ESTEN A. BORSHEIM. This gentleman is one of the educational workers of North Dakota and is the present county superintendent of schools of Traill county. He has devoted his career to the profession of teaching and has met with unbounded success. He is a gentleman of excellent education and broad mind, and every need of the community in which he labors is anticipated by him and the standard of education advanced as far as lies in his power.
Our subject was born in Kingservik, Hardanger, Norway, April 11, 1869, and was the younger of two sons born to Anders and Sigrid (Huus) Borsheim, both of whom now reside in Winneshiek county, lowa. His parents located in Iowa in 1883 and settled on a farm.
Mr. Borsheim attended the common schools and in 1886-87 attended Decorah Institute, and in July, 1888, went to Dakota and visited his brother in Nelson county. In the winter of 1889-90 he taught for the first time in Winneshiek county, Iowa, and the following spring went to Traill county, North Dakota, and began teaching in Garfield township, near the village of Hatton, and then became thoroughly identified with educational work in TrailL county, being in the school room almost continuously until the fall of 1896, when he was elected to the office he now holds, and his efficient work and popularity is best evidenced by the fact that he was returned to the same office in 1898. He has worked for a uniform series of text books and has met with success in that line, and he now has under his supervision one hundred school buildings, with one hundred and twenty-six departments and an enrollment of scholars of thirty-six hundred and forty-six and one hundred and thirty teachers. There are four thousand scholars of school age in the county. The average salary of the teachers in the county for the year 1898-99 was forty-three dollars and fifty-two cents. The abolition of the institute and the establishment of four weeks of summer school has tended to raise the standard of instructors throughout the county.
Mr. Borsheim was married, in 1899, to Miss Bertha Wanbheim. Three children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Borsheim, as follows: Allie Lawrence, Sylvia C. and Arthur M. Mr. Borsheim is a member of the Knights of Pythias and Modern Woodmen of America, and politically is a Republican.
Source: Compendium of History and Biography of North Dakota 1900 Page 209