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


H.E. WAHLSTROM (1880)

H. E. Wahlstrom is a homesteader of Norman township and has spent many years
of his life in that precinct.  He still owns the old homestead, the
southwest quarter of section 20, and owns in addition forty-six acres on
section 31.  He suffered many hardships in pioneer days, but has come upon
easier times and has reaped the rewards of perseverance.

Mr. Wahlstrom was born in Skarabor Ian, Sweden, September 26, 1844, the son
of Johannes P. and Eva L. Wahlstrom, both of whom died in their native land.
At the age of sixteen Mr. Wahlstrom began working in a sawmill in Sweden and
was so employed three years.  The next five years he worked in a flouring
mill and then took up carpenter work, which he followed twelve years.  At
the age of thirty-six years, in 1880, he came to America and direct to
Yellow Medicine county, arriving in the county in May.

Upon his arrival to Canby at that time, Mr. Wahlstrom has $60 in cash and
nothing else except the clothing on his back and a determination to found a
new home.  He filed upon the land as a pre-emption claim, but he soon
changed the filing to a homestead and proved up in 1887.  For many years he
was poor, and his first home, in which he lived eighteen years, was a
dug-out, or cellar.  He has lived continuously on the one farm since 1880
and has a nice home.

Mr. Wahlstrom has been married twice.  His first wife was Elizabeth Berger,
whom he wedded in Sweden in 1876 and who died in 1887.  As a result of this
union the following six children were born:  Ellen (Mrs. Martin Salte),
deceased; Elenora (Mrs. Carl Salte), of Fortier township; Emma, deceased;
Oscar, of Canby; Hilda, deceased; Warner, of North Dakota.

The second marriage of Mr. Wahlstrom occurred in Norman township in 1888,
when he married Mary Mickelson, a native of Norway.  Their children are as
follows:  Emil, Albin, Hilda (deceased) and Gust.  All the children reside
at home.  The Wahlstroms are members of the Norwegian Lutheran church of
Fortier township.