Merced County Biographies

FREDRICK W. HANSEN

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 
        Of all the immigrants who come to our shores there are none who make a 
better class of citizens than the Danes. Loyal Americans, frugal, honest, 
temperate and industrious, they soon rise to positions of honor and respect. 
Typical of that class in every respect, is Fredrick Hansen, section foreman of 
the Santa Fe Railroad at Merced. A native of Denmark, he was born August 2, 
1862, a son of Christian and Mary Ann Hansen. His father was a miller and with 
his brother conducted a grist mill until his death. He was injured in a runaway 
of his team, from the effects of which he never fully recovered.
        Fredrick Hansen was educated in the grammar schools of his native 
country and grew up at home until he was sixteen years of age, when he joined 
the army. After four years of service, at the age of twenty, the lure of 
adventure and the desire to make his fortune induced him to emigrate and he 
eventually arrived in Wisconsin, where he got employment on a farm at twelve 
dollars a month. Characteristic of his frugal countrymen, he soon accumulated 
enough surplus funds from even such small wages to enable him to begin farming 
on his own account, which he did at Iowa Falls, Iowa. That it was not entirely 
to his satisfaction is evidenced by the fact that in 1900 he turned his steps 
still further westward and he arrived in Livermore, Cal., that fall. For four 
years he worked on a ranch, and at the same time had charge of a section of the 
Southern Pacific Railroad. His next move was to Stockton, where he worked for 
the Santa Fe until he came to Merced in 1909, since when he has been section 
foreman on the railway up to the present.
        It was in Iowa Falls that Fredrick W. Hansen was united in marriage to 
Miss Josephine Marie Larsen, a native of Denmark, but reared in the United 
States. The children of the union are as follows: Louis, who is a partner in a 
drug store in Stockton; Dorothy, wife of Frank Blair of Stockton, and mother of 
a son; Edward, also in Stockton; Mabel, wife of John Fragie, of Merced, and 
mother of a son and daughter; Agnes, Mrs. Herbert Dean, of Oakland; and Roy, who 
served in France in the World War, was wounded and came back physically unfit 
from shell shock. Mr. Hansen is a Democrat in politics. He is deeply interested 
in Merced City and County and is a public-spirited and highly respected citizen.
 
History of Merced County, California � Los Angeles, Historic Record Co., 1925
page 839-840