San
Joaquin County
Biographies
SVEND OTTO TRONDHJEM
When S. O. Trondhjem
located at Ripon in 1908 there were but six frame structures in the business
section of the town, consequently this was a good opening for a first-class
contractor and builder. Among the
business blocks he has erected are the First National Bank Building, the post
office and scores of attractive residences throughout the south San Joaquin
section. He has also been very
successful in his agricultural pursuits, for on his forty-acre ranch he has
developed a very productive peach orchard of five acres and the balance of
thirty-five acres produces an abundance of alfalfa since irrigation has been
developed in the district. He was born
in Nyborg, Denmark, February 16, 1881, and by the
time he was thirteen years old his school days were over and he began to learn
the stone and brick mason and plasterer’s trade and followed this for six years
in Denmark; he then went to Hamburg, Germany, where he followed his trade for
four years in the large cities of central Germany; he then returned to his
native country for a visit for a few months, then, believing that greater
opportunities for young men to succeed financially were to be found elsewhere,
he went to Cape Town, South Africa, where he soon found work and was occupied
for four years in contracting and building; then he started for an extended
tour and three months were consumed in visiting in Australia, South Sea
Islands, Seattle, British Columbia, and in February, 1907, he arrived in San
Francisco. He remained in the Bay
district about one year and during this time took out his first naturalization
papers. In 1908 he located in San
Joaquin County, where he bought a forty-acre ranch, a portion of the Thomas
Frederick place, two miles west of Ripon, and has developed it into a most
productive place.
During 1914 Mr. Trondhjem
made an extended trip to Denmark to visit his old home and while there was
married to Miss Anna Rasmussen, a native of Denmark and a daughter of Jasper
and Mary Rasmussen, farmer folk in Denmark.
Mr. and Mrs. Trondhjem are the parents of four
children: Rita, Greta, Svend Otto, Jr., and Julia.
Besides raising peaches and alfalfa on his ranch, Mr. Trondhjem has a dairy, which he has leased to others for
the next three years. During the spring
of 1922 he completed his fine modern residence on the outskirts of Ripon, where
the family resides and from which he handles all of his contract work. Fraternally he is a member of the Danish
Brotherhood at San Francisco, California, the Dania Society at Modesto, and the
Mt. Horeb Lodge of I. O. O. F. at Ripon.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1456. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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