Bosque County: Land and People (A History of Bosque County, Texas) Page: 389
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N
John and Anna Holverson, sons Carl and Durie.
to their wagon, tied a saddle horse to the back
of the wagon and headed to Waco to get a
Singer sewing machine. The folks at Singer
were good to the seventeen year old boy. They
helped him sell the saddle horse; then they
sold him a machine and spare parts. The
repairmen showed him how to repair the
machine. This man was apparently a good
instructor as John later became a sales
representative. He was still repairing Singer
machines sixty-six years later.
John eventually met a young lady and they
planned to marry. It was time to think about
a home of his own. He thought about the week
long Settlers Reunion soon to be held; so he
made his plans. These included a trip to
Waco for ice, sugar and lemons, to sell
lemonade. Business was so good by the time
the gathering was over he had enough money
to build the first phase of his home in Clifton.
When West 5th Street was laid, the Holver-
son home would have been in the middle of
the street had it not been moved southward
to allow space for the road.
Mr. John Holverson married Anna Helen
Durie, daughter of Charles and Pauline
Durie, September 11, 1883. She came with
her parents to Bosque County in 1868 from
Odalen, Norway. In 1870 the Durie family
moved to Palestine, Texas; then they re-
turned to Bosque County in 1868. From 1874
until her marriage to John Holverson, Anna
Durie lived with her brother, Charles, in
Sherman, Texas.
John and Anna were parents of three
children. Their daughter, Willie Frederike,
born May 24, 1885, died March 18, 1899, at
fourteen years of age, a victim of meningitis.
Durie's biography is included in this issue.
Carl Jr., served in World War I. The day
after his discharge from the army at Ft. Bliss,
he became a civilian government employee
and began his civil service career. He worked
for the Department of Agriculture at Fort
Bliss. May 1, 1923 he went to work for the
Quartermaster at the Fort where he contin-
ued as Chief Engineer of the water worksuntil his retirement.
Carl married Lois Carter April 2, 1933 who
was also a civilian employee at Fort Bliss.
Carl died November 1, 1979. He is buried in
El Paso. His wife, Lois, lives in that city.
Mr. and Mrs. John Holverson and their
daughter, Willie, were members of Trinity
Lutheran Church. Several years after the
death of their daughter, Mrs. Holverson
joined First Presbyterian Church in Clifton
in 1903, shortly after her son, Durie, joined
that church. A painting of Willie is in a
stained glass window in the First Presbyteri-
an Church. Mr. Holverson continued to be a
member of the Lutheran Church.
For a number of years John Holverson and
J.M. Brooks were partners in a pharmacy
when the business section of Clifton was
located east of the Santa Fe Railway tracks.
Later John Holverson built the building in
which the Clifton Record establishment is
now located. He operated a furniture, drug,
and undertaking concern.
For several years he was employed with
P.E. Schow and Bros. in charge of the
furniture department. He later became asso-
ciated with the Clifton Mercantile Company
in the same capacity until his retirement. He
died June 11, 1940.
Mrs. John Holverson then made her home
with her son, Durie, until her demise Febru-
ary 28, 1949. The couple are buried in Clifton.
by Doranne P. Stansell
HALVORSEN, HALVOR
CHRISTIANHalvor Christian Holvorsen and wife, Oline Rachel
Brown Holvorsen.
Halvor Christian Holvorsen was born July
19, 1823 on Overnes Farm, Holt Parish,
Norway. He was the son of Jon Holvorsen and
Karen Kirstine Jacobsdatter. He emigrated
to America, arriving in New Orleans, La., on
December 1, 1848 when he was twenty-five
years of age. He moved to Cherokee County
and became a Mason in Larissa, Texas,4(n
Cherokee County, August 17, 1850, Larissa
Lodge No. 57. He was initiated June 22, 1850,
passed July 27, 1850, raised August 17, 1850.
On census rolls, he was in Henderson County
1860, and Bosque County, 1870.
Halvor and his wife, Oline Rachel Brown,
moved in 1870 to a farm west of Clifton near
the community of Norse, from Brownsboro,
Texas, where he was a merchant. Their four
children accompanying them were: John,
Mary Kiar, Louise Sophia, and Augusta
Dorothea. A fifth child, William, was born
after the family moved to Bosque County.
John, the oldest, remained in Clifton. His
personal biography is included in this edition.
Mary Kiar married Anton Jenson in Clifton.
They moved to a farm near Coolidge,
Texas, where they reared six children. Two
children, Olena and William, lived for awhile
in Clifton with their aunts, Mrs. C.A. Poulson
and Miss Louise Holvorson. Olena attended
Clifton Lutheran College.
Johnny Jenson attended Texas A&M and
Duke University. He lived many years with
his wife, Elizabeth Tanner, on a farm near
Meridian. After Elizabeth died, Johnny lived
in Clifton where he died at Sunset Home.
Louise, third child of Halvor and Oline,
continued to live in Clifton. A personal
biography is included in this edition. Augusta
Dorothea married Casper Andrew Poulson.
She is included in the biography of her
husband.
William, the baby of the family, was called
"Willie." He accidentally drowned in a lake
when he was four years old.
The father, Halvor, died several years after
moving to Bosque County on November 8,
1874, at the age of fifty-three. He is buried
at the Norse Cemetery. His wife, Oline,
eleven years younger than her husband, was
born in 1834. She died March 15, 1891, at the
age of fifty-seven. She is buried beside her
husband.
by Doranne P. Stansell
HOMERSTAD, JOHAN JENSEN
F577
Johan Jensen Hommerstad was born in
1849 on Hommerstad Ostre, Stange Parish,
Norway. He was the son of Jens Engebretsen
Hommerstad and Anne Evensdatter. There
he grew to young manhood. But there must
have been much excitement and perhaps
apprehension when at the young age of
nineteen in 1868 he departed Christiania,
Norway, on the sailship "Atalanta," with no
guarantee that he would ever see his home-
land again. He landed in Galveston, in 1868.
From there he took a boat to New Orleans,
and then up the river to Shreveport. From
there he and his fellow travelers walked to
Bosque County.
In 1968, the writer, John M. Homerstad
and wife Frances and children while on their
way home from Japan, visited the Hommer-
stad Place on Lake Mjosa about 40 or 50 miles
north of Oslo. There, while enjoying the
company of the Hommerstads now living in
that area and being invited to two smorgas-
bords in one evening, they saw the most
beautiful sunset ever seen by their family
from 10:30 P.M. until midnight. Haakon
Hommerstad, in whose home they were
enjoying a smorgasbord at the time kept
3894 -.
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Bosque County History Book Committee. Bosque County: Land and People (A History of Bosque County, Texas), book, 1985; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth91038/m1/405/?q=campbell: accessed May 5, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Denton Public Library.