This is part one of a two part series on early pioneer families on Lopez Island.
Linda Graham-Rose spent her summers in Lopez with her grandparents. After her father died in 1971, she realized she knew very little about him, so she began searching the micro film in newspapers. In 1994, she moved to Lopez, bought cemetary plots for herself and her husband and started a farm on her grandfathers original homestead. Here is her family history:
My great grand uncle Christian Jensen was from Fur Island, Denmark.
In 1883, Jensen, a 33 year-old sailor, docked in what is now known as Kitsap, Wash., and decided not to report back to the ship. I don’t know how he found Lopez, perhaps a sailor spoke of the 160 acres of flat land. All you needed was to file an “intent to become a Citizen of the United States of America,” with the US government and file for a homestead.Jensen fished and farmed and was greatly known for his apple jack cider. He never married, as the female population was extremely low. At age 63, Jensen fell ill and created a will just days before his death. The barn, house, livestock, his tools and 80 acres went to his niece, Anna Nielsen Kjargaard in Denmark. The other 80 acres was left to her brother, Niels Nielsen.
My grandfather Nielsen, a 21-year-old bachelor with light brown hair and a crippled left eye, came to America in 1901 with $1 in his pocket.
In 1908, he built a home in North Dakota on 160 acres he purchased for $241.50. When his uncle Jensen died, Nielsen inherited 80 acres. He leased out his farm and traveled to Lopez.
Anna Kjargaard wrote to San Juan County for answers about Lopez. She was answered by the prosecuting attorney, who wrote about good soil, boats for commuting from the mainland, the best climate in the world and that her land was worth over $4,000.
After receiving the letter Anna Kjargaard, her husband and their two sons traveled to America. Hanna Mouridsen, Mr. Kjargaard’s cousin, came along on the voyage to work as a nanny in exchange for a ticket. This was an arrangemnet that would cost the family a lifelong rift.
The Kjargaards and their nanny arrived in Lopez Island in 1913. Just a year later, the Kjargaards received disturbing news.
Nielsen had asked Hanna Mouridsen to marry him and she said yes. The Kjargaards felt the girl hadn’t fulfilled her agreement. They never spoke to the Nielsens again.
In May 1914, Hanna Mouridsen became Hanna Nielsen. Four months later Ann was born, then Eva two years later and Hazel, my mother, was born in 1919.
The Kjargaards and their nine children were not active in the community and according to Otto Kjargaard, the youngest boy, his parents had strong work ethics. “If a plane flew by you kept looking down, focused on work,” Otto Kjargaard said years later.
I found little information on the Kjargaards, but I one day the Kjargaard name appeared in an ominous front page story in the “San Juan Journal” dated April 25, 1925, headline reading, ‘Lopez Island boy accidentally killed playing with dynamite.’
