Hannah Kempfer, Minnesota’s first rural woman state legislator served from 1923-1940. Her story of a poverty stricken orphan to become a woman of influence is one of courage, compassion and dedication.

Born in 1880, Hannah was the illegitimate daughter of a ship’s stewardess on the North Sea. Adopted by a family in Stavanger, Norway, she was six when the family immigrated to America. Taking a homestead in Erhard’s Grove Township, they lived in a small log cabin with a leaky roof sod roof and dirt floor. With her father too ill to care for the family, Hannah and her brother were often hungry and wore old socks and rags instead of shoes as they cut and sold wood to buy supplies.

When she was 15, Hannah came to Fergus Falls to attend high school. She boarded in a dingy room over a harness shop with no bed or bedding, no fuel for heat and little food. Water came from a horse trough outside the shop. Despite the hardships she persevered and at age 17 passed the teachers certification exam to become a rural school teacher.

While teaching at District 187 in Friberg Township, Hannah started a hot lunch program so her students did not have to eat cold meals or go hungry as she once had. In 1903, Hannah married Charlie Kempfer. They had no children of their own but often sheltered children whose parents were unable to care for them. Hannah became so involved in her rural community that she was talked into running for the state legislature. First elected in 1922, she became the first woman legislator from a rural district.

Hannah served for 18 years advocating for women and children, conservation and education. Known affectionately by her colleagues as “The Lady from Otter Tail”, Hannah Kempfer became the first woman Speaker of the House in 1925.