Brown County MN Archives Biographies.....Ouren, Anton O. 1850 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 November 27, 2014, 5:43 pm

Source: See Below
Author: L. A. Fritsche

ANTON O. OUREN.

    Anton O. Ouren, banker of Hanska, Brcwn county, has long been a prominent
figure in the business world in this section of Minnesota. He was born on
February 27, 1850, in the province of Ostretoten, Norway, and is a son of Ole J.
and Dorothy (Hjeld) Ouren, also natives of Norway where they grew up, attended
school, were married and established their home. The father was a farmer and
remained in his native land until 1866 when he removed with his family to the
United States, having landed first, however, at Quebec, Canada, but later moved
on to Coon Prairie, Wisconsin, but in a short time they traveled to Fillmore
county, Minnesota, remaining there until 1869 when they located in Brown county,
where the father entered forty acres of land from the government on which the
town of Hanska was subsequently built, and here he engaged in farming until his
death.

    Anton O. Ouren spent his boyhood in his native land, where he received his
education in the Lutheran schools. Upon coming to the United States he at once
took up farm work as a laborer, luring out by the month. He came to Brown county
in 1871, two years after his father had located here, and he bought eighty acres
in Linden township, just east of the town of Hanska. He prospered by hard work
and good management, and he has added to his original purchase from time to time
until he now owns three hundred and fifteen acres, all under excellent
improvements. In 1891 he organized the Hanska-Linden Creamery Company, of
Hanska, which was the second organization of its kind in the state of Minnesota.
In the winter of 1901-02 he organized the State Bank of Lake Wilson, in Murray
county, and was a director of that institution for several years. In 1902 he
organized the State Bank of Hanska and has been president of the same ever
since. Its business is rapidly growing under his able and conservative
management. In 1892 he helped organize and was the promoter and backer of the
Farmers' Co-operative Store, of Hanska, which was a pronounced success from the
first. Mr. Ouren guaranteed all bills the first four years of its existence, and
they from the beginning discounted all bills. The store has grown by leaps and
bounds and has paid dividends from the first.

     Anton O. Ouren was married in Fillmore county on January 23, 1873, to
Bertha Maria Hagen, who was born in the same province in Norway in which Mr.
Ouren first saw the light of day. Her father, Andrew Hagen, was a foreman on the
farm of Ole J. Ouren, in the old country. She was born on July 8, 1854, and her
death occurred on May 28, 1914. She was the mother of three children, the eldest
of whom died in infancy. Julia He Nora, who was born in 1876, married Nels J.
Ouren, of Hanska, the present manager of the Co-operative Store, although
bearing the same name, they were not related. They have four children, James
Arnold, Julius Maurice, Evelyn Viola and Ernest. Oscar Almer, youngest of the
three children, was born on October 6,1878. He married Marge Berrum and they
live at Hanska, Minnesota. They have three children, Russell, Bernice and Edmund.

     On June 15, 1915, Anton O. Ouren was married, secondly, to Irene
Bissonette, who was born on January 28, 1869, in Winooski Falls, Vermont, and is
the daughter of Antoine and Philomene (Lerige de la Plante) Bissonette. Her
mother owned the first business house in Fargo, North Dakota. Mrs. Irene
(Bissonette) Ouren received excellent educational advantages.

     Mr. Ouren is a member of the Nova Unitarian church, which he helped found
in 1881, and he had been church treasurer and secretary almost continuously ever
since its organization until 1914, also a director in the same. He is treasurer
for the Liberal Union Association which conducts a public library in Hanska. He
was also the organizer of this institution in 1903. Politically he was formerly
an advocate of the Populist party until the year that party affiliated with the
Democrats. He had previously attended all the state conventions. He was one of
the instigators of the twine manufacturing plant in the state prison, which was
the first of its kind in the United States. At that time he was appointed state
inspector of darty and food products by Governor Lind. He did not seek the same,
having put in an application for a friend of his for this position. Among his
other business enterprises he was the purchaser, with a few others, of the
controlling stock in the Bank of Halma, Minnesota, and is now president of that
flourishing institution.


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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