"History of Cottonwood and Watonwan Counties of Minnesota, 1916"



Olaf Hedquist, a well-known and well-to-do retired farmer of Springfield township, Cottonwood county, now living at Windom, is a native of the kingdom of Sweden, born on November 12, 1852, son of Olaf and Mary (Johnson) Hedquist, both natives of that country, who spent all their lives there. He received his education in his native country and when twenty years of age, in 1872, came to the United States and proceeded to Chicago. Shortly afterward he became engaged in farm labor in Livingston county, Illinois, and later bought an eighty-acre farm in Champaign county, same state. In 1881 he married and established his home there, where he remained until 1901, in which year he sold that place and his wife sold a forty-acre farm which she owned there, and they moved over into Iowa, settling near Sheldon, in O'Brien county. There Mr. Hedquist bought three hundred and twenty acres, which he proceeded to improve and where he made his home for about ten years, at the end of which time, in 1910, he sold his place to advantage and came to Minnesota, locating in Cottonwood county. He bought section 35 in Springfield township, that county, and there made his home until 1915, in which year he retired from active labors of the farm and moved to Windom, buying a fine residence on Ninth street, where he and his wife are now living, very pleasantly and very comfortably situated. Mr. Hedquist still owns his fine farm of six very substantial citizen. He is a Republican, but has never been included in the office-seeking class. He was reared a Lutheran, but he and his family attend the Methodist church.

On January 25, 1881, Olaf Hedquist was united in marriage to Lillie Jenkinson, who was born in Marshall county, Illinois, September 23, 1862, daughter of Benjamin and Mary Jenkinson, natives of England, who later moved from Marshall county to Woodford county, Illinois, where they spent the remainder of their lives, he dying on February 14, 1889, and she in June, 1909. Benjamin Jenkinson and wife were the parents of ten children, of whom Mrs. Hedquist was the fourth in order of birth, the others being Alfred, Jemima, William, Mary Ann, Lydia, Sarah, Benjamin, Kesiah and Anna. Of these children, Alfred, William, Benjamin and Anna now survive. To Mr. and Mrs. Hedquist eight children have been bom, Arthur, Mary, Elmer, Clarence, Herbert, Lydia, Leona and John, all of whom are living.