Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/1191

 lllsTi)|;v of GOODHUE COUNTY 1033 i- comfortable and the barns well kept, everything about the place bespeaks thrift, intelligence and bard work. Mr. John- son was married in L865 to Anna Larson, who died in L875, leav- ing four children : Edward A., now clerk of the courl a1 Kittson county, Minnesota; Levi E., farmer Living in the same county; Esther 0., wife of l'eter Johnson, of Canaan Palls, and Anton E., qow living' in California. Anton E. is a veteran, as well as his father, having served in Company F, Thirteenth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, in the Philippines. Upon his return to San Francisco he worked two years as a bookkeeper and then became a traveling salesman on the Pacific coast: By Christine Johnson, whom Senator Johnson married in 1876, there were four chil- dren: Alice, Clarence, Susie and Isadore. Clarence manages the home farm, and Susie and Isadore arc deceased. The mother of these children died in ls>7 and Senator Johnson then married Mrs. Wilhelmena Baggstrom, daughter of G. M. Magnusen, who still survives. Albert George Scherf, a progressive and prosperous jeweler of Red Wing, is a native of this county, born December 20, 1862. in Hay Creek township. His father was Anton Scherf, and his mother, Elizabeth E. Kattergrolin, whose brother and a Mr. Barnes were the first men to make brick in the city of Red Wing. The father was a native of the Black Forest district, in Germany, and the mother was born in "Westphalia. Germany. Anton Scherf came to this country in 1852, and for a time worked with his brother on the famous first suspension bridge across the Niagara, coming to Wacoota in 1851, where he engaged in steamboating and rafting on the Mississippi river, continuing for several years. In 1860, he pre-empted 160 acres at Hay Creek, and to this added from time to time until he was the proud possessor of 593 acres of rich land, all in one farm and mostly under cultivation. There he continued farming until 1903, when he moved to Red Wing, where he and Mrs. Scherf are living, but still owning the old homestead in Hay Creek. They were married at Red Wing, No- vember 2, 1861. Albert G. attended the district schools of Hay Creek, and after one year at the high school of Red Wing, took a four months course at the Curtiss Business College of Minne- apolis, after which he entered Wesleyan University of Mt. Pleas- ant, Iowa, graduating in 1890. Thus equipped, with an excellent education, he taught school tw r o years in his native town, and for a time acted as agent for the Mutual Life Insurance Com- pany. His next occupation was as representatn r e of the "Human World," of St. Paul, for which he was manager one year. He subsequently worked on his father's farm eight years. In 1901, while on the farm, he was sent to the legislature from the Red Wing district, and at about the same time, in partnership with