Johannes was born on 2 August 1815 on the Møllemosegård farming estate. A son of Peter David la Cour (no. 10) and Ane Clausine la Cour, he started at the Odense grammar school* in 1830 and finished there at the upper secondary level in 1834. He is registered in the 1840 census as renting a room with the Krebs family at the address of Store Fiolstrade 2 in Copenhagen. After earning a master’s degree in theology in 1841, Johannes worked as a teacher for his three cousins, Niels Peter, Janus and Christian, at Stenmark manor. Johannes married Christine Cathrine la Cour on 30 October 1845
in Holme. Born on 24 July 1820 on the Svendsholm farming estate, Christine was a daughter of Otto August la Cour (no. 12) and Ane Cathrine Strandbygård. Appointed stipendiary curate* for the Helgenæs peninsula on 18 July 1845, Johannes purchased one of the Kongsgårde farms on the peninsula in 1946, along with about half of the grain and cattle tithes* belonging to the Helgenæs church. He sold the farm in 1859, but not the tithes. He was appointed pastor of Helgenæs parish on 11 June 1858 and was by all accounts a zealous and respectable pastor and a good-natured and kindly man. Johannes and his wife were considered a very pleasant couple: he was large, broad and jovial, the archtype of a village pastor, and she was an excellent housewife. Johannes was especially remembered by the soldiers under General Rye*, who stayed with the hospitable, patriotic curate at his Kongsgård farm when the army retreated to the Helgenæs peninsula in 1864.
Johannes was an avid hunter, and Helgenæs provided excellent hunting – rabbits and partridges in the autumn and wild ducks in the summer – since there were a number of bogs on the peninsula. There was also beach hunting, of course, but Johannes did not care for this type of hunt, at least not in the summer. By contrast, the season’s main event was the annual duck hunt, a major event with invited guests from the entire region, even from as far away as Ebeltoft. In the summer of 1880, Johannes bought a farm at Holme Mark near Ebeltoft for his son-in-law. As the oldest la Cour family member at the time, Johannes chaired the family meeting on Himmelbjerg mountain on 9 June 1882, even though he was quite infirm at the time. He died on 4 December 1882 in Helgenæs parish. Christine moved to Ebeltoft the following year and died there on 25 December 1902. (Three children: the Helgenæs Line.)
