F.A. Bagg Family
F.A. Bagg was born on February 1, 1858, at South Hadley, Mass. The son of Hiram A. and Harriet (Cleveland) Bagg. He came to Mooreton, ND in 1866 to work for his uncle on the Downing farm. He was a carpenter and later became manager of the Downing farm. He was offered a quarter of all profits if he would work for 20 years at the farm. He married Sophia Larson on January 1, 1890. They had ten children, four died in infancy and a son, Hiram, drowned in July of 1916, at the age of 18. F.A. Bagg died on April 17, 1950.
Sophia Larson Bagg was born August 1, 1866 in Christiania, Norway. At the age of three, she immigrated to America with her parents. They settled near Star Prairie, Wisconsin. She came to Wahpeton to work on the Downing farm as a cook. Mrs. Bagg was one of the pioneer mothers who made history in Richland County. She experienced many hardships in the deaths of her children. She died on March 30, 1933, after seven years of pernicious anemia, a blood disorder.
Some of the key individuals responsible for founding and carrying on the tradition of the Bagg Bonanza Farm, were son Roy Bagg, and daughter Ella Bagg Egenes. They have both since passed on, but many grandchildren survive and live in the area.
Sophia Larson Bagg and F.A. Bagg
Bedtime stories from the Bagg Bonanza Farm
Highlights of the Bagg Farm tours are stories told by tour guides about founder F.A. Bagg. Here is a favorite:
A Bagg, not a Bum, as told by grandson Wayne Egenes
My grandfather, F.A. Bagg kept 300 sheep around the farm to keep the grass down. Each year they produced lambs and wool. Sheep have lots of twins, so there were 350 to 400 lambs each year. The family never ate lamb on the farm, so my grandpa would ship them by rail to Minneapolis to sell them.
One of the stories I like best is the one where he would ride with the lambs to Minneapolis to sell them. He rode in the boxcar with the lambs to watch them... and then he didn't have to buy a ticket either. Mrs. Bagg fixed lunch enough for a couple of days. He didn't like eating in restaurants. He probably wasn't very clean either, after riding 250 miles in the sheep car.
The story goes that after the sale of the lambs, Mr. Bagg went to deposit the money in a bank, not wanting to carry the money on him all the way home by rail. When he got to the bank, he asked for the manager, a man he knew. F.A. was told the manager was out to lunch. The bank employees wouldn't let Mr. Bagg in. He sat on the curb and ate some of the lunch Mrs. Bagg had sent along and waited for the manager to return.
The manager asked who that bum was who was eating his lunch on the curb. The employees said it was someone asking for him. His name was Mr. Bagg. Well, the manager told them to let him in, he knew him well. Mr. Bagg had $10,000 in a paper bag to deposit.