Monson, Hans

Hans Monson was born on September 25, 1867, on a farm in southern Sweden to parents who raised him in a large agricultural environment. Emigrating to the United States in 1887, he worked on his uncle’s farm in Missouri for nine months before arriving in Fresno, California, on January 27, 1888. In Fresno, he gained early experience working in vineyards for Hector Burness, Benjamin Woodward on the Las Palmas Ranch, and F. M. Russell.

Monson began working on the Helm Ranch east of Fresno on June 15, 1891, serving the Helm family for twenty-five years as a foreman, vineyard developer, and manager of Frank M. Helm’s Holstein dairy in Kearney Park. He acquired eighty acres in the Helm tract, later trading forty acres in 1917 for a residence at 475 Glenn Avenue in Fresno while keeping forty acres of bearing vineyard. Appointed road superintendent by Robert Lockhead in 1916 and serving five years as clerk of the Scandinavian Colony school board, he married Sophia Lindberg on February 15, 1895, raising five children named Alice, Oscar, Lillian, Alma, and Harold.