George W. Hoster came to Valley City from Seneca Falls, New York in 1888, to manage the Nester Farm, located about five miles north of Valley City, now owned by Stewart Herzberg. He was born in Fayette, NY in 1852. His wife, Christian Stahl Hoster, and four children came to live with him soon after. The children were Walter Stahl, George W. Jr., Donald Kenneth, and one daughter, Nina.
The owner of the farm, K. Nester, was a wealthy landowner back in New York. His farm in Barnes County was a big sheep ranch and there was also grain farming. It was a social center for many of the young people growing up in Valley City at the turn of the century.
Mr. Hoster died in Oakland, Calif. in 1908 at the home of his daughter, Nina (Mrs. Lewis Irgens). Mrs. Hoster died in 1905 at Walter's home on the farm at Wimbledon, NO while her husband was back in NY visiting his sisters.
Nina, the oldest, married Dr. Lewis Irgens (brother of County Judge O. H. des Irgens), a dentist, whose office was in the old Dakota Drugstore building. They had one daughter, Charlotte, who was killed in an automobile accident on a mountain road near Oakland, California in 1931. Nina and Lewis Irgens moved to Oakland in 1908. Nina died there in 1910.
George and Donald went to California after graduating from the University of Minnesota. George lived in Oakland and Los Angeles. He married Muriel Bell. They had two children, Martha (Mrs. Ted Sisson) and Warren. They and two grandchildren live in Garden Grove, California.
Donald served in the Infantry in World War I. He married and had two children, Charlotte (Mrs. Joe Runge), now living in Sacramento, and Donald Kenneth, Jr., living in San Francisco.
Walter graduated from Dixon Military Academy in Dixon, Illinois, and attended the U. of Minnesota for one year. He was an acolyte in St. Mark's Cathedral in Minneapolis while attending the University. He lived with his Aunt Mary R. Stahl, who was a teacher in the old Jefferson School in Minneapolis for twenty years. This was dear Aunt Marne who was his mother's sister and whose grandfather had loaned George Washington money during the days of the Revolution. Their grandparents had come to this country from Holland.
Walter worked with his father on the Nester farm and soon had a wife and farm of his own near Wimbledon. He married Hilda Chilberg in Valley City in 1899. They farmed until 1905 when they moved to Jamestown, North Dakota and Walter started work with the Northern Pacific Railroad 1915 the family moved back to Valley City. He continued with the railroad until he retired in 1942. He died in the N.P. Hospital in St. Paul in 1957.
Hilda and Walter had five children: Dorothy (Mrs. Adrian Pfusch); Walter Stahl Hoster, Jr.; George W. Hoster, II; Donald Kenneth Hester II; and John Gay who died from inflammatory rheumatism at age eleven.
Dorothy and Adrian have one son, James Adrian, who lives in Whitefish, Montana. Adrian died January 14, 1975 in Valley City, and Dorothy lives in Valley City.
Walter Jr. died in 1973 in Lakewood, California. He has two children and four grandchildren. A daughter, Jody, lives in Texas and a son, Charles Walter, lives in Palo Alto, California. Walter's wife, Ola Crabb Hoster, died in Palo Alto, California in 1951.
George W. Hoster II was in the Infantry in W.W. II. He married and lived in San Francisco. He died in Pasadena in 1972. His wife, Joyce, lives in Pasadena.
Donald Kenneth Hoster II was in the Infantry in W. War II. After discharge he married Myrtle Granuchi, a California Native Daughter, and lives in Altadena, California. They have three children: Carol (Mrs. Jim Richards) who lives in Mexico City, Mexico; Susan, a teacher in Pasadena; and Jon, a student at Pasadena Junior College. Don is Chief of Motion Picture Unit, County of Los Angeles.
Source: Barnes County History 1976 Page 107