Buena Vista County, IA
USGenWeb Project

G. Lauridsen, one of the prominent and progressive farmers and stockmen of Buena Vista county, owns a valuable and well improved farm of two hundred and sixty acres on section 8, Elk township.  He was born in Denmark on the 22d of August, 1853, and when eighteen years of age emigrated to the United States, desiring to benefit by the broader business opportunities which the new world afforded.  He first took up his abode in Utica, New York, and in the spring of 1873 journeyed westward to Chicago, where he worked at anything that would yield him an honest living.  In the fall of 1873 he went to Casco, Wisconsin, and was there employed as clerk in a store for a year and a half.  While residing in the western metropolis he had purchased a tract of eighty acres of land in Buena Vista county, Iowa, and in 1875 located in Alta, where he was engaged as clerk in a general store until 1883.  In that year he opened a general store on his own account, successfully conducting the enterprise for five years, on the expiration of which period he sold out and took up his abode on the farm where he now resides.   Here he has since engaged in general farming and in the raising and feeding of stock, his untiring industry and unremitting energy bringing to him a gratifying measure of success in his undertakings.  The many substantial improvements on his property, all of which stands as monuments to his thrift and enterprise, include a commodious residence, two barns and all necessary outbuildings for the shelter of grain and stock.  He has likewise fenced the fields and a well kept grove and orchard add to the general attractiveness of the place.  His landed holdings include an eighty-acre tract in South Dakota, and he is widely recognized as a man of excellent business ability and unfaltering integrity, whose success is attributable entirely to his own well directed labors, for he started out in life empty handed and unaided.

In 1880 Mr. Lauridsen was united in marriage to Miss Christina Larsen, who was a native of Denmark but was reared in Buena Vista county.  She passed away in 1897, leaving their children to mourn her loss, namely:  Walter L., an agriculturist of Elk township, who is married and has one daughter, Opal; Dora; and Lula.  The four other children of the family are deceased, three dying of diphtheria within a period of three weeks.  Their names were Louis, Stanley and Edward and they died at the ages of nine, seven and three years respectively.  While on a visit to his native land Mr. Lauridsen was there again married, his second union being with Miss Anna Matsen, who was born in Denmark.

In his political views Mr. Lauridsen is a stalwart republican and has capably served as justice of the peace for two terms, but has never sought nor desired public office.  Fraternally he is connected with the Ancient Order of United Workmen, while his religious faith is indicated by his membership in the Lutheran church, with which his wife and children are also identified.  Coming to the United States as a young man, he here found the opportunities which he sought and in their utilization has gained the measure of prosperity that entitles him to mention among the representative citizens of this county, where he has now made his home for a third of a century.