Lars Petersen
and
Anne Larsen Jensen Petersen

Compiled and Edited by Kristine Halls Smith

In the LDS Biographical Encyclopedia, Volume 2, page 345-6, we read, “Lars Petersen was born February 27, 1837 at Systofte, Denmark, the son of Hans Petersen and Margrete Larsen. He was baptized April 17, 1861, by Ole Petersen; ordained a Priest September 1, 1861, and an Elder by Jens Hansen November 3, 1861. In October 1861, he was called on a mission to the island of Falster and during the following three and a half years he labored as a missionary on the islands of Falster, Moen, Lolland, and Fyn. He also spent nine months in the Danish army during the war between Denmark and Prussia in 1863-64. In 1865 he emigrated to Utah, crossing the Atlantic in the ship B.S . Kimball, which sailed from Hamburg, Germany, May 8, 1865, and arrived in New York on June 15, 1865. He crossed the plains in Captain Miner G. Atwood’s company, which arrived in Salt Lake City on November 8, 1865. After spending the winter of 1865-66 in Ogden he settled permanently in Huntsville in the spring of 1866, where he has resided ever since. On April 7, 1866, he married Anne Larsen Jensen, daughter of Lars Jensen and Maren Rasmussen. She bore him six children, three boys and three girls, whose names are: Mary M., Lauritz, Rosanna, Peter A., Sarah E., and Joseph H. Elder Petersen acted as Ward clerk, subsequently as counselor and still later as president of the Sixth Quorum of Elders in the Weber Stake, and on December 27, 1902 he was ordained a High Priest by Lewis W. Shurtliff. For fifteen years, commencing with November 1882, Brother Petersen acted as postmaster of Huntsville; otherwise his occupation has been that of a basket maker, gardener, and farmer.”

In Remember My Valley by Laverna Burnett Newey, published in 1977, we read, “Lars Petersen, the basket weaver, was indispensable as everyone had to own a clothes basket, or how else could they pack their loads of freshly laundered clothes to the strung lines or the willows in the back yard? His woven baskets were used to carry butter, groceries, flowers, and babies. He made a living and the settlers benefited.”

In Ships, Saints, and Mariners — A Maritime Encyclopedia of Mormon Migration 1830-1890 by Conway B. Sonne, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, 1897, it says: “On 8 May, 1865, Captain Dearborn sailed the B.S. Kimball from Hamburg with 558 Saints aboard. Most of the immigrants were from Scandinavia. The company was directed by Elder Anders W. Winberg, his counselors John Swensen and Hans C. Hogsted. The voyage was tragic, measles and scarlet fever breaking out at sea. Three adults and twenty-five children died, one of the highest death tolls of an emigrant company. After a thirty-seven-day passage the ship arrived at New York on 14 June.”

Soon after Anne’s death, Lars wrote about her and her conversion to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and about their travels to Utah in 1865. Many life stories skim over the part of the person’s life that tells of their travels from Europe to Utah, but his story is interesting in that it gives a very detailed description of their problems and trials in leaving Denmark and then getting to America and Utah. Anne had been born on September 5, 1838 in Skjerne, Maribo, Denmark, a daughter of Lars Jensen and Maren Rasmussen.

A Sketch of the Life of Anne Larsen Petersen

Describing Her Acceptance of the Gospel and
Her Subsequent Emigration to Utah

Written by her husband, Lars Petersen, Huntsville, Utah, 1916

Anne Larsen was born in Skjerne, Gunslev Sogn on the island of Falster, Denmark, September 5, 1838. Her parents were poor. When they were first married, they were well to do, but sickness overtook them and reduced them to poverty. Her mother was once sick and bedfast for two years, and in that time some of their children died. The mother was so sick that she did not know or understand it until she commenced to get better. Then she missed the children and asked for them. Her father was a weaver by trade, but he also worked for the farmers and at other kinds of work.

Anne did not have much of an education. She did not go very much to school. She had to help her mother to sew, wash and iron, etc. to make a living. She told me her mother was expert at doing fine work, and to wash and starch fine linen for rich farmers wives which they were not able to do for themselves, but were willing to pay for it. They did not generally pay her in money, but in provisions such as they had plenty of, and of which she was always in need. In that way she often got more for her work than if she had received her pay in money.

When Anne got older she had to go out to work, and she got a place to work for a farmer by the name of Peter Green, in which place she stayed nine and one-half years. This Peter Green lived on his farm away from town. He had a neighbor a little ways off who also lived an his farm. His name was Hans Madsen, his wife’s name being Hannah. Anne and Hannah had been neighbors and good friends for years.

In the summer of 1858 a Mormon missionary by the name of P. C. Nielson came around that district of the country and made the acquaintance of Hans Madsen’s folks, and after a time they embraced it and became members of the Church. Of course Anne learned something of that new religion from them. She said she studied on it three years before she was baptized.

In the fall of 1861, I was called on a mission to preach the Gospel and was set apart to labor in the northern part of Falster and the island of Moen, under the presidency of P. C. Nielsen, who had been traveling elder there for a couple or years. He took me around in the district to show me where the Saints and friends lived, and introduced me to them. On this occasion I came with him to the Madsen’s place one evening and there I saw Anne Larsen for the first time, but little did I realize at that time that she would afterwards become my wife. She was not at that time a member of the Church, but I could well understand by conversing with her, the way she was learning. In November 1861, she was baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by Elder P. C. Nielsen.

As soon as it was known that such a respectable girl had joined such a disgraceful society as the Mormons, they raised a great excitement over it, so that they almost terrified the girl so such that for a while she hardly dared go anywhere for fear of being kidnaped and mistreated. She had been engaged to a man and perhaps was soon to have been married, but he broke up their engagement on account or it. Her parents both cried and scolded her for her foolishness and begged her to give up those religious Ideas. Perhaps her fellow would accept her again, but she would make no promise. Still she said their crying and begging hurt her more than any racket they made. I saw her once in a meeting after she had been baptized, but only once. From that time they guarded her so closely that she could not come to any meetings or come to any of the missionaries, hoping that she would forget it, but she did not forget it, although she had to keep quiet for a while.

In the spring of 1862 quite a large emigration prepared to leave those islands for Utah, my parents and two brothers being among the number. I had to go to Moen to assist the emigrants from there while P. C. Nielsen looked after them from Falster. Hans Madsen and his family also emigrated at this time. I had lent a book, a “Voice of Warning” to Hannah Madsen, but was not there to receive it back, so she gave it to Anne Larsen, and I was glad of it when I learned about it, for she would have that much more to read.

After the emigration had gone, some changes were made in the mission fields. P. C. Nielsen was sent to Bornholm to preside over that mission, and I was appointed traveling elder over Falster and Moen. Before P. C. Nielsen, left he charged me with the responsibility to hunt up that girl, Anne Larsen, and bring her out of her captivity, as she was too good a girl to lose sight of. I tried for a long time to find her unobserved. I passed by the place where she was working many times, hoping to see her or to find her outside. I knew it was no use to go in there. I would not be able to come to talk to her and it would only make matters worse, as I understood the woman in there was very bitter against the Mormons. Finally one day I met her on the road in company with another girl. I could see on her face that she would like to speak to me, but I understood that she did not dare to on account of that other girl that was with her, and I did not speak to her for the same reason.

I had to adopt some other plan to get hold of her. Before Hans Madsen emigrated, he sold his place to a man by the name of Mikkelsen, whose family consisted of himself, his wife, one grown up son and two grown up daughters and perhaps some smaller children. They moved into the house before Hans Madsen moved out, occupying different rooms. Of course the theme of conversation was Mormonism, and before the Madsens were ready to go, the son joined the Church and went with them. The woman and the girls also to seemed to favor it, but now Hans Mikkelsen got awfully mad. Now he regretted that he had bought Mormon property, and it appeared to him that Mormonism was a catching disease. The woman and the girls got scared and dared not go any further, but I had a chance to see and talk with the girls occasionally when I passed by there. One day I asked the oldest of the girls if she ever saw anything of Green’s Anne, which was the name Anne Larsen was known by there. She said “Yes, I see her every day. We come out in the field to milk where there is only a fence between us.” “Do you think she has forgotten Mormonism?” I asked. “No. I don’t think so, but still we never talk about that.” “Would you do me a favor and hand her a letter out there sometime when nobody sees it and not tell anybody about it?” She promised to do that, and did it.

In the letter I sent, I simply told her that I got the impression when I met her on the road that she had not forgotten Mormonism, but that she did not dare to speak to me an account of her companion, and that I did not dare to speak to her for the same reason, and I further told her where she could find me on a certain day that I appointed. If she, on some kind or a pretext, could be permitted to go to the city of Stubbkjobing which was not far away, and if that should fail her that day, I would be there again the next day if she then could come. I told her that I should like very much to see her, and to have a talk with her.

I had a long and interesting talk with her for she had come on the first day. She paid me for the book that Hannah Madsen had handed to her, and she wanted to get some more books. She wanted to subscribe for “Skandinaviene Stjerne” if there was any possible way for her to get it unobserved. I then asked her if she was afraid to go out in the evening in the dark. She said, “No.” Now there was a small poplar grove close to the place where she was working and I said, “If you are not afraid to come to that grove after dark, I will meet you there on the first and twentieth of each month and deliver it to you.” This she accepted. “Skandinaviene Stjerne” was published on the first and fifteenth of each month, but it would take two or three days every time before we could receive them.

I met her there twice a month for more than a year, and we had many good conversations together, but we never stayed out very late in order not to be suspected. Those meetings were of such a character that they could not but create a good feeling between us, and I cannot deny that I had a feeling that I would like to get her for my wife, if possible, but I never said anything about that to her. But the time came when I had to part with her and go to war. That was In the fall of 1863, and some other missionaries had to discharge the business I had started, and it soon leaked out that she was keeping company with the Mormon missionaries in the sly, and in the dark, and the old racket was started up about her again.

Several miles away from where she now was, there was a farmer by the name of Hopner. He always liked to have Mormon girls to work for him, as far an he could get them. He always thought they behaved so well. He had one girl now, and wanted to hire one more as there was work enough for two girls. The name of the girl he had now was Karen. He had been a widower for many years. He had four daughters and one son, the son being the youngest of them. The daughters had all kept house for him in turn until they married, and now the youngest was his housekeeper. Her name was Marie.

Now Anne Larsen decided to take that place. There she could have a chance to go to her meetings and have perfect religious liberty. So the first of May 1864, she moved into that house. After she came, she learned that Marie was also a Mormon girl, but her father did not know about it at that time, but she was of age and had a right to do as she pleased. Time went on and Hopner was very much pleased with Anne, much more than with Karen.

But when he finally learned that Marie had joined the Church he got awful hot at Anne, whom he blamed for being the one that led Marie astray. They told him that Marie had been baptized before Anne came there, but he would never believe that. But now Hopner got mad and notified the girls to move by the first of November. He would have no more Mormons work for him. He had a man to work for him at that time by the name of Ole Green, who was also leaning toward Mormonism, and afterwards embraced it. Hopner said to him about Anne, “She is a smart girl, and a good girl, and a good worker. I have no fault to find with her at all, only that she led Marie astray.”

All this happened white I was serving the King of Denmark against Germany and Austria in the war when they took Selsvig-Holsten from Denmark. As the girls failed to find another place to work for the winter and had no home to go to, it was quite hard an them. After awhile Karen found a place to work, and Anne came to stay with a Mormon family by the name of Nicolai Hansen in Bjorup, a small town near Hopner’s. She was good to sew and took in what work she could get that way, but I understand she was not very well pleased with the turn things had taken.

Toward spring she got a job to help sew clothes for a family by the name of Hans Hansen that was preparing to emigrate. There were three in the family, the man his wife, and a son by the name or Hans Peter Hansen, generally called only Peter. The man was not quite right in the head, sometimes probably on account of drink. He was not a member of the Church, but the woman was, as was also the son, but the father wanted to go with them anyway. Now Peter had a girl whose name was Christine that he wanted to take with him, but the old folks liked rather to take Anne with them. She was older and better able to help them on the journey. Both girls were with them in the house now, helping to sew. They were not sure that they would have money enough at the time to take them both, but finally they concluded to take them both. Of course they were only going to lend the money to the girls. They would have to pay them back again after they came to Zion.

They had sold their property and were going to sell their personal property at auction to the highest bidder. This did not bring as much money as they had expected, but they had to pay for themselves and the two girls, so one day Peter took the money and went to the mission president in Copenhagen to pay for their emigration, and what was left over after the ship’s fare was paid, to have exchanged into American money. When he came home and his mother saw the receipt she noticed that he had not paid in the money for the girls. Now she wanted to know the reason for that and what he had done with the money. Well, he had the money in his pocket. He thought it would be time enough to pay it in when he came to Copenhagen, but she feared that he intended to fool Anne and was intending to spend so much more money on his own girl. When Anne learned that, she felt quite downhearted over it, and did not know what to do about it.

I had been on a mission on the western part of Fyn during the winter, and did not know what there was going on in my own home, Falster. I had written a few letters to Anne Larsen and also received a few from her. My father and my brothers had sent us forty dollars, enough to take me to America in case the war should break out again in the spring, as it looked like at one time. The war had, in the meantime, been settled, but as I now had the money, I wished to emigrate. The president of the conference did not like to let me go, and they wanted me to stay another year. They said they could not spare me, but I insisted on being released as I now had spent three and one half years since my folks emigrated, in the missionary field, so I was finally released with permission to emigrate.

Now I desired to take a trip over to my old home, Falster, to see the old friends, and what was more, to see my old girl before I left my native country. When I came over to Mykjobing, I stopped with an old Mormon family by the name of Hennesen. Sister Hennesen told me that Anne had found a chance to emigrate. She thought, of course, that it was good news to me, as the rumor was that we were good friends, and so it was too, but I thought to myself that it was almost too good to be true. I asked her how that came to happen and she said, “Now you can stay here overnight, and then tomorrow she can tell you for herself.” When I come to see Anne the next day, and to congratulate her on her chance to emigrate she was very mistrustful and afraid it would fail, and then told me how Peter had acted. If she should come to emigrate, she had something that she had to sell, but if she did not then she would not sell it, so she did not know what to do about it. Peter and I had been companions and good friends in the war, and I hoped I would have some influence over him, so I went right over to him and found him alone in the house. As soon as I spoke to him about the money for the girls, he handed me the money right away, but said, “Don’t tell father because he wanted the money for the girls back again, but he shall not have it, for he will only drink it up.” Now the old man did not understand but that Peter had sent all the money to Copenhagen. A little while after I got the money, his mother came in, and as soon as she saw me she told Peter that he had better give me the money. Peter answered, “He has got it.” Now the woman laughed and was satisfied. Then the old man came in, and as soon as he saw me, he called me and told as that Peter had sent all their money away, and he wanted to get the money back again that was intended for the girls for Peter would not do it, but all that time I wanted to tell him that I would see about it when I came to Copenhagen.

Now I went back to Anne and showed her that I had got the money away from Peter and that I had it in my pocket, that she could safely prepare and get ready. Her countenance brightened up at once and mine, too. Now I hurried to send the money to O. H. Berg, the conference president who was now in Copenhagen to look after the interests of the emigrants from his conference. After telling him how the girls had got the promise or the money from Hans Hanson, and how I had got possession of it, I instructed him to not pay the money to President Widerberg in Hans Hansen’s name, but in the girls own names respectively. When I think of it, I cannot help but consider this a providence from the Lord, for if Peter had sent all the money at the same time, it would have been sent in Hans Hansen’s name, and then the girls would have been stopped on the road, as circumstances afterward proved.

Every farmer had a flock of sheep, and most of the girls that served with the farmers had a sheep of their own, which was fed and run with the stock as part or their wages. From this they could get a little wool to help make their clothing, for they mostly had to depend on homemade clothes for everyday use. Anne also had a sheep that she had to sell if she could come to emigrate, otherwise she did not want to sell it. She also had some other things that she could not take with her and wanted to sell if she was sure that she could emigrate. Now she would have to be busy about it as there were only a few days until we had to be in Copenhagen.

When Hopner’s folks learned that Anne was going to emigrate, they evidently got scared that she would find Marie again in Copenhagen. His oldest daughter was married to a man by the name of Jorgensen and lived in Copenhagen. To them Hopner had sent Marie, that they should take Mormonism out of her. A woman of Hopner’s relatives came to Anne and asked her if she knew Marie’s address, and Anne answered, “Yes.” And when asked if she was going to visit Marie when she got to Copenhagen, she replied that she might if she had time. This woman pretended that she would like for her to go and see Marie, and if she had not had her address she would have given it to her. But Anne understood better. The idea was to find out if she had her address, for then they would have to send a warning to Mrs. Jorgensen to look out that Marie should not come to see Anne because she had a great influence over Marie.

But now it so happened that the first day after we came to Copenhagen, Anne went with O. H. Berg to find the place where Marie was, and when they found it, Anne went right up to the door and rang the bell. A girl came to open it and Anne asked if Miss Hopner lived there. “Yes, I will call her.” As soon as Marie saw her, she turned almost red in the face. It was a great surprise to her, but she said right away, “Are you going to emigrate, Anne?” “Yes.” “Where do you stop?” “In Store Kongensgede, No. 23.” That was all they got to say, for then came Mr. Jorgensen in a great hurry. “Are you Mormons?” “Yes.” “Out with you.” Then he pushed her out and locked the door behind her. This was only a short conversation, but it was enough. The chain that Marie had been tied with had been broken. Next morning she came right to the Store Kongensgede, No. 23 and wanted to see Anne again, but Anne had gone out with O. H. Berg to try to find her two sisters that lived in Copenhagen, so Marie and Anne did not get to see each other again until they met in Salt Lake City. We stopped with them two nights when we went through the Endowment House in 1871.

I was well acquainted with Marie. We lived in the same town and had almost grown up together, still she was a few years younger than I. She said to me, “What shall I do? I am tired of the way they are treating me, but I don’t know what to do.” I told her that I was not in a position now to give her advice or to tell her what to do, but I advised her to go to the mission president, Carl Widerberg, and perhaps they would find a way out for her and I gave her his address. We did not see any more of her while in Copenhagen, but we learned afterwards that she had gone with S. J. Jonassen over to Sweden and got married to him. Jonassen had been president of the conference where Marie had her home until he had been sent over to Sweden to preside over the Malmo conference, so they were well acquainted. It is also likely that Jonassen had been courting her before, for Anne said that Marie had asked her the previous summer if she thought Jonassen would be a good man.

Now Marie was out of Hopner’s reach and, of course, Anne got the credit the second time of having led Hopner’s daughter astray. That same Jonassen apostatized after they had lived in Salt Lake City a few years, but Marie stayed with the Church. Jonassen died young and a son of theirs has since been on a mission to Denmark.

The last evening we were to stay there, I found Anne out in the hallway of the hotel crying. I asked her what was the matter, but she was crying so hard she could not tell me. After a little while she told me that Hans Hansen had told her she had better stay here in Copenhagen, for she would get no further than to Hamburg anyway, and she did not know what in the world to do now. She would by no means like to stay in Hamburg, and she would not like to stay in Copenhagen either. Then she would rather go back to Falster, but she did not like that either, besides she had no money to go back with, and the people would laugh at her when she came back again saying that the Mormons had fooled her. She really felt awfully bad over it. I told her that Hans Hansen could not get that money back again, neither could he stop her in Hamburg, because when I sent the money in I sent it in her name and it was out of his reach. If Peter had sent the money in at the time he sent their own, then they could have got it, but not the way it was fixed now. But she was still afraid to go to Hamburg for fear they would find some tricky way to do it, and she could by no means think of staying in that German city. I then said, “You shall not stay in Hamburg, for if such should happen, you shall go for my money. I can better get along in Hamburg than you can.” This, of course, comforted her, but she did not like to stop me from going either. I guess she did not sleep much that night.

Hans Hansen had some relatives in Copenhagen, two of his sisters’ sons, who were restaurant and saloon keepers. They had treated him and made him drunk and crazy, and they had evidently set in him how he should stop both his wife and son from emigrating, and then make the Mormon president pay back all the money and, of course, stop the two girls from going. And I also think it was they that had engaged the police to help, as he was not smart enough to do that himself, but he did not succeed in stopping any of them, only himself.

Next day we had to leave Copenhagen and go by steamship to Kiel, and from there to Hamburg by railroad. In the early morning Hans Hansen seemed to be sober. He said nothing, but helped to haul the baggage down to the ship. We hired a cart to haul our baggage to save expense. A cart would hold a half dozen boxes or trunks. As soon as we came down with the first load and commenced to carry it out to the ship, there came a policeman and told us not to carry out anything that had Hans Hansen’s name on. Now we understood what was up. Peter and his girl had a box together with Hans Hansen’s name on. The police wanted to stop that too, but Peter and the girl claimed there was nothing in that box belonging to the old man, and I believe they opened it and showed the policeman what there was in it. So they were finally permitted to take it down to the ship. When his wife learned about it she did not know what to do, but she had not been down to the ship yet.

Their bedclothes had not been brought down to the ship yet. We all had our bedclothes put in a big sack, and they had written the names with pen and ink on one corner of each sack. Now we could roll the sacks up in such a way that the name did not show. This we did, and I took a stick and with ink I wrote with big letters H.H.H.C. on each sack of theirs containing clothes. That was his initials, but neither he nor the police understood them. Anne had also had the same written on her bedclothes sack, because they were to go in one company. On her sack I wrote “Anne Larsen Ornes Conference.” She had no box of her own, but she had some things of her own put in their boxes, which she lost. The names were not put on our baggage for shipping directions, but each one had to find their own again after it had been all mixed up in the ships and railroad cars, the whole way through.

Now Hans Hansen’s wife had come down and looked at the box that had been ordered stopped, and she looked very sad. Neither the police nor her husband were there at the moment. When I saw her, I went over and asked her what she was going to do. “Well, what in the world shall I do?” Then I said, “Do you wish to stay with him or do you wish to go?” “I will not stay if I possibly can go.” “Then come with me,” I said, and she was quick to step to me and off we went. I took her up to President Widerberg’s office and told him all that had happened, and asked if he could help her to get off. “Yes,” he said, “but you will have to send her on the railroad and you will have to go with her, we cannot let her go alone.” I then told him she had a son. “Well that is still better, then he will have to stay back and go with her.”

Then I asked if she and her son could draw the money that had been paid in his name. He said, “Yes, unless the police should order him not to pay it out to them.” He was not supposed to know that the man had stayed back unless he was notified. But the ship fare had already been paid, out of the money sent in, and he could not get it back anyway. I then told him about the two girls that he was going to take with him and that he had told them last night that they had better stay in Copenhagen, because they would not get any further than Hamburg anyway. “That is a worse case,” he said, “for if I pay his money to those girls I may get in trouble for it.” Then I told him that the girls had borrowed the money from him, and that the money had been sent in the girls names, and not in his name. “Then it is all right with the girls money. They will get them in Hamburg in American money, and it will be all right with the money for the woman and her son, too, if I do not get orders from the authorities to hold them back.”

Now I started back toward the ship, and on the way back I met O. H. Berg, our conference president. I told him what I had done, and that Peter would have to stay back and go with his mother. Berg went back with me to find Peter and to tell him, but we found that he was surrounded by a big mob that evidently intended to hold him back and prevent him from going out to the ship until it had gone, and thereby compel him to stay back with his father. It did not look like it would be possible to get to speak to Peter, but finally Berg elbowed his way through the crowd and called out, “Peter you will have to stay back, you cannot go with them.” “How can that be?” Peter asked. “You can learn that some other time,” Berg replied. When the mob heard that they separated and let him go and Berg took him up to his mother.

It was yet one half hour before the ship was to go, but I started again towards the ship and met a young girl of our company, and she said, “Where have you been so long? There has been someone hunting for you for a whole hour, and could not find you.” “Who is it that has been hunting for me?” I asked. She did not know, but said she would show me, and led me right under the nose of a policeman, and said that was him. I almost got scared, but walked right on. The policeman took no notice as there was a big crowd, but the girl came after me again, thinking I had misunderstood her, but I whispered to her to keep still and say nothing or she would get me into trouble. I thought someone must have seen me go away with the woman, but I never thought until then that it could be construed as a criminal act.  

Now I went on the side of the ship away from the land and tried to keep a little in hiding behind the objects. The deck of the ship was now full of people. By peeping out, I saw Hans Hansen standing there in the crowd and a policeman by his side, but I never noticed that they started to go out on the ship. But now while I was standing there and thinking of no danger, I heard Hans Hansen say, “I know him well enough if I can get my eyes on him. He has got a gray coat on.” He was almost close to me when he said it. I glanced at him and noticed well enough that his eyes were quite dim by this time, but the policeman was right on his heels and his eyes were bright. I could make no movement there, but had to stand still and just move far enough out of the way to give him and the policeman room enough to squeeze through past the gray coat, but there were so many gray coats and the policeman could not know me by that mark. After they had passed me, they met the girls and asked them if they knew where the woman and Peter were, but they knew nothing at all about it. Hans Hansen said again to the girls that they would get no further than Hamburg. After the policeman had got off the ship and it had started to go, and had got a little way out, I went around and found the girls, and they were in tears. Now they had started and were bound for Hamburg, whatever the consequences. They were greatly perplexed. They did not know what had become of the woman or Peter or me, as they had seen nothing of any of us for two or three hours. Now I told them all that had happened and also what President Widerberg had said about the money, so that they could consider themselves perfectly safe.

The boxes of Hans Hansen’s that the police had stopped from being carried out to the ship had afterwards been carried out anyway, and just as the ship was ready to go, the police came out to look for those boxes. They thought they must have been carried down in the ship or else stolen, but the captain of the ship would not permit them to look for them. He said they could not have taken care of them when they had them. But the police had evidently telegraphed to the police in Kiel to send all those boxes back that had Hans Hansen’s name painted on them, and by so doing they took Peter’s and Christine’s box too, so they lost all they had.

We stayed on deck of the ship all afternoon and all night while we crossed the Baltic Sea to Kiel. The weather was fine and we enjoyed the trip. The next morning we went out on the railroad to Hamburg, and in the afternoon we were put on a big ship called Packet Ship B. J. Kimball to take us across the North Sea and the Atlantic to New York. We laid there three days longer, and we were a little scared that we would get more trouble from Hans Hansen’s side, but nothing of the kind happened. D. H. Wells, president of the European mission came on board and paid us all the money coming to us in American gold. After we had got our money, the girls felt quite relieved. Up until that time they had been afraid of being stopped from going any further, but now it was a sure thing.

We left Hamburg May 8, 1865, and arrived in New York on June 15. Most of the girls were more or less seasick, Anne Larsen not excepted, and several died and were buried in the ocean. The missionaries had advised all the emigrants, especially the women, to take some provisions with them that they could have to take when they became seasick and would not be able to eat the ship’s fare. Anne had provided a good supply of such things as she thought she could eat in an emergency, but as she had no box of her own, and as she was going to travel in Hans Hansen’s company, she had it put in a box with his name on. But the police took it all, and she missed it badly while traveling on the ocean. Hans Hansen’s wife and son saved nothing but their bedclothes.

What became of the old man we never learned. All that we ever heard about him was that the newspapers had got up a story that his wife and son deserted him in Copenhagen, because they did not want to go with him, and that the Mormon missionaries had cheated him out of fifty thousand dollars.

After the ship had come out of the river Elbe, I expected they would have taken a southwesterly direction and gone through the English Channel, which would have been an almost direct line to New York, but instead of doing that, they started off in a northwest direction. We were wondering at that, but we soon learned that on account of the wind being unfavorable, it being southwest, they had to take the northern route and go north of Scotland. When we left Hamburg the sun was shining warm, and we had to seek the shade under the sails, but after we had sailed a few days, with the sun shining every day, it became so cold we had to lie down in the sunshine to keep warm. After we had passed Scotland, they still kept going in the same direction, the wind still being southwest. It became so cold that delicate women and children could not stand it, but when they changed the sails and turned south, it soon became warm. We could see icebergs to the northwest of us which, of course, helped to make it cold.

The Church chronology says that the ship B. S. Kimball sailed from Hamburg with 557 saints. These were from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, but there was also a German company of emigrants on the same ship. Whether they were Mormons or not I do not know. They had music and dancing every day on the deck, and some of our young people went and danced with them, but of course they could not speak so as to understand each other.

The weather was fine most of the time we sailed on the ocean, though sometimes a little windy. There were two days and nights when we had a hard wind against us and so they had to hoist all the sails down to roll them in. All they could do was to keep the front end of the ship against the wind and drift with it. The captain said after the storm was over that we had drifted back 200 miles. After we had got started to go forward again, we met a steamship coming from America. They went so close to us that they threw a bundle of newspapers over on our ship in passing, from which we learned that the Civil War had ended and that Jefferson Davis had been taken prisoner. We had learned that Abraham Lincoln had been killed before we left Denmark.

When we arrived in New York and the ship laid up by the Castle Guard, a place for emigrants, there came an emigration agent from Utah. I think his name was Stuart or perhaps Stainer. He told us that we had better have our gold money changed to paper money as there was a premium on gold. He said we could do that ourselves if we wanted to, but he had got the promise from a certain bank that if we would let him get all the money that we had to be exchanged, he would get us a little more in greenbacks for it than we would be able to get ourselves, so we let him have it all. When we came into the Castle Guard there was a provision store with lots of good things to eat and drink, but we had not received our money back, so we could not buy a thing, and our hungry and seasick women felt awful badly over it, but there was nothing to do.

We soon got started on the railroad to Albany, and while on the cars we received our money, so when we reached Albany we had to try and find something to eat, and we found it too, but we had a little difficulty on account of the language. Four of the girls gave me all of their money, also one boy, to take care of and buy for them what they wanted and needed, because they were afraid to buy for themselves.

After a little while we started on the road again for Niagara Falls, and here we crossed into Canada. Here also, we had to change our baggage from one train to another, which took a little while. Here Anne felt again like being seasick, and I think some of the other girls did too, and they wanted me to go to a provision store there and buy them some coffee and some cakes. I took a tin can and went in. The store was full of people and all wanted to get something. There were several clerks, but none of them understood Danish. One of them could speak Dutch, but none of us understood that. The clerks were very accommodating, but the clerks and customers could not understand each other. I got my coffee and cakes and started to go when a Swedish girl came and asked me to help her. She got what she wanted, but she had handed the clerk a dollar and he had forgotten to give her change back. She pointed to the clerk that had waited on her and then I said to him, “This lady says she gave you a dollar, but you forgot to give her any money back.” Then he came and looked over what she had got and counted it up and gave her change back. But when the other people and the clerks, too, learned that I could speak a little English, they all wanted me to help them. Some of them said they had stood there a whole hour without being able to get anything. Then I said, “Let me go to my folks with what I have first and then I will come back again and help you.” But they held onto me to get this first and that first, so before I could come out to the girls with the coffee it had got nearly cold, and the girls were not very well pleased because I stayed in the store so long.

We traveled on Canadian ground until we came to Detroit, Michigan where we had again to change trains. From Detroit we went to Chicago, but we did not stop there long, perhaps half an hour. From there we went to Quincy, Illinois, and when we came there we could get no further. We were to go from there to St. Joseph, Missouri, but heavy rains had washed the railroad track away in Missouri, so we had to wait two days for the water to settle a little so they could get us over the gap in the railroad in some small boats. After we came to St. Joseph, we sailed up the Missouri River in a steamship to a place in Nebraska, a few miles from Omaha. We sailed on the river a couple of days and nights, and the weather was very warm. We had bought something to eat in St. Joseph, but we had nothing to drink. The ship stopped at different places to take on wood, but only a few minutes at a time. Some of us would take our cans and go inland to see if it would be possible to find some water fit to drink, but to no use, we never found any. We were all very thirsty, but then I saw one of the sailors draw up a bucket of water from the river and take a drink of it. I went and tasted that, too, and it tasted good. It was black with mud, like black coffee, but it tasted better than black coffee. I went and told the girls, and they, too, tasted it and found it good. From that time on we did not thirst any more while on the river; we called it coffee.

We landed in Wyoming, Nebraska, June 26, late in the afternoon and our baggage was thrown up on the ground by the side of the river, and the ship went further up. Now we got busy hunting up our things, and prepared for a good night’s rest. We had slept very little since we left the big ship that took us across the Atlantic Ocean, but we were fooled again, for a heavy rain came up, and instead of sleep we got a good soaking before morning. Next day the weather was fine again and we got busy getting our clothing and bedding dry. The women folks mostly attended to that while the men and boys had to prepare for tents and huts to sleep in the next night. We were four girls and one boy, besides myself, that stuck together like one family, and we stuck together yet about making a temporary habitation. Anne had a pair of bed sheets made of heavy home made flax cloth. The boy also had a pair made of cotton cloth, but we could not get time to make a tent that day, so we had to build a hut of wood first and then hang our sheets over that when it rained, and it rained a great deal. The water in the Missouri River was very dirty, but there was a small river running into the big river at that place called Weeping River that was nearly clear.

After we had rested a few days, the girls started washing at that place. It was a warm day and there was no shade. Anne said she drank lots of water that day, and the next day she was very sick, very sick with a kind of fever they called climate fever. There were many sick with it, and many died. I think it resembled typhoid fever. Anne said when she saw them carrying out one that had died, “I guess I’ll be the next one.” But she survived. Her time had not yet come, and she had a mission to perform in this life. She was the only one of her relatives that would listen to the Gospel as revealed in this time and generation. There were hundreds of her progenitors in the spirit world looking to her for assistance to enter into the Kingdom of God, and if she did not live long enough to do the work for them, she still lived long enough to raise a family that will and must do it for her. I am one of them. After she had been sick a few days, I got her a bottle of “Perry Davis Pain Killer” and that seemed to cure her. She said when she got the first dose that she could feel the effects of it clear out in her toes. We found it was a good medicine and we have hardly ever been without it since we came here.

We lived here a whole month waiting for our wagons to come from Chicago, so we did not get started on the road across the plains until the first of August. It went very slowly for a long time, for we had to break in both the cattle and the teamsters to drive them. I was one of the teamsters to be broken in. We traveled many miles on the south side of the Platte River, but finally we had to cross over to the north side. The weather was fine and the water was warm. The river was quite wide at that place, I think it was about one half mile wide. We all had to wade across, except the old and the sick, as we were heavily loaded. The women folks were advised to set up their skirts so as to keep them out of the water, because it would be hard to stand against the water with the skirts down around their legs. Anne said she came very nearly going with the water there as she was yet weak after her sickness. The journey across the plains was very hard on her, as it was on the old and feeble.

I mentioned that we were heavily loaded. We were only allowed fifty pounds baggage, but the reason we were so heavily loaded is because we were traveling with a merchant from Salt Lake City. Thomas Taylor owned the wagon and cattle that we were traveling with. He loaded the wagons with heavy merchandise such as glass and chinaware, such things as would not take up too much room. The wagon I was driving was loaded with boxes containing glass. So we had to put our baggage on top of that, and each person had to pay him sixty dollars for the provisions he furnished us, and for hauling up our fifty pounds, and for the privilege of walking by the side of the wagons one thousand miles or more. I earned my sixty dollars by driving a wagon with four yokes of oxen across the plains, but Anne had to sign a note with ten percent interest until she paid, and which we afterwards did pay.

We were a little afraid that Indians would bother us when we came over to the north side, but they did not. They never bothered us until we came to Fort Laramie. The first evening when we came to the fort or near it, the Indians drove our cattle away from the guard or herdsman that had driven them out on grass and were going to herd them until morning. The Indians fired a great many pistol shots, but whether they shot at the men or only shot to scare them, we did not know, for they did not hit any of them. Next morning we could see the cattle scattered all over the hills to the east and it took us three days to gather them up, and we never found all of them. The soldiers were there to protect the emigrants and travelers from the Indians, but they did not help us any, and we almost came to think it was the soldiers that were playing Indian at our expense.

After we had traveled a few miles away from the Fort, the Indians came after us again, this time at noon. A small train of merchandise consisting of heavily loaded wagons, with six mules on each wagon, belonging to George Romney of Salt Lake City, had joined us. They could travel faster than we could, but did not dare to because of the Indians. They generally drove a little ahead of us, but when they camped, we camped. They had stopped and unhitched for dinner when we came up to them. We stopped and unhitched for dinner also, and we all drove our animals to the river for water. The mules went ahead and the cattle close behind them, and we teamsters were close behind the cattle with our whips. The mules had got into the water, but the cattle had not, when a whole company of Indians came yelling and hooting. They were on horseback and tried to drive both the cattle and mules away from us, but they did not succeed because the mules got scared and jumped up out of the river and in among the cattle, which scared the cattle, too, and they all ran back to camp as fast as they could go. They raised such a cloud of dust that we could not see what became of them, whether they ran to camp or past it. We teamsters got far behind, and now the Indians kept riding behind us and kept shooting at us with their bows and arrows and pistols. They evidently had no rifles, but we teamsters had nothing but our whips. They did not succeed in killing any of us, but they wounded eight men, some of them very seriously, and they took one woman away with them. They threw a lariat at her, pulling her up on a horse and off they went with her, and she was never heard from again.

When we teamsters came near to camp there stood some girls with their buckets on the road to the river to get water with which to cook dinner. Anne was among them. We shouted to the girls to run to camp, and so they did run, but Anne told me afterwards that they did not know which would be the best, to run for camp or to hide in the brush. She had read about some emigrants, not Mormon, that had been attacked by Indians, and that they had destroyed the camp, and killed the people and burned the wagons, and that only a few people had been saved by hiding in the brush. The girls thought that such might happen this time.

The running of the mules and cattle made a great noise, and as soon as it was learned at camp what was going on, the men and boys came out and stopped the animals from running past, and got them into the corral. The corral was formed by driving wagons up in two half circles, forming a place in the middle. Some of the men and boys came out and shot at the Indians, and they thought that they had shot at least one of them, because he came to hand in his saddle, but he did not fall off the horse. When we came into camp, a great excitement prevailed. The wounded had to be tended to, and many of the women and children were crying. There was no thought of dinner. The men and boys had to get out all the ammunition and rifles that we had and get them loaded. We had got some rifles and ammunition that had been used in the war, which was now over.  

The captain ordered us to hitch up our cattle so we could see how many we had lost, as we had expected we had lost some of them, but when we got them all hitched up it proved that we had not lost any of them. We did not see any more of the Indians now, but we expected they would follow us, so we were organized into rifle companies, all but the teamsters and the women and children. One rifle company was ordered to go ahead; next, all the girls and women that were able to walk, one man with rifle on each side of each wagon, and one company behind.

Now we started to drive and we found that the cattle were just as excited as the people were. We had no use for our whips that afternoon; the cattle pulled with a good will. We drove until eleven o’clock that night, and when we came into camp the captain ordered us to unyoke the cattle and leave them in the corral, and not drive them out on grass that night, because we expected the Indians to be behind us. We were not allowed to make any fires or light, not even to strike a match, so the Indians could not see where our camp was. Everyone was put on guard around the camp. The women and children were allowed to sleep if they could find a place to sleep, but were told to not put up any tents. Everybody being tired and thirsty. We had found no water that night. We spent a wearisome night. The night passed peaceably, however, and the Indians did not come.

When morning came, we found that nine of the cattle had died during the night, so the captain said that we had better lay over here at least one day, the cattle being so exhausted, having had neither water nor food for over twenty-four hours and had worked hard. Half of the armed men had to go with the cattle and half had to stay around the camp. After they had got the cattle out to water and grass, four more had died, but we did not see any more of the Indians. Still, we were afraid of them until after we had crossed the Green River.

Everything went all right from that time until we came to the Sweetwater River. Here we came to a green place where there was nice green grass in the afternoon of October 8. Here the captain said we could stop just one hour to let the cattle eat some of that grass, then we should hitch up again and go through Sweetwater Canyon, where we would have to cross the river three times in the course of a mile, but the water was not deep. Another route passed over a high mountain called South Pass. After we had unhitched, the women folk did not know what to do. One hour was too short a time to cook supper in, so some of them went to the captain and asked permission to stay in that place overnight, so they would have time to cook supper. They told him that many of the people had had neither breakfast nor dinner that day. He was willing, provided they were willing to wade across the river three times in the morning. He explained to them that the water would be a little colder in the morning than in the evening, and we were too heavily loaded for them to ride. They consented to do that if they could only stay where they were because there was a nice place to camp and plenty of dry wood.

The reason why we had had neither breakfast nor dinner that day was because when we started to go across the plains from the Missouri River, it was expected that it would take ten weeks, but after we had traveled two weeks the captain said we had gone only seventy-eight miles, while we, by that time, ought to have traveled two hundred miles; so he would have to cut us short on our provisions, or we would run out long before we would reach Utah, and there would be nothing to buy on the way. The reason for our slow travel was that we had to break in both cattle and teamsters. From that time on we got less provisions, in fact we got too little, and when we got our provisions for a week it would only last five or six days for some families. We had just got our provisions for another week. We stayed there that night and had a good supper, but the next morning we had six inches of snow where we had camped, and the river had risen twenty feet during the night. A blizzard had come unexpectedly over us during the night.

Now the captain regretted that he had given way in the evening. Now we could not go through the canyon, but would have to go over the big mountain called South Pass, eight thousand feet above sea level, where there was supposed to be two feet of snow, and we were nearly out of provisions. The captain had telegraphed to President Young and told him about our condition, and Brigham Young made a call for donations to us, donations of provisions to be sent out to us, of teams to take it out and of young men to go with the teams. We stayed in that place for two days waiting for the snow to melt. It melted where we were stopping, but it did not melt much in the high mountains.

On the third day we had to try and climb the mountain; the slope was very gradual, so we got up all right, but what a splash traveling through about a foot of snow and water. On top of the mountain it looked like a flat, but when we came to go down the other side it was with great difficulty, because the snow still laid there in many places, so the wagons would slide and the cattle could not hold them back, the brakes were no good at such times and in some places the wagons would go sideways with great danger of tipping over. But we had to help each other as best we could, and finally we got down to a level place that looked like a meadow. In the center where the water had gathered, it looked like a lake. Here we camped for the night, but here we met with other serious difficulty. We were all wet, very wet, and especially the women. The ground was too wet to put up the tents and to spread the bed clothes on, and it was with great difficulty that we got a fire started, because there was no wood at that place except sage brush which was now wet and green.

It froze so hard that night that the ice on the water could hold the cattle in the morning. Here the first wagons with provisions met us that had been sent out by Brigham Young, and we were in hopes that they would give us some of it, but they said, “No, there is another company behind you, and they are worse off than you are, we have got to go out to them.” But they said there would soon come some more, and they almost frightened us by telling us that Green River was very high, and that our cattle were too small to stand up against the stream. It took us three or four days to reach Green River, so by that time the water had lowered some, but it was still high.

A couple of days before we reached Green River more wagons with provisions came to us with flour, meat, dried fruits, etc., so now we had plenty to eat until we reached Salt Lake City. Also, when the wagons returned, they took all of our sick folks and their baggage with them, so that our loads got so much lighter. They also told us that the water in the river had gone down some, so that we would be able to ford it. This, of course, we considered good news, but the idea that we would have to wade across that cold and desperate stream almost frightened some of our girls and women to death. But when we arrived at the river one day late in the afternoon, the captain ordered all the girls and women and the old men to climb into the wagons, as he said, “The water is now too cold for the women to wade in.” This made them smile, and not without a good reason for it. Next he ordered the teamsters to double up, two and two, and take the uneven numbered wagons first; that is, one, three, five, and so forth, and after they had taken them over to go back and bring the rest of them over, there being thirty-six wagons in all.

The river was quite wide where we crossed it. We could not cross in the narrow places, for there the water was too deep. We teamsters had to go to the head of our teams to lead them, and the water was waist deep, and by it continually splashing against us, we got wet nearly all over. After we got the first wagons over, we had to go back after the rest of them, and by this time it was nearly dark. This proved to be a different job, as the cattle did not want to go back over again, so we had that for reason to stay in the cold water longer than would have been necessary. We had to go at the head of them and use our whips on them. The cattle, of course, were both tired and hungry. We teamsters, therefore, had to wade the river three times, and being in the water with wet clothes for two or three hours. The other young men, those not teamsters, also had to wade the river, but only once. This was the coldest bath I had ever been treated to.

The girls had made a great big campfire, there being plenty of good wood at that place, and we had to go to the fire and stand by it until the water in our clothing got warm enough to warm us through, but as soon as we turned away from the fire our clothes got cold again. Some of them suggested that we had better take our dry clothes out to the fire and change clothes right there where it was warm. This would have been very nice, but we did not dare do that, there being too many girls around. After we had been in our wagons and got dry clothes on we felt just as cold again, as there was a cold wind blowing at the time, so we had to go back to the fire to get warmed up the second time, and also to get our supper that they had prepared for us. We got chilled through to the marrow and bone, so it was impossible to get warm enough to sleep that night. I never felt it so cold during the war, where we had to sleep out in the snow most of the time.

After we had passed Green River, we had several smaller streams to cross, the largest of them being Black Fork, running south and joining Green River lower down. The next largest was Bear River, running north. We crossed it near the head of Echo Canyon, about where Evanston now is. We next went through Echo Canyon, which is about forty miles long. When we came through the canyon, we came to Coalville, where we met William Cluff who had been to Denmark on a mission, and spoke Danish, and although we were strangers in a strange land, we commenced to feel a little more like we were at home than we had done for the last six months. Here we got some vegetables, such as carrots, beets, turnips, and potatoes, which some of our emigrants had been homesick for for a long time.

After two or three days further travel we reached Salt Lake City on November 8, 1865, six months and four days from the time we left Copenhagen. We were both tired and hungry, although we had had plenty to eat the last two hundred miles. It took us practically all winter to get filled up, we had starved for so long a time on the plains.

But now another question presented itself to us, that is, to me and Anne, “What should we now do? Should we get married and stay together, or should we again part for a while?” We came to the conclusion that we were far too poor to marry, as we had practically nothing, and we were in debt for our emigration besides. We were only allowed to have fifty pounds of things with us across the plains, and a few books and bedclothes with a few other clothes besides what we had on soon made up fifty pounds. As long as it was summer we did not need any clothes, but when it came winter we practically had to put on all we had, and as we had three hundred miles to travel in snow and mud, we got our clothes not only soiled, but worn out. So we concluded that we had better put our marriage off until spring. Anne got a place with a Swedish family by the name of Tyge Benson, in Mill Creek, and I went with my brother, Peter, to Huntsville. He had met me on the road. Peter and another brother, Christian, had moved from Farmington to Huntsville that summer, and our father and mother also came up there from Farmington in the fall. They all lived now in a house Peter and Christian had built that summer, only one room and only half finished. I stayed with them until after New Years.

October had been a very stormy month, but November had been fine. A threshing machine was still running in Huntsville, and I got a few days work helping with the threshing. I also made a few bushel baskets which I sold for potatoes. Money was out of the question in those days. After New Years I got about two months work in Ogden with William McKay, weaving, for which I earned a little store pay and ten bushels of wheat.

When we parted in Salt Lake City on November 9, 1865, I handed Anne an address which I had received from my brother, to which she could write to me at Huntsville, and as soon as she had learned what address to use for herself, to write to me. She would hear from me in return. She received one letter from me and I also received one from her during November, but then it all stopped. I wrote several letters to her, but never heard from her any more for a couple of months. I did not know what was the matter. I could not very well take a trip down there, there being no railroad at that time, and there was more snow in Salt Lake Valley that winter than there has been any time since. In February my brother Peter went to Salt Lake City to visit a girl he had there that he intended to marry in the spring. He stopped over at McKay’s with me in Ogden, both when he went down and when he came back. He told me that I had better go down to Mill Creek to look after my girl. He had learned while he was in Salt Lake City that they were using all kinds of tricks to induce her to marry as a second wife to the man where she was working. He had also learned that one man from Huntsville was participating in the game by telling stories about me.

In the latter part of February I took a trip down there on foot. The snow had gone on the road, but there laid big piles of it in many places. Anne was quite surprised to see me, but glad I came, because she was perplexed in her mind what to do. She had not heard from me for so long, and although she had written several letters to me she had only received one, and that shortly after I had gone to Huntsville. I told her I was in the same fix, I had also written several to her and only received one. Well, she had been suspecting foul play all the time but did not know what to do about it. Then she told me that a man that had moved from Mill Creek to Huntsville in the fall had been down there during the winter and he had said to her about me, “You don’t need to expect to see him anymore, he has been running after all the girls in Huntsville, and I believe he has found one that he is going to marry when spring comes.” This good man’s name was Feder. Anne did not believe any of that. She could plainly see through their trickery. She had known me too long to be caught in that kind of a trap. She further told me that right in the middle of winter, Benson had proposed to her one day and asked her to go with him to Salt Lake City. He wanted to buy her lots of good and useful things, if she would be his second wife, which he hoped. But she refused, both to go with him and to be his second wife. Then he said, “Don’t you want to get married?” “Perhaps I will,” she answered, “when the one comes that I want.” To marry him was entirely out of the question. Then he got mad and told her to go, that he had no more use for her.

This happened right at the time when snow was the deepest, there being lots of it that year, so she could not go anywhere for snow at the time, so she sat down to cry. When he saw that, after a little while he came over to her and told her that she did not need to cry over it, for he was not going to drive her out, she could stay until spring if she wanted to, but he would not pay her any more than her board for her work. In the beginning, when she first came there, they had promised to pay her two dollars a week during the winter. They had plenty of work for her to do, carding, spinning, and coloring yarn and sewing, and many times he went away and stayed all day, but then she had to tend the stock, too. The old woman was weaving. Anne said that she was a good woman, but she had nothing to say as she was a regular slave.

Anne said that when she first came there, they set her to work sewing endowment clothes, which she understood were intended for her to use herself, but Anne thought otherwise.

She told me also that as long as it was fine weather in the fall she could attend to her own mail business, but after the snow came she had trusted her mail to him. The result was that he had destroyed it, hoping that if she could not hear from me that he would succeed in getting her for himself.

In the early spring Mr. Benson moved to Brigham City, and Anne came with them to Ogden; that is, she had the privilege to walk behind the wagon in the mud, for the wagon was heavily loaded and the road bad, but she got what little she had hauled to Ogden, and of course she stopped in the night where they stopped. At Ogden I met her and brought her to Huntsville. We learned afterward that Mr. Benson had committed suicide in Brigham City, after going crazy.

On April 7, 1866, we were married by Bishop F. A. Hammond. We settled in Huntsville and have resided there ever since. We had six children of which three are still living.

On April 7, 1866, we launched our craft on the waters of the matrimonial ocean which, by some writers, has been described as the largest and stormiest ocean in the world, and that more shipwrecks have occurred on that ocean than on all other oceans combined. We sailed on that ocean for nearly fifty years, but never reached the end of it. In fact, we believed there was no end of it if we steered in the right direction. Of course, we had our storms and calms, our ups and downs, our sunshine and shadows, like other voyagers, but by the help of Providence, we avoided shipwreck. Our ship came suddenly to a standstill on the tenth day of January 1916, but we hope by the help of Providence that we may sometime in the future be enabled to start sailing again, and keep it going through the endless Eternity.

In the latter part of November 1871, we were sealed as husband and wife, for time and all Eternity, in the old Endowment House in Salt Lake City, by Daniel H. Wells. On this occasion Anne got her name changed to Anne Jensen, at the advice of John Smith, who had been Denmark on a mission, and had learned the way that the Scandinavians named their children. He advised all of them that were there to use the family name; so when Anne gave her maiden name as Anne Larsen, and her father’s name as Lars Jensen, John Smith said to her, “Why don’t you take the name of Jensen instead of Larsen?” Anne asked me what I thought of it, and I thought it would be all right, so her name in the Temple record is Anne Jensen.

In the Lutheran Church in Denmark, her name is Anne Larsdatter. In the Mormon Church record in Denmark, her name is Anne Larsen, so in order to avoid misunderstanding we have used both names together, Anne Larsen Jensen.

The Apostle Paul said that death is a gain, Philippians 1: 21. I hope that it also has been a gain to Mother, so that my loss is her gain. I hope she is freed from the sickness that troubled her here in this life for so many years. She suffered for many years with stomach trouble and headaches and other afflictions that caused her much pain and suffering. Now last fall, 1915, when she got so very sick, she said, “I cannot see why I shall suffer so much, it seems to me I had not deserved that.” Another time she said, “Oh, if you could realize what I suffer, you would surely pity me.” Of course, I could not understand and feel it like she did.

The last four months she lived she vomited up everything she took in except water and olive oil, and sometimes that also. She could not take any more medicine so we employed a nurse who gave her some relief with hot applications, but at last injections of morphine was the only thing that could ease her pain, and if there is anything that I have to regret, it is that we did not use more of that to relieve her suffering than we did. She suffered so that she finally lost her mind. Her trouble was cancer of the stomach and which was the cause of her death on January 10, 1916, at the age of seventh-seven years and five months.

After living an industrious and peaceable life, is that the reward? Is life worth living? The answer is found in the Life and Labors of Wilford Woodruff, Appendix A, page 655, “The object of living and laboring in the cause of God is to secure a part in the First Resurrection, Eternal Life and Immortal Glory.” In looking over some of her old papers, I found a verse that she had written, I think copied from some paper or magazine, that she thought suited her case:

“Men ak! paa Livete Straande,
Langs Verdens Vilde Strom,
Er Smerden kun det Sande,
Og Gleden blot on Drom”

Rendered into English the thoughts expressed in the above stanza would run something like this:

But alas! Upon life’s journey,
Along the world’s turbulent stream,
Is sorrow the only reality,
And joy merely a dream?

When she first took sick and while she was in her right mind, she said to Emma Wood, the president of the Relief Society, when she had come to visit her, that she would like to live another year, if possible, as she had sent to Denmark for her genealogy. We had expected to have it in the fall, but it had not come yet at that time. She hoped to live to see the names of her forefathers and foremothers; also to see to it that the work for them in the Temple was being performed, as she seemed to think that if she first was gone, that it was likely to be neglected or put off. The Temple work for her relatives worried her more than any other thing as long as she was in condition to think and talk.

The genealogy, written in Denmark by Jens Jensen, did not come until about a month after her death. It contained more than five hundred names, still is not complete, for her mother had eleven children, and there are only seven in the record. Two of the missing ones, two sisters, we have the photographs of, the one being older and the one being younger than Anne. Both were alive when we left Denmark.

Have I any reason to mourn over the departed? Perhaps not, but I cannot help it, especially when I think of how she suffered; but at the same time I do not mourn like those that have no hope, because I surely hope to meet her again some time. She died in full faith and in hope of an everlasting salvation. I am glad anyway that it was not I that departed from her, for I believe that I can better get along alone than she would have been able to do.

“Farewell, dear Mother, sweet thy rest,
Weary with years and worn with pain,
Farewell, til in some happy place
We shall behold thy face again.”