Iver E. Steen Biography

	This biography is from "Memorial and biographical record; an illustrated
	compendium of biography, containing a compendium of local biography,
	including biographical sketches of prominent old settlers and 
	representative citizens of South Dakota..." Published by G. A. 
	Ogle & Co., Chicago, 1898. Pages 433-434

	Scan, OCR and editing by Joy Fisher, jfisher@sdgenweb.com, 1999.

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IVER E. STEEN, one of the most prosperous farmers of Brookings 
township, was born at Gulbransdalen, Norway, January 3, 1853, a son of 
Erland and Mary (Steen) Odegard.  E. Odegard, a farmer in Norway, while 
a young man, bought the farm known as "Steen" on which his wife was 
born. After the custom of that country he was thereafter known by that 
name. In 1876 he sold out and came to the United States and located 
first in Olmsted county, Minnesota, and three years later came to 
Brookings county, South Dakota, and took a homestead claim of eighty 
acres in Brookings township which he cultivated and improved until his 
death in 1885, when he was sixty-five years of age.  He was a lifelong 
member of the Lutheran church.  Mrs. Mary Steen is still living and is 
seventy-five years of age. Her father, Hans Steen, was a farmer who 
lived and died in Norway. Mr. and Mrs. Steen had five sons, viz: Ole, 
Salem township, Olmsted county, Minnesota; Iver E.; Knute, a farmer of 
Brookings township; Hans, a stone mason in Brookings; and Ole, a farmer 
on the homestead in Brookings township.

Iver E. Steen, the subject of this sketch, was about twenty-one years 
old when he left home and came to America. He located in Salem 
township, Olmsted county, Minnesota, where he was employed as a farm 
laborer until 1879, when he came to Brookings county, Dakota, and took 
a homestead claim of one hundred and sixty acres on section 9, township 
110, range 50. He shipped a car load of goods, including lumber for his 
residence, as far as Canby, Minnesota, fifty miles from his claim, and 
conveyed it from there to his new home by means of ox teams, and thus 
by dilligent, persistent effort from beginning to the end he has made 
for himself and family a cozy and comfortable home on the beautiful 
prairie. His farm consists of four hundred acres and is situated on 
sections 8, 9 and i6, with three hundred and seventy acres under 
cultivation and six acres in fine timber. He gives considerable 
attention, also, to dairying and stock raising, and is now erecting a 
barn 34 x 56 feet in addition to the numerous and convenient 
improvements he already has.

Mr. Steen was married June 18, 1892, to Miss Rena Brown, a native of 
Norway, who came to America about 1887 and lived in Eau Claire, 
Wisconsin, previous to her marriage.  To this union have been born two 
children: Mina and Eda.  Mr. and Mrs. Steen are members of the United 
Norwegian Lutheran church of Brookings, of which Mr. Steen was one of 
the original members.  Politically he affiliates with the Republican 
party, and has served several years as a member of the township board 
of supervisors and for the past five years has been township treasurer.