’s
Today’s Farm SPRING 2023
Julie Buntjer/The Globe
Shirley and Eugene “Pucky” Sandager stand in front of a covered wagon that is reminiscent of the wagon his ancestors used to travel from Cedar Falls, Iowa, to the unbroken prairie in southern Rock County near what is now the town of Hills.
Grasshopper plagues, sod house part of Sandager history on 150-year family farm BY JULIE BUNTJER
Sandager farm in the southeast quarter of Section 19, Martin Township, as HILLS — Gene “Pucky” he shares the story of his Sandager of rural Hills is a history buff, not just regard- great-great-grandparents, Simon and Ann Skovgaard, ing his own family’s 150making their way from year history on their newly designated Sesquicentennial Heils, Denmark, to southwest Minnesota. Farm, but of the history The Skovgaards staked a that abounds in southern claim on a quarter section Rock County. of land in 1873, just west of He’s hosted several Hills — although Hills was groups of students to the The Globe
Photo courtesy of Eugene Sandager
Simon Skovgaard
non-existent at the time. Simon was born in 1835 — a commoner in Denmark — who fell in love with a noble-blooded young woman, Ann. “Ann’s parents were furious and said no, she wasn’t going to marry that common boy,” Sandager shared. “Love won over, trumped the parents and they got married.”
The marriage fractured her relationship with her family, but she and Simon made a family of their own when son Charles Frederick Skovgaard was born. They remained in Denmark and, in 1864, Simon was sent off to fight with the German-Danish soldiers in the Prussian War.
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