AGNES MARY KOLSHORN:

Agnes Mary Kolshorn was born on September 2, 1892 in Hay Creek Township (Goodhue County), Minnesota, the youngest daughter of Henry William Herman and Mary Dorothy Teitge Kolshorn. Following a parochial and public school education in Hay Creek Township and Red Wing, Minnesota she attended Oklahoma State University and Columbia University, receiving degrees in science, literature, and household arts. In 1918 she received a master's degree in economics and philosophy from the University of Denver. She continued her education throughout her career, earning degrees in nutrition from the University of Chicago in 1932 and in economics from the University of Southern California in 1946.

She taught at a number of colleges and universities during her career, including the Colorado Women's College, Denver (1914-1917); State Normal School, Pittsburg, Kansas (summer 1918); Mississippi State College of Women, Columbus, as instructor (1918-1919) and home economics department head (1919-1921); University of Minnesota (1921-1928); University of Washington, Seattle, as head of the foods department (1928-1929); and Oregon State University, Corvallis (1929-1958). During her tenure at Oregon State University she went on a home economics study tour of the Orient (1937), was in charge of the U.S. Extension Service, Hillsboro (Oregon) office (summer 1943), and assisted in the establishment of a home economics degree program at Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand (1956-1958).

Following her 1958 retirement from Oregon State University, she returned to Minnesota and continued her career as research lecturer and coordinator of the Home Service Peace Corps Project (March-December 1963) and instructor in the nutrition unit of the Intercultural Seminar, General Extension Division (1963-1967), both at the University of Minnesota, and as regional technical assistance specialist, national office, Economic Opportunity Head Start Program (1969-1971).

Kolshorn was a member of Iota Sigma Di (women in chemistry), Omicron Nu (home economics honorary), American Association of University Women, National Lague of American Pen Women, and the Fraula Reading Circle, St. Anthony Park, St. Paul. She has held a wide variety of offices in those organizations.

Biographical information was taken from the collection.

Return to top

Kolshorn's family history covers both her paternal and her maternal ancestry over the 1823-1982 time period, including her parents' childhoods in Germany; the immigrations of her widowed grandmothers to the United States: Maria Dorothea Carolina Grotte Karlshorn (later Roettger) to Indiana in the mid-1840s and Dorothea Elizabeth Helmeke Teitge (later Plote), with her two children, to Goodhue County, Minnesota in 1856-1857. She goes on to relate her grandmothers' remarriages and their lives in the United States and her father's 1859 immigration to join his mother in Indiana, his service with the Indiana Home Guard during the Civil War, and his 1869 relocation to Minnesota.

She discusses her mother's young adulthood in Minnesota, her parents' 1870 marriage, and the family's life on Hay Creek farm (Hay Creek Township) and in Red Wing. Kolshorn provides a detailed reminiscence of her childhood on Hay Creek farm (1882-1902) and in Red Wing, with comments on crops and farming methods, food storage and preservation, children's chores and games, toys, sewing, laundry, schooling, religion, and social events. She also includes a genealogical chart of the nine Kolshorn children (1871-1973), photographs of various Kolshorn and Teitge family members and their homes, and detailed biographical sketches of herself and her sister, Christine Henrietta Kolshorn Burton, and their individual careers in the field of home economics.

Return to top

Availability:

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. Agnes Mary Kolshorn Family History. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples.

Accession Information:

Accession number: 13,229

Processing Information:

Processed by: Cheryl N. Thies, August 1983

Catalog ID number: 990017155470104294

Return to top

This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:

Agriculture -- Minnesota -- Goodhue County.

Education -- Thailand.

Frontier and pioneer life -- Minnesota -- Goodhue County.

Germans -- Minnesota.

Home economics -- Study and teaching.

Women pioneers.

Pioneers -- Indiana.

Persons:

Burton, Christine Henrietta Kolshorn, 1883-1973.

Kolshorn, Henry William Herman, 1844-1900.

Kolshorn, Maria Dorothea Carolina Grotte, 1824-1901.

Kolshorn, Mary Dorothy Teitge, 1847-1934.

Kolshorn family -- Genealogy.

Plote, Dorothea Elizabeth Helmeke Teitge, 1823-1882.

Roettger, Maria Dorothea Carolina Grotte Kolshorn, 1824-1901.

Teitge, Dorothea Elizabeth Helmeke, 1823-1882.

Teitge family -- Genealogy.

Places:

Germany -- Emigration and immigration.

Hay Creek Township (Minn.).

Indiana -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865.

Red Wing (Minn.) -- Social life and customs.

Document Types:

Reminiscences.

Return to top