From A History of the Swedish-Americans of Minnesota, vol. 2, pp. 566–569:
___
John Monson, the well-known Minneapolis florist, was born in Farlof, near Christianstad, May 1, 1865, son of Mons Person and his wife Inga, née Person. Both parents are deceased. An only brother, a gardener, still lives in Sweden. His father a farmer, John was reared on the farm, and he attended the public schools until confirmation time. Afterward he worked on some of the large estates, which are so abundant in Skåne, in order to learn gardening. Then he commenced what may be called his grand tour du monde, which lasted for six years. He visited Denmark, Germany, Holland and Belgium, in every one of which countries gardening and flower culture are at their highest, and he made a six months’ sojourn in St. Petersburg, Russia. On his return home, he intended to start in business in Visby, but through a partner met with financial losses, which changed his course. He went back to Skåne, and for four years was engaged in business there. In the spring of 1894 Mr. Monson came to America. At Minneapolis he at once secured employment with the C.A. Smith Floral Co., with which firm he remained six years in the capacity of foreman. In 1900 he began a business on his own account at Thirty-sixth street and Calhoun, near the Lakewood Cemetery. He started with five greenhouses; to-day he has thirty-two. He ships his floral product all over the Northwest, to the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, Northern Michigan, Wisconsin and Manitoba, and his extensive plant furnishes employment to from twenty-five to thirty-five men. By hybridizing he has produced a number of new varieties of roses, and from the Society of American Florists, whose motto is ‘Progress’, he has received two medals, one in bronze for a new rose called ‘Miss Kate Moulton’, at the rose show in Cincinnati, Ohio, March 10, 1906. […] He is a member of the Minnesota State Florists’ Association, the Society of American Florists, and the American Rose Society, and he belongs to the Odin Club and the Masonic Order. Through reading, observation and experience, he has become a well-informed man, and has developed a business along modern lines and in accordance with high ethics. Such a record should serve as a source of inspiration and encouragement to others, for on his arrival in Minneapolis this young man had only a dollar with which to make a start in the new world.
__
Note that Monson practiced the old Scandinavian style of patronymic surname, taking his surname from his father's given name (not taking his father's last name).
|
REPLY
|