Excerpt from Past and Present of Winneshiek County, Iowa, Vol. 2: A Record of Settlement, Organization, Progress and Achievement
It is a trite saying that all the world loves a lover, but its fundamental idea is true. The world loves a lover - an enthusiast of something that he places high above the humdrum of mere material attainment. The world loves a man of an ideal who fights for the realization of a sublime inspiration vehemently and unselfishly, and it is this strong sympathy that men extend to lofty and noble characters which made the late B. Anundsen of Decorah beloved by all who knew him and kept him in the hearts of his Norseland countrymen. A man who had but meager advantages of education, he became by self-study - not of books as much as of human nature - one of the well informed men of his day, a man who foremost understood the folk-character of his Norseland friends and who upon coming to this country set out to found for them a paper to their liking, a medium which would keep alive in them the noble and strong spirit of the Vikings, which would make for truer, stronger and better manhood, which would foster the family spirit, which would be entertainer, instructor and guiding friend. That he succeeded, thereof stands in proof the Decorah Posten, a publication ideal in its perception, of powerful influence on mind and character, a true family paper, its circulation far extending over Winneshiek county, over the state, over the United States, even into other parts of the world. The Decorah Posten, of which Mr. Anundsen was the publisher and sole owner, has the largest circulation of any Scandinavian publication on the face of the earth, and it is remarkable that it attained its foremost position by the inspiration and ambition of a youth,
Mr. Anundsen was born in Skien, Norway, on December 29, 1844, of poor, honest parentage, and what little education he enjoyed in his youth was secured in the common schools of his native country. The spirit of the Vikings stirred his soul and when twenty years of age his ambition led him to start out to conquer new fields. Naturally he turned to the land where he perceived the greatest opportunity - America, - first coming to Canada, leaving his native country on March 22, 1864, and arriving in Quebec 011 April 7th of the same year. The same month marks his arrival in Milwaukee, but he finally located in La Crosse, Wisconsin, on Monday, the first day of August, 1864. There, in 1866, he conceived the idea of publishing a literary magazine for his countrymen in America, and the Ved Arnen (By the Fireside) had its birth. This was the seed from which the Decorah Posten has sprung.
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