Anton Hanson was born April 23, 1862, in Sarpsborg, Norway, and came to the United States at the age of 19. He married Sophia Rud (born January 28 (?), 1867) in northern Minnesota on December 11, 1890. They lived in Minnesota until 1900 when they moved to Avon, Idaho, a small town near Deary, where they raised chickens. They were the parents of six children, Martha, Inga, Bertha, Anna, Johanna, and Henry. Anton Hanson died June 22, 1935, after a long illness.
After attending the Lutheran Bible Institute in Minneapolis, Martha returned to the family home in Avon where, in addition to helping with chores, she was active in church work. Inga married George Siebert and lived in Potlatch; Bertha remained unmarried and lived in Minneapolis; Anna married Andrew Holbech and moved to Big Timber, Montana; Johanna married Thomas Westby on December 11, 1913, and moved to Potlatch; Henry and his family farmed the land near his parents.
The papers of the Anton Hanson family span the years 1909 to 1939 with the bulk of the material covering the years 1925 to 1939.
The papers include correspondence, legal and financial papers, newspaper clippings about family members, and greeting cards sent on the occasions of birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, and other holidays.
There was no original order to the material when it was received, therefore a series order was imposed during processing. The papers were first separated by record type. The correspondence was then separated by recipient and each group was arranged chronologically. The other series are also in chronological order.
Some of the letters to Sophia Hanson are from her brother Christian and are in Norwegian, others are from the Hanson children. There are also lists of contributors to a fund set up when the Hanson home burned in April 1928.
The letters to Martha are from her sisters and from classmates at the Lutheran Bible Institute in Minneapolis. There are also letters from Johanna's daughter Mildred describing her experiences while studying nursing in Spokane. The letters from Martha are her contributions to a Round Robin letter which circulated among her closest friends from L.B.I.
Legal documents include a mortgage, a statement of the value of Anton Hanson's estate at the time of his death, and an insurance policy.
The financial papers include check book records, promissory notes, and property tax notices.
The final series contains newspaper clippings about family members and greeting cards.
The papers of the Anton Hanson family of Avon, Idaho, were donated to the University of Idaho Library by Richard Old of Pullman, Washington, on January 16, 1989.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.