Buena Vista County, IA
USGenWeb Project

Lars A. Nelson, a successful and well known agriculturalist residing in Section 26, Elk township, where he owns one hundred and sixty acres of finely improved land, also operates a tract of two hundred and forty acres adjoining. Born in Denmark on the 22nd of February, 1853, he was there reared to the age of nineteen years and was afforded good school advantages. Wishing to profit by broader business opportunities of the new world, he crossed the Atlantic in 1872 and took up his abode in Iroquois county, Illinois. Subsequently he located in Kankakee county and there carried on farming but later returned to Iroquois county, where he was also connected with agricultural pursuits.

On the 22nd of February, 1879, in Kankakee county, he wedded Miss Maggie Lewiston, a native of Denmark, who was called to her final rest in 1883. In that year Mr. Nelson came to Buena Vista county, Iowa, and purchased eighty acres of his present farm, taking up his abode thereon in 1884, He opened up and improved the property and as the years passed by brought the farm under a high state of cultivation and development. As his financial resources increased he extended the boundaries of his place until it now comprises one hundred and sixty acres, and for about thirteen years ha has also farmed a tract of two hundred and forty acres adjoining. In addition to the work of the fields he is also engaged in raising and feeding stock, fattening about three or four carloads of cattle and two carloads of hogs annually. He is likewise a stockholder in the Farmers' Elevator Company and in the Co-operative Creamery Company and is widely recognized as one of the substantial and public-spirited citizens of the county.

In 1885 Mr. Nelson was united in marriage to Miss Batilda Hanson, also a native of Denmark, by whom he has three children: Morris, Frank and Walter. The two sons of Mr. Nelson's first marriage are as follows: Nels K., an agriculturist in Elk township, residing at hone; and Chris, a student at Sac City and also a teacher in a commercial school there.

Mr. Nelson gives his political allegiance to the men and measures of democracy and is an active worker for the success of the party in his community. He has served as a member of the school board, has been a delegate to the county convention and is now capably filling the office of township clerk. He is an official member of the Danish Baptist church, with which his wife is also identified. The period of his residence here now covers a quarter of a century and he has therefore been a witness of the county's steady development and growth as it has kept pace with the onward march of civilization. In the summer of 1908 Mr. Nelson took a trip to Europe, visiting the land of his birth and finding much pleasure in renewing the associations of his childhood and youth. He has never had occasion to regret his determination seek a home in the new world, however, for here he has gained the prosperity which is ever the reward of earnest, persistent labor and by his upright, honorable career has won the esteem and regard of all with whom he has come in contact.