought
forty acres of railroad laud, for which he paid seven dollars per acre. This he
improved and put under cultivation, later added to it until he owned one hundred
and twenty acres. He also purchased one hundred and sixty acres of land in Lake
Hanska township in 1898. This land was also unimproved, but he has since placed
it under a high state of cultivation and now makes his home there, renting his
other farm.

     On July 2, 1894, Albert O. Amundson was married to Pauline Ahlness, who was
born on August 21, 1872, in Lake Hanska township, this county, a daughter of
Christian and Tonetta (Nelson) Ahlness. The father was born on a farm in Norway,
December 23, 1843, some distance north of the city of Christiana, on the shores
of Mjosen, an inland lake. He left his native land when twenty-one years of age
and came to the United States, arriving in Chicago in June, 1864, a penniless
emigrant. He worked his way toward the West, arriving in Fillmore county,
Minnesota, in June, 1865, remaining there four years. In 1866 he married
Tonnette Nelson, who had very recently come to this country from the same
locality in Norway where he was born. In the spring of 1869 they confirmed their
journey westward, in a prairie schooner, drawn by a pair of oxen, finally
arriving in Brown county, Minnesota, and located on an eighty-acre homestead in
Lake Hanska township, in June, 1869. The township was not then organized and had
as yet no name, but by a natural instinct for organization a community was
created out of the wilderness. School districts and churches were organized and
later on the Hanska and Linden Creamery and Store Association were the results
of that instinct. Mr. Ahlness served the community in almost every capacity,
including the offices of justice of the peace, chairman of the board of
supervision, assessor, town clerk, county commissioner, president of the Brown
County Farmers Alliance, and finally, in 1890, he was elected to represent his
county in the state Legislature; and last, but not least, he served his fellow
farmers for a period of more than twenty years as secretary and manager of the
Hanska-Linden Creamery Association. He succeeded as a general farmer,
established a comfortable home and enjoys the esteem of all who knew him. His
family of nine children were reared and educated so as to form the nucleus of
Christian homes, which today he considers the greatest of worldly achievements.
After forty years of married life, the faithful helpmeet and kind mother passed
to her eternal rest in 1906. Since his wife's death Mr. Ahlness has retired from
active life and is now living in a cozy home in the village of Hanska.

     To Mr. and Mrs. Amundson two children have been born, namely: Oliver, whose
birth occurred on February 6, 1898, is a student in St. Olaf College; Theressa
was born in November, 1903. Mr. and Mrs. Amundson are also rearing two orphan
girls, having taken the eldest at the age of nine years and the other when seven
years old, the latter being his niece; they are Ida B. Rono, the eldest, who was
born in 1889, a daughter of Silver and Anna Rono; and Utilda Braley, who was
born on October 7, 1901. The former was graduated from the Madison Normal School
at Madison, Minnesota, and is now engaged in teaching in the Brown county schools.

     Politically, Mr. Amundson is an independent voter. He is now chairman of
the township board of supervisors. He was township clerk for several years. He
is a director in the Hanska-Linden Creamery Association, of which he has been
treasurer for about twenty years. He is a stockholder in the Hanska-Linden Store
Company, but has held no offices in the latter. He is also a stockholder and
director in the Hanska State Bank, having been a director in the same since its
organization. He has been successful in a business way. His farm is one of the
best in the county, his buildings are all substantial, painted and comfortable,
and they are surrounded by a beautiful grove. He was one of the first farmers in
Lake Hanska township to use a gasoline traction engine to do his plowing and
breaking. He is an advocate of advanced methods of agriculture and has done much
to encourage better farming in Brown county. He and his family are members of
the Lake Hanska Lutheran church. He has four brothers living in this township,
namely: John, Martin, Ole and Theo; Julius, another brother, lives near
Silverton, Oregon; and a sister, Betsy, who became the wife of Tyler Braley,
died when forty-one years old, leaving a daughter, Utilda, who lives with Mr.
Anundson.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:
HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY MINNESOTA
ITS PEOPLE, INDUSTRIES AND INSTITUTIONS

L. A. FRITSCHE. M. D.
Editor

With Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens and Genealogical Records
of Many of the Old Families

VOLUME II
B. F. BOWEN & COMPANY, Inc. Indianapolis, Indiana

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