Arthur was the first of Olof and Ida's eleven children. He was born on May 22, 1906 in Greenview, Illinois. When his family moved to Bureau County, Illinois in 1910, Art attended the local schools there, first going to the Johnson School near New Bedford and other county schools in later years. He scored the highest grades in the county on the Eighth Grade tests, and then graduated from Bureau Township High School in 1924. During his youth, Art, and the other older boys, worked on the family farm to help with the animals and the crops. During this time he learned to drive the family car, a skill his father never learned, but was injured twice in accidents on the county roads.
After graduating from high school, Art left home for a while when he was 21 years old, to go to New York. After spending a short time there, he returned to the midwest to work on a small ranch which had been homesteaded by his uncle (Olof's brother), Lars Ekberg, in Winner, South Dakota. Lars had farmed near New Bedford before moving to this ranch in 1909. Art remained in South Dakota for three years but returned because the area was in the midst of the "dust bowl" years and was suffering a major drought. Art lost much of his savings when the bank in Winner closed.
After moving back to Bureau County, Art farmed briefly west of the Green River aqueduct near New Bedford. On August 18, 1937 he was married toHazel Wallace in Warsaw, Indiana. They settled on the Johnson farm three miles north of Manlius, Illinois. It was here that their only child, William, was born on February 11, 1939. The family moved to the Alpaugh farm three miles east of Manlius in 1943 and then to the Olson farm, one mile east of Thomas, Illinois, in 1944. This was owned by the same Olson family which owned a farm on which Art's father, Olof, had farmed from 1916-1919.
Art purchased a farm of their own 2 1/2 miles east of New Bedford in 1949 and farmed his entire life before retiring in 1968. He was also interested in beekeeping, a lifelong hobby, during his farming years and later into retirement. He remained on his farm until his death on October 6, 1986. He was buried in the Walnut (Illinois) Cemetery.
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