Grasshopper plagues, sod house part of Sandager history on 150-year family farm

May 31—HILLS — Gene "Pucky" Sandager of rural Hills is a history buff, not just regarding his own family's 150-year history on their newly designated Sesquicentennial Farm, but of the history that abounds in southern Rock County.

He's hosted several groups of students to the Sandager farm in the southeast quarter of Section 19, Martin Township, as he shares the story of his great-great-grandparents, Simon and Ann Skovgaard, making their way from Heils, Denmark, to southwest Minnesota.

The Skovgaards staked a claim on a quarter section of land in 1873, just west of Hills — although Hills was non-existent at the time.

Simon was born in 1835 — a commoner in Denmark — who fell in love with a noble-blooded young woman, Ann.

"Ann's parents were furious and said no, she wasn't going to marry that common boy," Sandager shared. "Love won over, trumped the parents and they got married."

The marriage fractured her relationship with her family, but she and Simon made a family of their own when son Charles Frederick Skovgaard was born. They remained in Denmark and, in 1864, Simon was sent off to fight with the German-Danish soldiers in the Prussian War.

"The front line was so close that Ann could hear the cannons firing and didn't know if Simon survived," Sandager said. "When the war ended, Simon told Ann, 'Let's get out of here. Abraham Lincoln is giving away land through the Homestead Act.'"

To get the land, new settlers had to live on the land for five years, plant a grove and pay the deed tax.

"Simon and Ann packed up their stuff and just before they left, Ann's parents came running with a spinning wheel for her inheritance and to mend fences," Sandager said. "The couple hopped on a steam ship that took them nine days to cross the ocean. They got off at Ellis Island in 1865 and learned that Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated, which meant the end of the war."

The Skovgaards traveled by train to Cedar Falls, Iowa, which had become a gathering point for immigrants as there was a Danish settlement there.

That's where they remained until October 1872, when the family bought oxen, a covered wagon and all of the supplies to fill it and headed west with a group of Danes.

"October was a good month to go because the streams were shallower and the ground was drier, so you could make good time," Sandager shared. "With oxen, they could go 10 miles a day. The 350 miles took them a month and a half."

Along the way, of course, there were days that it took longer if they had to cross a river, to rest the animals, and to bury the dead.

"There were people dying enroute — diseases like typhoid and cholera," Sandager said.

When they made it to Ash Creek, the Sandagers stopped and spent the winter there.

"The next spring, (Simon) walked over here by himself — crossed seven miles and came west of Hills, though there was nothing there at the time," Sandager said. "He put a stake in the ground ... then he had to go to Luverne and said he wanted that quarter. It had been surveyed out and he paid the deed tax of $2 for 160 acres."

Once that was done, he returned to Ash Creek for Ann and Charles and they traveled to their new home — a quarter section with nothing but prairie grass.

"They put up a sod house, planted some trees and they started with 10 acres of wheat that he seeded," Sandager said.

Before they could harvest the crop, the grasshoppers struck and destroyed the crop.

The Skovgaards saved their garden, but without the wheat Simon needed to borrow money for seed and for food.

"The bankers said no, so in the heat of the summer, Simon heard they had work in Sioux City, (Iowa)," Sandager said. Simon walked there, hoping to get a job on the railroad, only to find out there was no work once he arrived. He then headed back north, toward Worthington, and found a job there shoveling rock and coal for the railroad.

"By fall he had earned enough money to tide them over the winter," said Sandager, adding that Charles had also found work that summer with a neighbor three miles away.

The next spring, Simon planted even more acres of wheat, and the grasshoppers struck again. This time, he collected enough seed to plant the next year.

"He and Charles would shoot rabbits for meat," Sandager said, noting that the history was all recorded in journals — some in Danish and some in English. Around this time, Simon purchased an 80-acre parcel directly west of his quarter section.

Grasshoppers struck for a third straight year during the next growing season, prompting the area's farmers to burn the grass to kill the grasshopper larvae the following spring.

"(The fire) got out of control and just about burned down his sod hut, but they got a good crop (of wheat) and that was the start of Simon's career."

Charles, who was 11 years old when the family settled in Rock County, went on to attend college in Canton, South Dakota, where he heard the most beautiful music coming from the auditorium.

"The smooth talker that he was, he asked her for the sheet music and then asked her out to some gathering," Sandager said of Charles' first encounter with Ingeborg at the organ. They married not long after and moved to the Skovgaard farm with Simon, who was widowed upon Ann's death in 1900.

Charles and Ingeborg eventually moved across the road, where they raised their nine children.

During his life, Charles served as a Rock County commissioner, the county recorder and was a botanist. He planted fruit trees and grafted them for different species of apples and also started pear trees. Charles also grew what may have been the first corn in Rock County, after the Hills Crescent reported that it couldn't be grown there.

"He had cobs of 9 inches long and a girth of 7 inches," Sandager said, adding that the newspaper retracted the story when he showed them the corn.

Charles also joined the local creamery when a call went out that more cows were needed. He doubled his herd to 12 cows and several other neighbors did the same. As a result, they had enough milk to sell cream and make butter.

Meanwhile, as their children grew to adulthood, three of the Skovgaard daughters went on to marry three Sandager brothers from Tyler.

"Clara, the eldest, got the pick of the litter of Sandagers. She married Nels and they moved down here to the home place and bought it from Charles," Sandager said of his grandparents.

Nels and Clara lived in the sod house for about seven or eight years before starting construction on a house.

"The house came by train," Sandager shared, noting that his daughter, Brittany Sandager Steensma, her husband and their son and daughter call it home today. The barn that still stands on the Sandager farm was also purchased through mail order and all of the lumber and the directions to build it arrived by train.

"We think it was a Montgomery Ward's barn," Sandager said. The upstairs was turned into a party room and several members of the Sandager family have had wedding receptions there.

"Nels did a lot of brick work, so the bottom part of the barn was made out of the clay from up on the hill," Sandager said. "They baked the bricks and put it together."

Nels and Clara raised nine children on the family farm. Nels, who was also a Dane, had attended college at the University of Minnesota. In addition to farming, he operated a butchering business on the side.

Among Nels and Clara's nine children was son, Sheldon, who grew up and made a name for himself in the agricultural industry. He was inducted into the Rock County Hall of Fame posthumously in 2022.

Sheldon, who was a Navy pilot in World War II, returned to rural Hills and farmed, while his wife, Elnora, was a nurse. In 1968, with five children, they signed up to become missionaries for a Lutheran mission in Africa. They took the kids with them.

"Norman Borlaug had won the Nobel Peace Prize for producing wheat that doubled the production in Africa. The U.S. government said we can do this in other African countries," Sandager shared. "Dad was recruited in Ethiopia and he and mom went to Tanzania and then Ghana."

Sheldon Sandager helped the African countries to grow corn, while Dave Sperling — who had worked with Borlaug — developed the traits. The seed they developed in the late 1960s is still sold today in Ghana and Tanzania, Sandager said.

The family stayed in Africa for two years and then returned to rural Hills. Since Sheldon was working with farmers and Elnora worked as a nurse, their five kids — ranging from a high school senior to a second grader — stayed in a boarding school. They saw their dad during the summer and on Christmas vacation.

Sandager, who earned his ag business degree from Southwest State University, said his time in Africa changed his life because of the starvation and corruption he witnessed. He fears the same may happen in the United States as a result of border crossings and the inability for agricultural production to keep up.

He's also a bit pessimistic about the future of his family's 150-year-old farm. Sandager is now retired and rents his farmland to a nephew, Lucas Sandager.

He worries about how fair competition turned into price fixing, which turned into no competition in the livestock industry.

"You've got three packers and they're setting prices every day," Sandager said. "You don't have that capitalistic environment to work hard and smart and get ahead."

The idea of corporate farms concerns him, but Sandager said if a young individual "works their butt off and works smart" they can survive.

"I didn't use the word 'thrive,'" he said. "The ones that are thriving are making it somewhere else and doing it for their ego. It's about ego — who's the biggest, who's got the most cattle; who farms the most acres. It's not about lifestyle; it's not about who's taking the best care of the soil and leaving it for the future."

Yet, Sandager said he believes there's a God and he believes miracles can happen.

He and his wife, Shirley, raised three daughters in rural Hills. The oldest, Tarah, lives in Buffalo, and the youngest, Kelly, is currently in Montana. Brittany is living on the original Skovgaard-Sandager farm with her family.

"I don't know if they'll ever farm, but it's in very good hands now," Sandager said. "Perseverance — we have that going for us."