Carl Gustavus Lawrence Biography


	This biography appears on pages 123-124 in "History of Dakota Territory" 
	by George W. Kingsbury, Vol. IV (1915) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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			CARL GUSTAVUS LAWRENCE. 

	Carl Gustavus Lawrence has devoted his entire life to the 
profession of teaching in which connection he has gained a high and 
well merited reputation He was born in Madison, Wisconsin, January 12, 
1871. His father Ole H. Lawrence was a native of Telemarken, Norway, 
and on coming to the United States settled in Dane county, Wisconsin, 
in 1843. He qualified to teach in the public schools of that county in 
1846. He had received academic training in Norway developing the strong 
intellectual powers with which nature had endowed him and thus he was 
well prepared for the profession to which he turned his attention. He 
passed away in l893 at the venerable age of eighty-six years, his birth 
having occurred in 1807. His wife who bore the name of Bertha Marie 
Ellertson, was a native of Krageroe, Norway born in 1835 and her death 
occurred in 1913. On coming to the United States in 1852 she located in 
Dane county, Wisconsin and there gave her hand in marriage to Ole 
Lawrence in 1857.

	The high educational standards maintained by the family led the 
parents to give their son excellent educational opportunities and in 
1894 he was graduated Bachelor of Letters from the University of 
Wisconsin. He had previously entered upon the profession of teaching in 
connection with the rural schools of Dane county in 1892. He was 
professor of Latin and history in Augustana College at Canton, South 
Dakota from 1894 until 1898 and in the latter year was chosen 
superintendent of city schools which position he filled until 1907. In 
that year further advancement came to him in his selection for the 
position of county superintendent of schools of Lincoln county. He 
remained in that capacity for four years, of until 1911, when he was 
elected superintendent of public instruction for the state and his 
capability in the office has been demonstrated in the fact of his 
reelection. However, he resigned in September 1914 to again accept the 
position of superintendent of city schools of Canton, this state. His 
ability as an educator is widely acknowledged and his efforts have been 
of far-reaching influence in holding high the standards of public 
instruction in the state.

	On the 22d of August 1900, at Moe, South Dakota, Professor 
Lawrence was married to Miss Gunda Regina Jacobson, a daughter of Erick 
Jacobson, of Moe, Lincoln county. Her parents settled upon a farm in 
that county in the early '70s and there developed a homestead. Their 
daughter is a graduate of Madison (S. D.) State Normal School of the 
class of 1898 and was assistant principal of the Canton high school in 
the years 1898-9. Professor and Mrs. Lawrence are parents of two sons: 
Ernest Orlando, born August 8, 1901; and John Hundale, born January 7, 
1904.  

	The parents are members of the Norwegian Lutheran church and 
Professor Lawrence is in politics a progressive republican. He has been 
a member of the Athenian Literary Society of Canton, South Dakota, 
since 1899 and a member of the Grieg Singing Society of Canton since 
1907. He has thus been an active factor in advancing the musical art as 
well as in promoting the cause of general education. He holds to high 
standards in all that he does and is recognized as one of those men 
association with whom means expansion and elevation.