Rasmus Peter Clemensen was born December 9, 1877 in Hjorring, Denmark, one of the far northern points in that country. His parents were Niels Klemmensen (1836-1886) and Maren Kristen (Kristine) Jensen (1840-1930). Niels was a blacksmith and he lost his life when his neighbor's home burned. He went in to find him and was overcome by smoke and died. It was later learned his neighbor was not a home. This was on October 3, 1886 when Peter was nine years old.
Three months prior to this, the three oldest children had come to America and were in the Danish settlement of Turin, Iowa. His mother was now left with no wage earner and children in two countries. The children in America were bonded to work off the cost of their passage. They couldn't go back to Denmark, so the only solution was to bring the others to America. By the generosity and diligent help of friends and Danish organizations, this was accomplished the following spring.
A small house was purchased for them in Turin. His mother took in washings and did ironing for others. The bigger girls helped as hired girls at neighbors. Nearby school was available for the younger children. Their last name was Americanized to Clemmensen. Peter deleted the second “M”, stating it was long enough with one. As soon as Peter was old enough, he went to work in the Turin Lumber Yard.
Maren, the Danish mother, spent the rest of her life in Turin and was only a few months from her ninetieth birthday at the time of her death. Later he managed a yard in Camden, South Dakota for several years.
In 1905, Peter and Lulu Cork, his longtime friend from childhood, were married at Turin and left for the home he had prepared on a small farm outside Sergeant Bluff, Iowa. They resided there for two years when, with their new little daughter, they moved to Nebraska to live on a ranch in the Ewing sand hills. A year later, they bought a farm in Antelope County southwest of Oakdale and moved to make it their permanent home.
R. P. (PETE) AND LULU (CORK) CLEMENSEN
(Article is abridged from writing by Charlotte Clemensen Taylor) Other stories touching on the earlier lives of Peter Clemensen and Lulu Cork and their backgrounds and ancestors bring you now to the story of the Clemensens as they arrive in Oakdale, Antelope County, Nebraska. You also know why their children are Danish, French, Dutch and Irish. Coming to Oakdale from a year or son on a Ewing cattle ranch, it was little wonder that the first word their young daughter, Charlotte said was “cow”. Peter and Lulu bought a farm about three miles southwest of Oakdale. Perhaps three and a half miles for in 1908 or 1909 the roads went over the tops of hills and thento the bottom of the ravines. It was only one way traffic of two ruts and hump down the middle. The soil was rich and the country side beautiful. Peter bought cattle and hogs and Lulu had chickens. A cottonwood grove was planted for a northern windbreak. New stock building were built and in 1912, Pete built one of the first tall wooden silos. World War I broke the tranquility of this Cedar Creek haven as neighbor boys and hired men left for service. Pete was appointed to the Council of Defense. In 1913, Irene Lillis was born on December 12. Two sons had arrived earlier, George Nies on May 4, 1909 and Ronald Peter on August 7, 1910 and Charlotte, born in Iowa on January 4, 1907. Peter was a man of quiet dignity and reserve with deep regard for the needs of others. He was average in height, with blond hair and blue eyes. Lulu had sparkling black eyes and coal black hair and very quick wit and outgoing personality. She had been trained as a milliner and worked in a shop in Turin, Iowa before her marriage.
Peter served his community faithfully on different boards. All his children graduated from Oakale High School. He suddenly died with a kidney infection on April 19, 1923. Lulu died on May 4, 1966. Both buried in the Oakdale Cemetery.
Source Unknown: Originally submitted for this website in June 2007