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


MORTEN MORTENSEN. � A progressive, successful rancher, whose 
wife and family are equally highly respected, and who is the sort of colonist 
that Fresno County is glad to welcome, is Morten Mortensen, who came 
here with some means acquired for the most part in Minnesota, and he is 
today rated among the well-to-do hard-working agriculturists of Central 
California. His finely appointed ranch of twenty acres lies three miles 
southwest of Parlier. 

He was born in Jylland, Denmark, on February 15, 1872, the son of 
Jacob Mortensen, who is still living in Denmark at the age of eighty-one. 
and was reared on his father's home-farm, from seven to fourteen years of 
age, attending the public schools, and, in the creed of his parents, he was 
confirmed in the Lutheran Church. When old enough he served in the Danish 
army � the experience proving so disagreeable that he resolved to come to 
America instead. He first secured an honorable discharge, however, and 
then he set sail, in 1892. He stopped at Perth Amboy, N. J., and there for 
six years worked in a terra cotta factory ; and then, in 1898, he married. The 
bride was Miss Ella Hansen, a daughter of the land of his boyhood and 
youth, who had been in America since her fifteenth year. They removed to 
Staten Island, and there he found employment in the chemical department 
of a large factory in which dentists' tools were made. 

Tiring of indoor labor, however, Mr. Mortensen came west to Dodge 
County, Minn., and rented 240 acres. He raised grain and live stock, and 
did so well that in 1909 he sold out and came to California. Mrs. Mortensen 
had a sister, Mrs. H. P. Hansen, living in Selma, and this helped their de- 
cision at that critical stage of their progress. 

At first Mr. Mortensen bought ten acres west of the Walnut School- 
house, and later traded for his present holding, in 1910. These twenty acres 
he planted as follows: seven acres of peaches (Muirs, Lovells, cling-stones 
and nectarines), four acres of malagas, three acres of muscats, two and a 
half acres of seedless grapes, and half an acre of young peaches, while he 
has an acre of pasture, an acre of alfalfa and the balance in a dry yard with 
the necessary buildings. He soon placed the ranch under irrigation, and 
obtained results that astonished his neighbors. He is a member of the Raisin 
and Peach growers associations, always ready to advance the interests of 
the horticulturist and viticulturist. 

Mr. and Mrs. Mortensen have four children: Howard works a farm of 
forty acres west of Fowler; Arthur works another place six miles northeast 
of Vitoga; Ernest attends school; and so does Gladys. The family attends 
the Danish Lutheran Church three miles west of Parlier, and Mr. Morten- 
sen belongs to the Danish Brotherhood. All have engaged heartily in Red 
Cross and similar war work. 

Morten Mortensen is the fifth child in a family of six children, and the 
only one in California. A sister, Mrs. Herman Petersen, resides at Devil's 
Lake, N. D., and a brother, August, also successful, is in Wisconsin. All the 
rest are in Denmark. His beloved mother, who was Christine Jacobsen be- 
fore her marriage, died at the old home in Denmark, twelve years ago.