Andrew I. Sharpe (Ole Andreas Skjerpe) was born to Iver and Helene Grosfield Skjerpe on November 26, 1886, in Heskestad, Norway, the fourth son in a family of seven children. At the age of sixteen, after his confirmation, he followed the path of three elder brothers and emigrated to America, coming to the home of his father's brother, his uncle Martin Ueland, in Griggs County in 1903.
Here he attended public school and then was graduated from Aaker's Business College in 1907. He first worked as a bookkeeper and stenographer for R. S. Lunde in Cooperstown and then became manager of the Shepard Farmers Elevator, south of town, where he stayed from 1910-1923. He moved to Glenfield in 1923, where he owned and operated the Glenfield Grain Company until 1931, and then managed the Peavey Elevator and Lumber Yard until 1957. Having also dealt in insurance all through his grain-buying days, he continued his own Glenfield Insurance Company until 1967. He died in Carrington in January 1968.
He married a native Griggs County girl, Janna Vatne, daughter of Tommes and Bertha Watne Vatne, at her home southeast of Cooperstown, October 9, 1910. There are four children:
There are sixteen grandchildren. Mrs. Sharpe died at Cooperstown in January 1961.
Always a man of vision and a civic leader, Andrew Sharpe was instrumental in establishing an early road that passed through Cooperstown and Glenfield as State Highway No. 7 (now 200) during the 1920's. He helped organize the Tri-County Electric Company in 1937, serving as its president for six years and as director for 25. He was a member of the House of Representatives in the State Legislature from 1939-1945. He served on the Township board for sixteen years and the school board for fifteen. He was a member of the American Lutheran Church, of the Masonic Order (master of the Cooperstown lodge in 1932), the Shrine, the Elks, and the Modern Woodmen of America.
Source: Griggs County History 1879 - 1976 Page 209