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



ANDREW C. BOLANDER.� Fine types of the true Californian of to- 
day, Mr. and Mrs. Andrew C. Bolander dispense the old-time Californian hos- 
pitality, and they are the parents of an equally attractive family. Mr. Bolander 
was born in Sweden, near Sunsval, Helsingland, April 30. 1857, the son of 
Carl Johan Bolander, a farmer there, who married Catherine Anderson. In 
1866. the elder Bolander brought his family of two children, and his wife, to 
the United States and settled at Moline, Ill., where he remained until 1869, 
when he migrated to South Dakota and homesteaded 160 acres near Ver- 
milion, Clay County, which he improved ; and there both parents passed 
away. 

Andrew C. the elder of the two children, attended the public schools of 
Illinois and South Dakota; and from a lad learned farming. In 1879 he 
moved to Leadville, Colo., and there he worked for eighteen months in the 
mines, after which he returned to his farm. In 1894, however, he sold his 
holding and removed to El Campo, Wharton County, Texas, where he bought 
land and resided ; but finding that it was a bad adobe country, he sold out 
and went to Moscow, Idaho, where he engaged in ranching, still later trans- 
ferring his farming activities to the Palouse country in Washington. So well 
did he succeed there that he has raised as many as sixty-six bushels of wheat 
to the acre, but he has been compelled to sell for as low as forty-two cents a 
bushel. 

After a year, Mr. Bolander went back to Dakota, and then to Idaho, and 
then to near Spokane. Wash., but having, in April, 1904, bought his present 
ranch without seeing it. he located on it in January, 1908. It was at first 
twenty acres of raw land ; and this he improved, setting out vines, building a 
residence, and erecting other farm buildings. His house was burned in 1015, 
but he rebuilt it. Round about, he has some ten acres of peaches and five 
acres of Thompson seedless vines. 

On July 4, 1887, at Dalesburg, S. D., Mr. Bolander was married to Miss 
Betsy Severson, a native of Newburg, Fillmore County. Minn., and the daugh- 
ter of Sever Severson Lakevold, who was born in Hallingdal, Norway, on 
March 14. 1833. Grandfather Sever Lakevold was the owner of the large 
farm named Lakevold; the son Sever came to Minnesota in 1853, and he 
dropped the latter part of his name. From Minnesota he moved to the Palouse 
Valley, Idaho ; and he died at Moscow in that state on September 27. 1909. 
He had married Gure Roe, who was born in Hallingdal. Norway, and came 
to Minnesota when she was twenty years of age. Here she met and married 
Mr. Severson, and in 1904, in Idaho, she died. Mrs. Bolander was the oldest 
of their eight children living. Mr. and Mrs. Bolander have four children: 
Esther Catherine, Mabel Julia, Agnes Caroline, and Ruth Sophia, all well- 
educated and cultured. A son. Carl Gotfred, died in infancy. 

They attend the Swedish Lutheran Church at Vinland. Mr. Bolander is 
a member of the California Associated Raisin Company, and the California 
Peach Growers. Inc. He is a stanch Republican, but knows no party lines 
in local projects for the betterment of the community.