Fresno County, California Biographies Source: History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present (1919) History By Paul E. Vandor Illustrated, Complete In Two Volumes Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1919 Notes: Missing+page1185-1186 Transcribed by Peggy Hooper This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm THOMAS L. BERG.� On the island of Fedje, off the north coast of Norway, near the city of Bergen, Mr. Berg was born November 2, 1870. His father, was Lars Sjurson, and his mother Breta Thompson. They owned a small place which they farmed, doing all the work by hand on account of the limited areas. Fishing at this place is excellent, and the father, in com- mon with the majority of the island inhabitants, depended mainly upon the products of their fisheries. This country would be a bleak Arctic waste were it not for the thermality of the great Gulf Stream, which not only tempers the climate of northern Norway, but carries with it elements of nutrition that sustain all kinds of aquatic life.. It was in such a world and under such conditions that Mr. Berg was born, and he inherited the qualities of physical and mental strength from the sturdy and honorable ancient Norse race. Mr. Berg was educated in the public schools of his native land : as he grew up he helped his father fish and farm. Nicolina Koppen, his wife, was born upon the same island, where they were schoolmates. They were brought up in the Lutheran Church, and were both confirmed the same day. The wife's parents were the largest land owners on the island, her father like- wise following the occupation of fishing and farming. When Mr. Berg reached his seventeenth year, he took to sailing before the mast, and for two years he sailed along the coast and in the Ninth and Baltic seas. On one of his voyages to England he was taken severely ill and for weeks his life was despaired of while he was being nursed in the hospital at Cardiff. Upon his recovery he returned home and quit the sea. He resolved to try the United States, and at the age of twenty-two he came to America, reached Chicago April 30. 1893, and continued to his destination � Council Bluffs, Iowa. Here he found a condition of great industrial unrest and unemployment. One of the first sights that he saw was Coxey�s Army in it- march across the continent. No work could be had at more than $1.10 per day. and only half time at that. After working about two years in western Iowa, Mr. Berg came to San Francisco, arriving there June 15, 1895, he went down to the Leland Stanford Stock Farm at Palo Alto, and stayed about a month, then came to Fresno. Labor conditions were bad here, but Mr. Berg took work on a farm near Fresno at five dollars per month. He liked Fresno County from his first visit and he resolved to become a rancher, and when he could, in 1897, he bought the twenty-acre place that is now his home and began to cultivate and improve it. He was a bachelor here for three years ; then in 1900 he went back to Norway, and on July 2, 1900, was married, and on July 4 started on their honeymoon for the land of his adop- tion and to the home he had prepared in Fresno County. Mr. Berg is also the owner of three different ranches aggregating ninety acres in the neighborhood of Oleander � a splendid result of twenty-five years' work. His wife has been a good helpmate, and their holdings are the result of their own unaided efforts. In 1901 he bought a place of ten acres on South Maple Avenue, and after bringing it into bearing sold to good advantage in 1907; in 1908 he bought a place of twenty acres on Maple Avenue, near Oleander; in 1911 he bought ten acres on Lincoln Avenue, three-quarters of a mile from his home place and in 1915 he bought forty acres on Orange Avenue three-quarters of a mile southwest from his home place. He is raising raisin grapes and peaches. In 1908 Mr. Berg built a fine home at a cost of $5,000, and here himself and family are noted for their hospitality. There are eight children in the family: Lawrence, is a freshman in the Fresno high school; Thomas; Johanna; Bertha; Marie; Bjerney; Herald ; Norma ; all going to school. The family are members of the Danish Lutheran Church, and in politics are Republican though enthusiastic sup- porters of the present administration.