Knud & Thora Sorensen Family

SORENSEN, JORGENSEN, LARSEN, OLESEN

Posted By: Cathy Joynt Labath (email)
Date: 10/6/2006 at 21:07:59

--From Graettinger [Palo Alto Co, IA] Centennial 1893-1993

p. 291

KNUD AND THORA SORENSEN FAMILY

Knud Hansen Sorensen, son of Sophie (Jorgensen) and Hans Sorensen, born June 30, 1879, originated in Vejle, Fyn, Denmark. Being unhappy as a carpenter apprentice, Knud decided to give up his trade and build a new life for himself in America. He sailed with his young friend, Carl Hansen, to Peter Hansen’s home near Story City, Iowa, in the spring of 1900.

Knud’s good mother harvested the flax she’d sown, spun it into thread, wove it into cloth and made a pair of beautiful monogrammed hemstitched sheets to send with him in the sturdy camelback trunk he had built. Before the two men left their homeland, his mother said, “We’ll meet again in Heaen.”

In the U.S. Knud met and married Thora Larsen, daughter of Christian and Marn Kristine (Olesen) Larsen on January 25, 1905. The wedding took place in her mother’s home on a Wednesday afternoon at 6 o’clock in Nevada, Iowa.

The couple started farming in Grant Township, Story County, Iowa, where a daughter, Florence Christine, was born on October 31, 1905. A son, Harvey Clarence, arrived on July 22, 1908. He was a big, big boy weighing twelve pounds!

In 1914, Knud and Carl each purchased eighty acre farms in Palo Alto County, Lost Island Township, where the soil was a rich black loam (the best in the country, Knud said). He bought his eight acres from John Berg of Ruthven. The move from Story City was quite an adventure! Knud’s four horses, machinery and household goods filled two boxcars, with Knud traveling in the caboose of the train. Thora, Florence and Harvey made the trip at a later date, by passenger train.

Harvey, then five years old, was amazed and thrilled to see “white trees,” He had never seen cottonwood trees before, with their cottony tufts thickly filling the air.

Margaret Sophie was the first child to be born on Knud’s eighty, when he was thirty-six years old. She beat Doctor Baldwin to the scene, during a fierce snow storm.

Knud had Margaret recorded as Marguerite at he Courthouse, named after the queen of Denmark. Sophie was his dear mother’s name. Thora had her daughter’s name written as Margaret, the English way to spell it she said, on the baptismal certificate.

Bernita Norma, a cute curly headed blonde, was bon March 2, 1917.

Esther Arlene was born in November of 1921. She was always called Arlene. Now our family had grown to seven.

Since he was a carpenter, Knud remodeled the house as well as enclosing both porches, and built an open stairway where the girls played church with their dolls.

Knud built a cowbarn, crib and chicken shelters. He was always building or repairing something. The family enjoyed this farm for eighteen years.

Their church home had been South Walnut Lutheran where both Knud and Thora taught Sunday School. Knud was a Deacon for many years and took that job very seriously. Thora was also very active in Ladies Aid.

In 1932, the Sorensens moved four miles northeast of Ruthven where they resided for eleven years. The houes was very elegant…even the first in the neighborhood to have electricity,.

After all of the children had “flown the coop” Knud and Thora purchased a house in the northwest part of Graettinger. A pair of white horses, plus small machinery, went along to be kept in the barn on the premises. They were used to plow gardens for a short time.

The day before Kund died, he visited every merchant on main street, opening their doors and calling a friendly greeting to them.