Nelson family named Pioneer Family of the Year

For more than a century, members of the pioneer Nelson family have been outstanding in their fields.

The Nelson family has been selected as the 2022 Skagit County Pioneer Family of the Year. The Nelsons have had a significant impact on Skagit Valley’s agricultural development, from dairy and cattle operations to grain, berry and potato production.

Farming is only one part of their remarkable saga, which began here shortly after the turn of the 20th century.

Since then, the Nelsons and their many relatives – there are now close to 300 living family members descended from Emil and Anna Dalan Nelson – have also made their marks in finance, marketing, real estate, entrepreneurship, engineering, government and public service, firefighting and emergency medicine, shipping, veterinary science, education and the military.

Of course, agriculture is the common bond for a family that traces its roots to Scandinavia, where crops that would become Skagit County staples – peas, cabbage and oats – were commonly grown.

“Almost everyone in the family spent at least part of their life working on various farms,” Reggie Nelson, a retired teacher and La Conner High School alum who has helped compile Nelson family history, told the Weekly News. “It was in our DNA!”

To become better acquainted with that DNA, one must turn the Way Back Machine to the late 1800s. That’s when Peter and Sena Nielsen emigrated from Denmark and made their first American home in Minnesota.

“There,” Nelson said, “they raised their family of one son, Emil, and two daughters, Clara and Lissa. By very early in the 1900s, Emil had changed his name to Nelson and ventured to Skagit County. He returned to Minnesota and brought his parents and sisters out to Washington.”

Meanwhile, Anna Torkelsdatter Dalan set sail March 9, 1907 from Norway.

“She was 15 when she left,” Nelson said, “and 16 when she arrived in Seattle.”

Emil Nelson and Anna Dalan would eventually meet and in 1910 were wed in Burlington.

The couple bought what family members now refer to as the “Home Place” at the foot of Bay View Hill along Josh Wilson Road. The property remains in the family, today owned by Jerry Nelson, who owns and operates Double N Potatoes.

In time, Emil and Anna Nelson’s oldest son, Floyd Nelson, would move with his wife, Grace, off the Home Place to farm other Skagit acreage, settling just north of La Conner.

“His boys, Edwin and Roger, continued their farming in the La Conner area,” recalled Reggie Nelson, whose father, Virgil, farmed at what was known as Whitney Junction – the area near the intersection of La Conner-Whitney Road and State Highway 20.

“So, the Floyd Nelson and Virgil Nelson children, grand-children and more all were students in the La Conner Schools,” said Reggie Nelson.

Reggie Nelson said early family members found in Skagit County a most welcoming locale.