The Holtens: Lavilla (Dalager) Peterson remembers

Lars Holten was a neighbor of Hans Dalager when Lavilla was growing up. The Holtens and Vindedahls were cousins to Hans. Lasse Holten was Lars Holtens father. Lasse Holten homesteaded the farm next to Hans Dalager in Chippawa Falls township. Other sons of Lasse were Chris, Henry, and Jacob. There were also some daughters who were married and lived in this area. Names Robert knew were Dearstead and Erickson who were related to Lasse Holten so must have been the families of daughters of Lasse Holten. Lasse Holten died about 1925 and his wife, who was crippled for many years, died about 1936. Lavilla remembered helping at the Holten home when she was a young girl. What was the name of Lasse’s wife? After the death of Lasse, Chris, Henry and Louis or Louise continued to farm. Question, is it Louis or Louise, a son or daughter? None of them married. They did not have any information on Jacob. Lars, who was a brother to Chris, Henry and Jacob was married and they had a daughter named Tilda who was a very good friend to Lavilla’s sister Tillie.

Lavilla remembered that one of Lars sons and a Vindedahl boy had a run-a-way with horses and a buggy in the Glenwood Park. She said that one horse went on one side of the tree and the other on the other side of the tree. Oscar Holten was killed but Benny Holten was saved. Question? Were there more than 2 in the buggy? What year did this happen?

Lawrence Holten married a Sue Cihlar from New York. Was Lawrence a son of Lesse Holten? _____________________________Lawrence Holten was hurt badly doing road maintenance on the edges of the road with a mower and horses. Robert said that Lawrence did not die in that accident. Robert said that Lawrence and Sue did not have any children but Sue had some children before she married Lawrence.

When Robert Peterson went to country school they would walk past the Holten place. At Christmas time when school kids were asked to sell Christmas seals for tuberculosis, Robert would stop at the Holtens. Robert said that Henry and Louise were always good for ten cents. Louise would pick out ten pennies from the change purse to pay their ten cents. Louise died of tuberculosis. Lavilla said that she has a picture of Louise. Henry and Chris were hard workers. They were dairy farmers and also raised a lot of hogs. They also farmed quite a bit of land with horses and later with pretty small tractors. The Peterson boys would help the Holtens with shacking and harvest.

In 1946 there was a big storm which took a lot of the Holten building and the Peterson’s barn. The Peterson boys helped the Holtens take care of their animals after the storm. The Holten barn had fallen down on the livestock that were in the barn. The Holtens crawled into the barn on the hands and knees to see if any of the animals were still alive. The Holtens had two big white horses and one of them was Cap. Some of the neighbors told Henry that you need to shoot that horse but Henry said “Naw” like people had heard before. They worked and wiggled this horse to the milk house which had been emptied. When they got the horse to the milk house, Henry said, “Com’on Cap.” Cap stood up and everybody cheered.

There are no descendants of this family with the Holten but there are descendants of the two girls who married, Erickson and Deerstad.

Lavilla said that Lasse had married a women who had children. Then she mentioned one, Edwin and not other information was given. Can you give any more information? _________________________________________________.

Hans Dalagers original homestead? What is its location? _______________This house burned. Them they rebuilt at a new location about a mile away, closer to a lake. What lake? ____________________ Which place did Herman live on? _______ ______ Lavilla said that the place where Selmer lived was also part of the homestead. Selmer and Willie tried to farm together for a while. Then Willie went off to school and Selmer stayed on the farm.