Plumas
County
Biographies
HEINE HERTAGER
Heine Hertager, the capable yard
foreman of the Feather River Lumber Company, at Delleker, Plumas County, has,
with the exception of one season spent in salmon fishing in Alaska, devoted his
entire attention to the lumber business since coming to this country twenty-one
years ago. His family name was
originally spelled “Hjertaager,” in Norway, but since
coming to this country he has changed the spelling to its present form. The name Heine is undoubtedly of German
origin, as is also suggested by the fact that his maternal ancestors were from
Germany and of the same stock as Heinrich Heine, the great philosopher and
poet. Heine Hertager was born on the 19th
of July, 1891, while his parents were domiciled upon the ancient and wealthy
estate known by the name of Hjertaager, at Hardanger, Norway, famed in story and song as one of the
world’s beauty spots. The deeply
indented and granite-lined Hardanger Fjord was known
to the ancients and applauded by the moderns for its romantically magnificent
surroundings. Heine Hertager is a son of
Heine and Johanna (Hanson) Hjertaager, who were
living in affluence and comfort, dreaming of continued happiness, when the mother
gave birth to her second child, Heine, of this review. The father was then a sea captain, commanding
a steamship on the seven seas out of the port of Bergen, and was widely known
as an able and courageous sailor. He had
braved the dangers of the deep and survived shipwrecks, only to fall a victim to
the influenza, leaving a widow and two fatherless sons. After her husband’s death, the mother took
her children further up the coast to Bodo, where she reared
her family, and she later became the wife of John Edwardson. By Captain Hjertaager
she had two sons: Engle, who is now
superintendent of the lumberyard of the Fruit Growers Supply Company at Hilt,
California; and Heine. By her second
union, the mother bore four children, Halberg, Jens,
Hans and Marie. All of the children are
now living in California and all of the sons are connected with some branch of
the lumber business. The mother is again
a widow and resides in Seattle, Washington.
At a comparatively early age Heine
Hertager realized that he must work if he would live, and at the same time
tried to satisfy his ambition for an education by diligently studying day and
night as opportunity offered. In 1910,
at the age of nineteen years, he bade good-bye to his home and friends in
Norway and sailed for America, “the land of opportunity.” He landed at Quebec, Canada, whence he
proceeded on westward to Minneapolis, Minnesota. For eight months he worked for the Smith
Lumber Company, at Canton, Minnesota, a lumber town in the suburbs of
Minneapolis. His next move was to
McCloud, Siskiyou County, California, where he worked for six years for the
McCloud River Lumber Company. Thereafter
he held various positions until 1921, when he became shipping clerk for the La
Moine Lumber Company, and later went to the Bertram Lumber Company, for which
concern he became yard foreman. He also
held positions with the Long-Bell Lumber Company at Weed, California, and in
1927 came to Delleker as yard foreman for the Feather River Lumber Company,
which position he is still filling in a very satisfactory manner. Something of the importance of his work may
be gleaned from the statement that this company ships out forty car-loads of
lumber a week, including box shooks, which is one of
the company’s specialties. High-grade
white pine, yellow pine and fir, as well as other valuable lumber, both planed
and in the rough, are shipped out in car-load lots every week. His supervision begins at the green lumber
corners at the end of the sawmill, through the sorting, piling, drying and
planing, to the loading of the box shooks, finishing
lumber and rough lumber into the railroad cars.
Two hundred and forty thousand feet of lumber come off the band-saws
every twenty-four hours and the car-load shipments average one hundred and
seventy thousand feet a day. In the
summer of 1930 there was in the yards, carefully piled up and drying,
approximately seventeen million feet of lumber.
On November 15, 1912, at McCloud,
California, Mr. Hertager was united in marriage to Miss Ruth Teigen, who was born at Klaaben
and reared at Bodo, Norway. To this union have been
born five children: Henry; Arthur; Elsie
Laura; Viola, deceased; and Victor Howard. The true spirit of cheer and hospitality
reigns in their home and they have a large circle of warm and loyal friends in
Delleker.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
Wooldridge, J.W.Major History of Sacramento Valley
California, Vol. 3 Pages 390-391. Pioneer Historical
Publishing Co. Chicago 1931.
© 2010
Gerald Iaquinta.