YELLOW MEDICINE COUNTY MINNESOTA
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Submitted to the Minnesota Biographies Project by:
Name: LaNaye Hennen
Email: henfarms@clarkfield.ruralink.com
Date: 29 June 2000
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"A History of Yellow Medicine County" by Arthur P. Rose,published in 1914

E. G. OFTDAL (1886)

E. G. Oftdal, farmer and stock raiser of Normania township, owns 160 acres
of land on sections 12 and 11.  He has owned and farmed that place for the
last quarter of a century and has a find farm and home, all the results of
his labors.

Mr. Oftdal was born in Norway July 26, 1865, a son of John and Hannah (Ness)
Oftdal.  Both parents are buried in their native land, the father having
died in 1893, the mother in 1911.  At the age of seventeen years E. G.
Oftdal came to America, and his first home was in Minneapolis.  He worked in
the saw mills of that city three years and then came to Yellow Medicine
county.

The year of arrival to the county was 1886.  For two years he worked as a
farm hand near Granite Falls.  Then he bought his Normania township farm,
improved the place, and his home has ever since been on it.  He engages in
general farming and specialized in Yorkshire swine.  For a number of years
he was director of his school district, and he and his family are members of
the Norwegian Lutheran church.

Mr. Oftdal was married in Yellow Medicine county July 23, 1892, to Ellen
Ness.  His wife was born in Norway and came to the United States the year of
her marriage.  The six children of the family are named John, Sidney, Helma,
Inga, Edwin and Luella.