History of Dorthea Marie Nielsen or Christensen
Sent in by Beverly McIntosh Brown
By Pauline Monsen Rasmussen
Retyped by Belva Jones McIntosh July 2000
Most parenthetical comments and highlighting done by Beverly McIntosh Brown
This is a short history of my Grandmother, Dorthea Marie Nielsen or Christensen. We find her recorded mostly as Nielsen, but also as Christensen. (The reason for the confusion is due to the Danish habit of naming their children after their father’s first name. Dorthea’s father was named Christian so she was named Christiansdotter or the preferred Christiansson. But when she came to America and listed her father as Christian Nielsen, her last name was listed as Nielsen.) She was born in Svenstrup, Denmark on the 11th of September 1835. Her parents were Christian Nielsen and Anne Andersen.
This history will brief and will possibly leave out many of the important things of her life as we have waited too long to make this record. Those whom we could consult have passed on and I am writing from memory, assisted by my sister Dorcas, of personal experiences and impressions of and with our Grandmother. Dates given are authentic and according to record and research.
Her parents were goodly parents belonging to the Lutheran Church and Grandmother was brought up and trained in this faith. They were well to do and she was an only child Research done by some cousins since the writing of this history indicates she had a brother that died as a child. She must have been trained in the education available at that time as she was an excellent reader and she made good use of her ability, reading all the material available at this early time in the history of Mount Pleasant, Utah.
When the missionaries visited her land and presented the Gospel to her, she knew it to be the truth and was baptized March 9, 1853, the same day as was Peter Mogensen (whose son’s later changed the name to Monsen), the man she married the next year on January 8, 1854. Her parents did not join the church although her mother immigrated to America sometime later and lived and died at the home of Grandmother. These fine parents offered their daughter all of their wealth if she would but stay in Denmark. But her testimony of the gospel was adamant and strong and she bade them goodbye.
She began the trek to America on November 29, 1855 sailing to Keil, Germany, then to Gluckstadt, Germany where they boarded a vessel for England. They landed at Grimsby, England, then on to Liverpool by train, arriving there on December 5, 1855. On December 6th, 1855 they boarded the sailing vessel The John J. Boyd, 508 persons in all and 437 of Scandinavian descent. Statistics are from book Mount Pleasant. Their trip across the ocean was very lengthy lasting 11 weeks and 3 days and they suffered a great many discomforts and hardships. But greatest of all was the sorrow of the death of their first born baby boy, Christian, who had contracted measles and had to be buried in the ocean.
After their lengthy voyage they arrived in New York, then on to St. Louis where they stayed for some time earning money to continue on the journey. On June 26, 1856 under the Captainship of Canute Peterson, later of Ephraim, and who was the captain of the immigrants on the ship, they started the journey across the plains to Salt Lake City, arriving there September 20, 1856.
I am sure that my Grandmother has told us of their experiences across the plains but memory fails us as to details. Suffice it to say that the book, “Mount Pleasant” tells of the general happenings to this company as they crossed the plains and three months of this kind of travel would be hard, trying and tiring. But they held steadfast and located in Mount Pleasant to be classed among the original Pioneers.
Grandma had left a good home in Denmark and I am sure that memories of her beloved Denmark occupied much of her thoughts but she had the Gospel and her testimony, which remained adamant and strong to her dying day.
Grandma was kindly, comely, understanding, frugal, careful and a good manager. She was slow to anger but if anger was once aroused, it was well to step out of her way.
She lived at first with her husband in the fort and as they moved out and lots were drawn, her home was in the southwest corner of the town. If memory serves me correctly, the first home was a dugout but rapidly an adobe house was built which she occupied most of her life. Some years before her death she was privileged to have a new white brick house built upon the same site as the old one.
She was a lover of all beautiful things and adorned her home with the things available at that time which made for beauty and good taste. How well I remember her brass kettles, shined to the stage of a mirror. What a prize they would be to us at the present time. She especially loved fine china and to have a hot drink from a delicate thin china cup. Aristocratic in her nature, her home bespoke her selection and appreciation of lovely things. Outstanding were her curtains, lacy and elegant in the parlor and in her kitchen the attractiveness of their crispness and design always caught the eye.
She was an excellent cook. Her dumpling soup would always have taken a blue ribbon and her buns were always special. She loved to share, as her grandchildren who remember her will never forget the buns, raisins, or sugar lumps always a treat they received at Grandmother’s. This was also true with adults; she loved to share a snack with an afternoon caller.
Many hardships came into her life but she met them all with a fortitude that only added to her fine, enduring character. Grandma lived in polygamy and was the first wife. Grandpa married a second wife not too long after settling in Mount Pleasant. The two families got along as one, each wife having a home on the same block.
Grandma was the mother of eight children, but experienced the call of death with four of them. Christian, her first born, and then a four-year-old boy by the name of Peter. Grandma was alone when the second call came as Grandpa had been called to go to Circleville in Southern Utah to do some farming and it was at this time the boy was taken home. Two married daughters were also taken. The first one was Sena who was married to Peter Omar Peterson. She died from childbed fever at the birth of her second child. Grandma took the baby and raised her as her own child – Sena was her name. The other child, Mina, lived with the father and his mother but died in early childhood.
Grandma was called to part with the fourth child when Dorthea or Aunt Thea as we called her, died when her third child was born. The baby died also. The father, George Christensen raised his children with the help of a stepmother. These deaths of her beautiful daughters were a hard blow to beloved Grandma, but she met these as she met all the trials, with the fortitude that was part of her nature.
Grandpa’s second wife, Annie, had a large family but when her thirteenth child Esther was born, the grim reaper entered again and a family of children was left without a mother. Grandmother again true to the fine nature that she was, took the family to her home and heart and was indeed a mother to them. There was love and respect from the children to her and they have given her esteem and reverence. Aunt Esther has told us repeatedly of her love for Grandmother and also how fair and sweet she was to them. Aunt Esther called her “Mama” and she said, “I could not love my own mother more than I do Mama.” Aunt Olevia has also sung her praises and just before my father died he had a letter from his sister Christie, another of Annie’s girls. It was full of love and praise for Grandmother and said what a noble woman she was.
Most of her stepchildren called her “Tante” which in Danish means aunt, but Aunt Esther who is in her late seventies still calls her “Mama” with all the love of her heart.
So she raised three groups of children – her own, her granddaughter and her stepchildren, giving to all love, understanding, fairness and the leadership and guidance of a precious mother.
Grandma never enjoyed very good health, suffering with a kidney ailment most of her life, but in spite of this, her life was full, rewarding and beautiful. The last few months of her life she was bedfast, but was tenderly nursed and cared for by Aunt Sophia Poulsen Johansen, her step-daughter and my father’s half sister.
She died November 10, 1912 and is buried in the Mount Pleasant Cemetery. May I copy part of a poem written by C. N. Lund in 1939 and appears in the back of the book “Mount Pleasant”:
We pay our tributes to our pioneers
Who came and conquered through the stirring years,
Who came like pilgrims from their lands afar
And followed bravely hope’s shining star.
Transformed to fields and gardens by their toil
And wilderness of sage and unbaked soil;
And by their contact with the acrid clod,
Brought man a little closer to his God.
She was one of these, my Grandmother, Dorthea Marie Nielsen or Christensen Monsen.
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