Andreas (Andrew) Petersen
Andrew (born Andreas) was a twin, brother of Ludwig (later Louis). The boys were born on January 21, 1867 in Leckfeld, a district of the town Leck in Schleswig-Holstein near the border of Denmark. Their parents Peter Hansen Petersen and Elise Momsen emigrated with their family for their daughter's 1878 marriage to her cousin Hans. They settled first in Belle Prairie, Nebraska where uncle Lorenz Petersenand his family had already established a farm.
Andrew grew up in Nebraska and moved to Russell, Illinois around 1888, just south of the Illinois/Wisconsin border.
In 1889 he married Karen Marie Johansen, left, who was known in the family as Marie; she had emigrated from Denmark in 1887.
Andrew's and Marie's first three children were born in Illinois: Alma (1889), Walter (1892) and Johanna Marie (1893). Around 1895 the family relocated to Pleasant Prairie, a suburb of Kenosha, Wisconsin. Three more children followed: Loren (also Lawrence, 1895), Harvey Milford (1897) and Milford S. (1899, who died a year later).
Andrew worked as a teamster and lived with his family on Newell Street. In 1918 Andrew was treated for heart problems and died in August 1918, aged 50. He was buried at Green Ridge Cemetery in Kenosha.
Marie remarried Christian Feldschau, who had come with his own family from Flensburg in 1906; Christian and his wife Anna were divorced. After relocating to the west coast, Christian and Marie lived in the Portland area until Christian's death in 1925 from a trucking accident. Marie then moved to the San Francisco Bay area.
Harvey Petersen, who never married, supported his mother in San Francisco; Loren Petersen (perhaps named for his great-uncle Lorenz) settled with his wife Esther across the bay in Alameda. Marie's two daughters, Alma Petersen Kent and Johanna Marie Petersen Orr, were living in Northern California and Nevada, respectively.
Daughter Alma died in February 1949, mother Marie in October of that same year. Son Loren Petersen died in 1959 and Harvey (having relocated to Reno, Nevada) died in 1963. They and their sister Marie Orr are buried the Bay Area of California. So far as we know, none of these children of Andrew and Marie Petersen had children of their own.
Son Walter Petersen, the only son who settled permanently in Wisconsin, had spent some time with his uncle Louis Petersen in Omaha in the early 1900s. Walter trained as a bartender at his uncle's saloon and had a brief first marriage to a lady called Elizabeth around 1905.
We don't know whether Elizabeth died or they divorced, but Walter returned to Kenosha and married Celestia Bray, with whom he had five children. Their descendants have very kindly provided much-appreciated details about the Andrew Petersen line.
