In the beginning. . .
John Peter Dalquist came from Ringsbo, Sweden in 1889 at the age of 23 to join his brother C.O. who was already working in the mines in Ishpeming, Michigan. Their parents and 11 year old brother Axel joined them in 1890. They worked and lived in horrendous conditions in Michigan with the dream of making enough money to buy land in Minnesota. They moved to the Randall area in 1893 and J.P., or Peter as he was called, bought land from the railroad in 1896 to homestead. In May of 1894 Emilia Carlson came to the US, probably at the request of Peter since Peter had been the hired hand for Emilia's father in Sweden. Evidently there was a bit of romance going on between them before Peter left for the US. They were married in December of 1894. By 1898 the couple had added 3 little boys, Oscar, John, and Carl. They went on to have 7 children, and Michael’s grandfather David was the youngest.
When John Peter bought his land in 1896 from Olaf O Searle, he paid $826
for 74 acres of land. Homesteading was a tremendously hard work. There were trees to cut down, stumps to pull, rocks to pick, a house and barn to build and fences to put up to keep the animals in. But with all of that, it was important to Peter to become an American
citizen and in September of 1897, Peter officially became a citizen of the USA.
David and Violet were the 2nd generation of farmers on this land. David enjoyed gardening and had an extensive strawberry patch.
They raised 4 children together on the farm:
David, Doug, Dale & Betty.
Michael never met his Grandpa. Cora got to meet Michael’s Grandma Violet a couple of times before she passed away, shortly after Michael & Cora got engaged.
Dale started farming in 1970 and bought the farm from his parents in 1973. He had the big red barn built in 1974, which is where Michael now milks his cows.
Dale met the love of his life, Kathy Housman when he had to go to the veterinarian clinic where Kathy was working. They fell in love; were married in 1982 and went on to have 3 children: James, Rachael and Michael.
Dale & Kathy eventually transitioned the farm to being certified Organic in 2005.
Dale and Kathy still help out a lot on the farm and if you’re a milk customer long enough, you’re sure to meet them in the barn at chore time someday. Dale has 2 hobbies: cutting wood and FISHING! He also enjoys gardening now in his semi-retirement.
Kathy (originally from Litchfield) enjoys many things! She is very creative and loves doing crafts—often with her grandchildren nowadays. She loves writing, making Shutterfly books, looking for agates, shopping for antiques with church friends, judging for 4H, playing with her horses, going on adventures and lots of other things. :)
Which brings us to Michael and Cora….
They met thanks to modern technology! Michael said “Hi” to Cora on Christian Mingle; she said “Hi” back and it wasn’t long before the e-mails were flying back and forth. One week later, it was very rainy weather so Michael decided to drive the 5 hours to central North Dakota to meet Cora and her family on their farm. 14 months later, in October 2015, they were married, surrounded by many family members and friends.
The first 3+ years of marriage, they lived in ND where Michael helped Cora’s dad and brothers at a grain cleaning plant that they own. Their 2 oldest children were born there. They had a large menagerie of animals (including 1 Brown Swiss milk cow, Ivy who they milked together by hand) and many gardens.
In early 2019, Dale started having some health challenges and the young couple needed to decide if they were going to take over the dairy farm or not. After much prayer and thought, they decided to move to the land of many lakes and trees!
Michael & Cora have had 2 more children born to them in MN. They love getting to live the farmlife, (even though it keeps them very busy) and love watching the next generation being raised on the Dalquist farm!!!
