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 M. A. AND L. P. IPSEN.� A fine old Danish family with traditions reaching far back into the heroic history of that brave little country, and having present-day representatives who are rated among the successful and influential men of affairs, is that of the two brothers, Marcus A. and Louis P. Ipsen, ranchers, dairymen and stockmen, who compose the firm of M. A. & L. P. Ipsen so widely known among California agriculturists and financiers. They reside on their fine, large and well-improved dairy ranch three miles southeast of Burrel, on the Elkhorn Grade Road. They are also extensively engaged in grain-growing on the West Side, where they own a fine tract of 320 acres, ten miles north of Huron, in Fresno County. The home ranch consists of 132 � acres, and there they have planted trees, built commodious barns, milk house and a comfortable residence, laid out large, clean yards, and put up strong fences, feeding-racks and other contrivances designed to expedite the work of the day, all presenting a very pleasant sight to the aesthetic eye. Self-made, hard-working, it is no wonder that nowhere may a more ideally-arranged, or better-kept dairy be found. Both of these gentlemen were born, the sons of Jeppe H. Ipsen, on the beautiful island of Bornholm, a Danish province in the Baltic Sea, from which on a clear day both the shores of Sweden and Denmark can be spied with the aid of a field-glass. The mother had been Karen Maria Dam before her marriage, and both father and mother first saw the light on the same island. There they married and lived, and the father died, on a small farm, although the father relied for a living for himself and family mainly on his work as a brick-layer, contractor and builder, working with an older brother in that business. The mother is still living in the village of Ronne, enjoying life at the advanced age of seventy-five. The father died in 1884 at the age of forty-one, as the result of lifting too large a rock. The good mother kept the family together, although they were in such poor circumstances that all the children had to work. There were eight children in the family, and all are living: Signe married Andrew Lindstrom, a county commissioner and rancher in Summit County, Colo., and there she assists her husband in stock-raising; Louis P. is the second in the order of birth ; Jens Christian is a sea-captain at Ronne, Denmark ; then came Marcus A. ; Hans J. is a farmer in his native land ; John M. is a tailor in Sjaelland, Denmark; Anna Maria is married and lives at Ronne; and Otto L. is an electrician in the same place. Louis P., who was born on May 29, 1868, came to Pontiac, Ill., twenty years later, and in time wrote to his brother, Marcus, to join him in the New World. The latter, who was born on March 27, 1873, had learned, however, enough about Fresno County to center his anticipations here, and arriving in America, after a voyage begun in March, 1891, he came straight to Cen- tral California, arriving in Fresno in April. He began to work by the month as a farm-laborer and continued for six years. In 1889 Louis also came to Fresno. Louis was the first to rent a farm, but he quit when he could not do as well, and went back to working by the month. The Ipsen Bros, started as a firm in renting a section of land near Caruthers, and the firm has been busy, constantly developing its connections and increasing its activities, ever since. They bought 132 � acres here in the fall of 1903, when it was salt grass without any improvements, and soon had seventy high-grade Holstein cows. In 1912 they bought 320 acres of land near Huron, then wild, and under their management it came to tell a dif- ferent and a more attractive story. Marcus A., who is still a bachelor, took a trip back to Denmark in 1910, while Louis looked in upon his native land thirteen years before. At Dillon, in Summit County, Colo., on November 16, 1903, the latter was married to Miss Nina Jensen, from the city of Ronne, in the island of Bornholm, Den- mark, and they have become the parents of three children : Marvin Archie, Viola Maria, and Louis Marcus. The family attends the United Brethren Church at Riverdale. A member of the Republican party and public-spirited to a high degree, Mr. Ipsen, as well as his brother, worked hard to get the railway through this section, and also helped organize the Riverdale Coop- erative Creamery, which, as a first class establishment encouraging local industry has proven of great benefit to this section. Both brothers are mem- bers of the Alfalfa Growers Association. Mrs. Ipsen's father was Jens Peter Jensen, also a native of the island of Bornholm. He was for a while a policeman at Ronne, and later a farmer; and now he is the postmaster at the little station of Ringeby, a post he has ably held for the past thirty-one years, � a fact the more remarkable since he has reached his seventy-third year. The mother, who was Kristine Caro- line Hansen, died on Good Friday, 1910, seventy-two years old and six years the senior of her husband. They had six children : Andreas Peter has been a farmer for forty years in the Transvaal, South Africa ; Petra Carolina is married and lives near the old home in Denmark ; Johannes Sextus is a farmer near Ronne, Denmark ; Anine Marie is single and" keeps house for her father at the old home-place ; Otto Peter is a farmer in Denmark ; and there is Nina, now Mrs. Ipsen, who grew up in Denmark, there attended the public schools, was baptized and confirmed in the Lutheran Church. She is the first member of the family to come to America, and was twenty-five when she crossed the seas and went to Warren, Pa., worked there as a domestic for eight months, and then came on to Dillon, Colo., where she renewed the acquaintance with her husband, whom she first met in Denmark. She was born on the same island with him, and the romance so developed that "it happened in Norland." Mrs. Ipsen's father was an extensive traveler, as well as a man of affairs, and made a trip to Iceland and Greenland, where he hunted. Mrs. Ipsen is a member of the Red Cross, and was a liberal purchaser of Liberty bonds.