John J. Wamberg

John J. Wamberg. The business interests of Hope, Steele county, have an able representative in the gentleman above named. He is a man of excellent characteristics and business tact, and the firm of Wamberg & Jacobson is well known as the leading drug firm of that locality. They also have extensive farm interests near the city.

Our subject was born in the vicinity of Bergen, Norway, February 14, 1854, and was the fourth in a family of five children born to John H. and Gertrude (Espe) Wamberg. The father died when our subject was but two years of age, and he was reared to the age of fourteen years by his grandparents. The mother, with our subject and two other children, came to America in 1869, and made a home with the eldest son of the family, who several years previously had settled in Crawford county, Wisconsin. Our subject worked at farm labor and also railroading and in the Michigan woods two years, and in 1872 entered a general store at Rising Sun, Wisconsin, where he worked about one year and then went to Iowa, and during the winter of 1873-74 he attended the Breckenridge Institute at Decorah, Iowa. He secured a position in a drug store in that city in the spring of 1874, where he continued employed until the spring of 1881, when he went to Valley City, Barnes county, Dakota, and there established in the drug and grocery business. After one year he removed the store to Hope, in Steele county, and his was the first established drug store in the village. He combined general merchandising with the other lines, and Mr. Jacobson was his partner from the establishment of the business. The mercantile business was disposed of in 1894, since which time drugs has been the sole line carried. The extensive farming interests which the firm also owns claims a share of their attention. They are well-known and successful business men.

Mr. Wamberg was married, in 1884, to Miss Christina A. Neisheim. Mr. and Mrs. Wamberg have been the parents of five children, as follows: Gertrude, deceased; William Floyd, deceased; Wilma, deceased; John C.; and Sibyl. Mr. Wamberg is a member of the Masonic fraternity, and is a thirty-second-degree member, and also affiliates with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Modern Woodmen of America and Brotherhood of American Yeomen. He is prominent in public affairs, and was elected railroad commissioner of the state in 1894. He is a staunch Republican, and is a favorite delegate to the state conventions, and in 1892 was nominated as presidential elector, and was the only Republican who carried the ticket, and he ran ahead of the party ticket. He was a member of the Republican state central committee two terms, and served one term as chairman of the Republican county central committee.

Source:  Compendium of History and Biography of North Dakota 1900 Page 374