- BERNT WILLIAM QUALLEY. Among the many monuments which throughout
Wisconsin have
- been erected to unflagging industry and sound business judgment,
there are few superior to the highly improved farm of 160 acres
in Exeter township, Green county, owned and, until lately, operated
by the subject of this sketch. Migrating when a lad of seventeen
years from Norway, his native land, to Wisconsin, Mr. QUALLEY
worked for a time as farm laborer, then at a trade until he could
save the purchase payment for a little home of forty-eight acres.
To this he has added from time to time until the valuable and
well tilled farm he now owns became the merited fruit of his
persevering efforts.
- He was born near Bergen, Norway, Feb. 13, 1848, son of Ryer
and Helga QUALLEY, and
- grandson of Bartle QUALLEY, a life-long resident of Norway,
who had a family of six or seven children. Helga QUALLEY was
a daughter of Tron QUALLEY, a Norwegian farmer who had two sons
and three daughters. Ryer QUALLEY, the father, was a tailor by
occupation. He came to America about 1867 and located in Dane
county, Wis., where he farmed for several years, then moved to
Brooklyn township, Green county. He died in Exeter township in
1877, aged fifty-six and his wife in 1885, aged seventy-four
years. They were devout members of the Lutheran Church. To Ryer
and Helga QUALLEY were born six children, four sons and two daughters,
of whom four are now living, namely: Thomas, of Brookings, S.
Dak.; Bernt William, our subject; Bertha, wife of Stark HIMLE,
of Kasson, Minn.; and James, of Brookings, South Dakota.
- In his native land Bernt William QUALLEY received a good
common-school education, and, as
- a boy, found occupation in a match factory. In 1865, when
about seventeen years of age he came to America, landing at Stoughton,
Wis., where he began work by the month on a farm. Later, at Whitewater,
he acquired the shoemaker's trade, which he followed for about
ten years. Possessing a fondness for the independence and activity
of farm life, Mr. QUALLEY then purchased forty-eight acres, a
portion of his present farm of 160 acres in Exeter township.
Here he made a homestead that ranks high among those of the township.
In February, 1901, Mr. QUALLEY bought a stock of dry goods and
groceries from J. E. LITEL, and renting his farm to his son-in-law,
Stanley DIETZ, he, on March 1, 1901, moved to Attica, Wis., to
enter upon a mercantile career.
- Mr. QUALLEY was married, July 3, 1875, to Miss Elizabeth
Melvina BARTLETT, daughter of
- Joseph and Eliza (PRICE) BARTLETT. Six children, two sons
and four daughters, have been born to them, namely: Derwin, who
died aged two months and twenty-five days; Harriet, a teacher
in Exeter; Sarah, who married Stanley DIETZ, of Monroe, Wis.,
and has one child, Wesley; and Verna, William and Grace, at home.
Mr. QUALLEY, in religious faith, is a Lutheran and his wife is
a member of the Methodist Church. Politically he is a Republican,
and is now serving as one of the supervisors of Exeter township.
Among the social orders he is a member of Dayton Lodge, F. &
A.M., and of the Modern Woodmen of America. He is one of the
most industrious, progressive and successful men of Exeter township.
-
- Taken from "Commemorative Biographical Record of
the Counties of Rock, Green, Grant, Iowa and Lafayette Wisconsin,"
(c)1901 Union Publishing; p. 712.
-
- Courtesy of Carol.
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