It is considered by those in the habit of superficial thinking that the history of so called great men only is worthy of preservation and that little merit exists among the masses to call forth the praise of the historian or the cheers and appreciation of mankind. Few greater mistakes have been made. No man is great in all things and very few are great in many things. Many by a lucky stroke achieve lasting fame, who before that had no reputation beyond the limits of their neighborhoods. It is not a history of the lucky stroke which benefits humanity most, but the long study and effort which made the lucky stroke possible. It is the preliminary work, the method, that serves as a guide for others. Among those of foreign birth and education who in this country have achieved a fair measure of success along steady lines of action is the subject of this review, Gustave Anderson, of the third ward in the city of Cadillac. The fact that the first thirty years of his life were spent in his native land, Sweden, did not militate against him in the least in the accomplishment of a successful business career in America, the land of his adoption.

Gustave Anderson was born in Sweden September I1, 1841. The first thirty years of his life were spent in his native land, where he secured a good common school education and where he learned habits of industry, thrift and economy, which have been most useful to him in the land of his adoption and have contributed not a little to the success which he has achieved. In no part of Europe, indeed it may be truthfully said that in no part of the world are the advantages and opportunities equal to those to be encountered by the average individual in the United States. A knowledge of this truth was early brought to the attention of the subject of this sketch. He therefore bent every energy to make immigration to the United States possible. The better to accomplish so desirable a consummation, he became engaged to be married to a comely young girl in the neighborhood and, appreciating the fact that with her to help him practice economy his savings would be greater, he hastened the ceremony by which they were united. It was only a very short time after Miss Johanna Johnson became Mrs. Gustave Anderson that the worthy young couple found themselves financially in a position to pay all necessary expenses of the voyage across the ocean and leave them a comfortable little sum to give them a start in the new world. On arriving in America, in 1871, he procured employment on a railroad in New Jersey. They fitted themselves up nicely in housekeeping and for two years prospered most gratifyingly. Knowing that New Jersey was only a small part of the United States and believing that opportunities along the Atlantic coast might be far inferior to what they might find farther in the interior, they moved to Minnesota, but remained there only a short time, when they came to Wexford county. They arrived here in the spring of 1873, and, true to the energy in which he had been schooled, he lost no time in finding employment in the mills in Cadillac. For eleven years he worked in the sawmills, losing little time and allowing none of the dollars that he earned to escape him except for absolute necessities. When his savings justified it, he purchased a tract of land in what was then Haring township and he is now the owner of one hundred and twenty-seven and a half acres, fifty-four of which are well improved with good buildings, a nice residence, barn, stables, outhouses, and other necessary appurtenances for making it a well equipped and desirable farm. Having established himself comfortably on the farm, he turned over his job in the sawmill to some one less fortunate than himself and has since devoted himself exclusively to the tilling of his land, the planting and the gathering of his crops and making such improvements upon his farm as his time and his means will allow.

Early in the spring of 1875, but four years after leaving his native land and only two years after having taken up her abode in Wexford county, Mrs. Johanna (Johnson) Anderson departed this life, leaving two children as pledges of her love to her bereaved husband, both girls, Belinda and Matilda. The latter has since become the wife of Charles Olson. Four other children were born to this union, but they died in early childhood.
On November 1, 1875, Gustave Anderson was again married, his bride on this occasion being Louisa Johnson, also a native of Sweden. She has shown herself to be a worthy woman, a faithful wife and a kind and indulgent mother. They are the parents of five children, viz.: Anna, Alfred, David, Ralph and Silas. Anna, the oldest child of the family, is the wife of Charles Anderson.

The subject of this sketch permits no outside issues to interfere with his business. He is as prudently parsimonious of his time as he is of his means and year by year he is adding to his possessions in a manner to astonish persons not inclined to pursue the same methods. Scrupulously honest, prudent in all things, simple in his habits and content with the conditions which surrounded him, the next ten or twenty years will certainly see him among the most prosperous people in that part of Michigan where he resides.