Merced County Biographies

JOHN DAHLSTROM

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

         That "honesty is the best policy" is the maxim that governs the business 
life of Louis Dahlstrom, merchant at Irwin in the Hilmar Colony of Merced 
County. He believes in the "square deal" with everybody and in consequence he is 
prospering accordingly. A native of Sweden he was born on January 17, 1877, the 
son of H. L. and Carrie Dahlstrom, natives of Sweden who came to America with 
their family in 1889. Their eldest son, Peter Dahlstrom, had come the year 
before and the family located in Marshall County, Minn., where the father was a 
farmer on 160 acres of land. There were six children in the family, viz.: Mary, 
Mrs. Henry Lundell of Turlock; Peter, who died in Minnesota in 1889; John, born 
November 24, 1874; Louis, our subject; Dan, born August 12, 1880, who erected 
the Dahlstrom block in Irwin in 1922; Gust, born in Sweden on May 31, 1884, now 
running a Union Oil station in Turlock. The mother, who was born in 1842, died 
in Turlock in 1922 aged eighty years; the father, already past eighty-four, is 
living retired in Turlock.
        Louis Dahlstrom accompanied the family to the United States and attended 
the schools in Minnesota and then spent some time in Washington before he 
arrived in Turlock, he being the first member of the family to arrive here. In 
1921 he started a grocery store on a small scale at Irwin, later being joined by 
his brother John; and they carried on the grocery business under the firm name 
of Dahlstrom Brothers until January 1, 1925, when Louis bought his brother's 
interest and continues the business as Louis Dahlstrom. He has built up a 
prosperous business and his trade gradually increases with the growth of the 
community.
        In 1905 Louis Dahlstrom was married to Miss Annie Johnson, daughter of 
Mrs. Frank Johnson of the Hilmar Colony, and their children are: Ella 
Evangeline, Helen, Stanley, Chester, June, Pershing and Donald. Mr. Dahlstrom is 
one of the progressive men of the colony and does his duty as a citizen at all 
times.
 
History of Merced County, California � Los Angeles, Historic Record Co., 1925
page 826-827