Merced County Biographies

W. B. OLSON

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 
        The state of Iowa is sending many well-to-do and honored citizens to 
California, prominent among whom is W. B. Olson, who resides with his family in 
his comfortable and attractive home on his thirty-acre farm devoted to general 
and mixed farming near Irwin. He is a fine type of the Norwegian-American 
manhood, a large, well-built and muscular man, with a strong mind in a healthy 
body, full of good nature and streaks of humor that make you feel that he is a 
jolly good fellow.
        Mr. Olson was born in Story County, Iowa, in 1869. He grew up there and 
was married to Miss Martha Sydnes, also a native of Iowa. They came to 
California in 1907 and bought the thirty-acre ranch one mile south of Irwin on 
the east side of Lander Avenue. His father, Brite Olson, settled in Iowa in 
1855, being one of this county's earliest permanent settlers. He brought with 
him the intelligence and strength which characterized the hardy Norse pioneers 
of the Northwest.
        Mr. and Mrs. Olson stand for education and progress and it is their aim 
to provide a good education for their four daughters. All are well known in 
educational circles. The eldest, Rebecca, is a graduate of the Fresno Teachers 
College and is a teacher in the high school at Kerman, in Fresno County. The 
second daughter, Elma, is a high school graduate and now the wife of Prof. 
Haberman, whose specialty is horticulture in the schools of Los Angeles. The 
third daughter, Winnie, is a graduate of the Fresno Teachers College and is a 
teacher in Hanford. The youngest daughter, Pearl, is a graduate of Fresno 
Teachers College and teaches at Atwater, Merced County.
 
History of Merced County, California � Los Angeles, Historic Record Co., 1925
page 831