My Genealogy Hound

OLOF HEDLUND, one of Phelps county’s best known and most successful farmers, like many of the representative citizens of his community, is a native of Sweden and was born January 13, 1827. He was reared in his native country, being brought up to the blacksmith’s trade, which he followed in his earlier years and at which he was a competent and successful workman. He married in July, 1854, being then in his twenty-seventh year — the lady whom he married being Miss Brita Holmstrand, born June 3, 1836, at his native place, and two years later, in August, 1857, he immigrated to the United States and settled in Knox county, Ill. He was a resident of Knox county till 1876, when he moved to Nebraska and settled in Phelps county. In Illinois he was engaged partly in farming and partly at his trade as blacksmith, but since coming to Nebraska he has been engaged in farming exclusively. He owns a splendid farm of one hundred and sixty acres in Sheridan township, which he has in a fine state of cultivation and on which he has bestowed much labor, care and thoughtful attention. His place is noted for its clean, neat, thrifty, prosperous appearance, and, like all Nebraska farms, for the abundance of its productions. Mr. Hedlund is a practical farmer, yet he is a reading and thinking one as well. He is probably as well posted on agricultural matters as any man in the county, and is identified with every interest affecting the community. He has never aspired to any public position and yet he has been honored with public office. He was elected treasurer of Phelps county in 1879 and held the office two years, administering its affairs with credit to himself and fidelity to his county, and left the office taking with him the gratitude and esteem of all of his fellow-citizens.

Mr. Hedlund is a man of large heart and generous impulses. He is now and has been for many years a prominent member of the Lutheran church and not the least of the good he has done has been accomplished through the means of his church. He takes an active interest in all church work and gives liberally of his means to all church and charitable purposes. No man would go further than he to help a friend or accommodate a neighbor, or render assistance to the needy or afflicted. He has lived to a good old age in the practice of those great virtues which were first announced by him “who spake as never man spake,” and in the study and practice of those virtues he still finds the comfort of his declining years. He has an interesting family of children, most of whom are now grown, and some of them settled off in life and doing for themselves. He has reared five children, two boys and three girls — P. O. Hedlund, a prominent lawyer and business man of Holdrege, a sketch of whom appears in this work; Anna E., Emma A., Mary A., and Charles L.