Twenty-two years ago Tuesday the editor of this paper arrived in Odebolt. (W. E. Hamilton.)
Donald and Duncan Currie have gone to Des Moines to take a commercial course.
The extreme generosity of the Sac Sun makes it possible for The Chronicle to publish the pictures of Mrs. Margaret Lonnberg, Sac county's oldest person and Mrs. Inga Lundblad, one of the five oldest people in the county. Both women live in Odebolt, Mrs. Lonnberg being the mother of Mrs. Emil Lundblad, with whom she makes her home, and Mrs. Lundblad lives with her daughter, Mrs. John Nordeen.
The following articles taken from the Sun will be of interest to our readers.
A half century ago a thunder alarm visited a town in Illinois and a bolt of lightning crashed into a bedroom. One of the two sleepers was instantly killed. It was the husband of Mrs. Margaret Lonnberg, who has lived to be the oldest resident of Sac county. She herself was hurt by falling bricks but recovered.
Before she was fifty she had a nervous breakdown, complicated with heart trouble. She was in bed for months. The doctors said she never would get up. She thought otherwise--and has lived another half century since that day!
Mr. Lonnberg is now residing at the home of her son-in-law and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Emil Lundblad, in Odebolt. Mr. Lundblad's mother, Mrs. Inga Lundblad, is also one of the five oldest people in the county and these two good women are running a race to see who will live the longest!
It was on February 19, 1829 that Margaret Lonquist was born in Helsingland, in the north of Sweden. She was reared in an isolated farm home, with a forest nearby to stir her imagination. Her earliest recollections are of herding cattle in the big dark forest. Once she was lost in the depths of the woods. Night was coming on and she was frightened. The cattle seemed to be going deeper and deeper into the forest. Not knowing where else to go she followed the cattle--and in a short time found herself in the farm yard of her own home!
She worked in the fields as the girls and women all did in those days. At harvest time she walked behind the men and as they cut the grain with their scythes and helped tie the bundles.
A few years after her marriage, she and her husband and two children embarked for America. A sad and stormy voyage it was on the sailing vessel in the year 1857. The ship battled high waves for six weeks and one of the two children died. The little body was lowered into the sea.
After the death of her husband, in Illinois, Mrs. Lonnberg married again and moved to a farm in Crawford county, Iowa, just south of the Sac county line. Later she and her family resided in the southern part of Wheeler township. Since the death of her second husband, Mrs. Lonnberg has made her home with her children, and came two years ago from Kansas in an automobile to spend the rest of her years in her daughter's care at Odebolt.
Until two or three years ago Mrs. Lonnberg was in good health. She has been gradually failing and her memory is not so alert as it used to be.
"You are the oldest person in Sac county, mother," said Mrs. Lundblad to her after introducing the Sun representative. The aged woman who lacks only a little over four years of the century mark, smiled sweetly and held out her hand in greeting. She spoke some words in Swedish and said a cheery "Goodbye" in English as the Sun man departed.--Sac Sun.
"It is God's Will." This is the explanation Mrs. Inga Lundblad, 92-year-old resident of Odebolt, has for her preservation for so many years. Mrs. Lundblad spends her waking hours knitting as she used to do in the old country and reading her church papers printed in the only language she knows--Swedish. Her eyes are good and she enjoys her reading almost as well as the three cups of coffee she drinks every day. Three cups of coffee at 92--and think what the Postum ads tell us!
There has been considerable heroism in Mrs. Lundblad's career. She was born in Falkoping, southwestern Sweden, on November 7, 1832. At the age of 24 she was married to Gustov Lundblad and became the mother of five children. Gustov was an adventurous soul and went off to America, getting work in the mines of northern Michigan. Here he died. Alone Mrs. Lundblad managed a little Swedish farm and her flock of children. Winters were cold and hard, the snow sometimes piling up so high that out-buildings were completely covered.
The children grew up and the boys came to America. They liked the land of opportunity and sent for the mother and sister. Mrs. Lundblad lived first at Vail and then came to Sac county. She is now living at the home of her daughter, Mrs. John Nordeen, in Odebolt.
A power mower for use in taking care of the cemetery has been purchased recently by the trustees of the Odebolt Cemetery association.
The new equipment is a Bartlett mower and will be equipped with a 2-½ horsepower gasoline engine. It will be delivered in the spring and will be a much needed aid to the sexton in keeping the cemetery in good condition.
E. McKinley Eriksson formerly of Odebolt, has been elected head of the history department of Coe college. Mr. Eriksson, who is well know in Sac City, having served as pastor of the Methodist Episcopal churches on the Sac City circuit, received his Ph. D. from the University of Iowa three years ago and has been teaching history at Lombard College in Illinois for two years. He achieved considerable national prominence last fall from articles on the history of presidential elections which he contributed to the New Republic and Kiwanis Magazine.--Sac Sun.