Legacy of Sacrifice: Missionaries to Scandinavia, 1872–94
John Waldemar Dehlin
1868–1934
Residence: Mount Pleasant, Sanpete Co., Utah
Arrival date in Copenhagen: 6 June 1892
Missionary labors: Skåne and Stockholm conferences
Departure date from Copenhagen: 19 July 1894
Name of departure ship: Rona
Birth date: 23 April 1868
Birthplace: Mount Pleasant, Sanpete Co., Utah
Father: Dehlin, Paul Paulsen
Mother: Waldemar, Elna
Spouse: Taylor, Blanche Hortense
Marriage date: 25 November 1896
Marriage place: Salt Lake City, Salt Lake Co., Utah
Death date: 20 November 1934
Death place: Glen Canyon, Kane Co., Utah
Burial place: Glen Canyon, Kane Co., Utah
John’s parents joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and immigrated to the United States in 1863. They were living in Mount Pleasant, Sanpete County, where John was born. He was blessed as a child on 4 June 1868 and was baptized a member of the Church in 1876.
John accepted a mission call to Scandinavia in 1892. He arrived in Copenhagen on 6 June 1892 and was assigned to labor in the Skåne and Stockholm conferences. These conferences covered the same area in which his father had served thirty years before. Unlike his father, John was a talented musician and shared his violin playing on many occasions on this mission. After completing an honorable mission, he departed from Copenhagen on 19 July 1894 aboard the steamer Rona (see Jenson, History of the Scandinavian Mission, 328–29, 337).
After John returned from his mission, he rented a home at 227 North 600 West. He worked as a warehouseman for a time in Salt Lake City. He died in 1934 at Glen Canyon, Kane County, Utah, at age sixty-six.
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Paul Paulsen Dehlin
(Påhl Åkesson)
1830–75
Residence: Mount Pleasant, Sanpete Co., Utah
Arrival date in Copenhagen: 6 May 1871
Missionary labors: Skåne Conference
Departure date from Copenhagen: 27 June 1873
Name of departure ship: Pacific
Birth date: 4 May 1830
Birthplace: Trä #3, Norrvidinge, Malmöhus, Sweden
Father: Pedrillo, Åke Påhlsson
Mother: Jönsdotter, Anna
Spouse: Waldemar, Elna
Marriage date: 1859
Marriage place: Mount Pleasant, Sanpete Co., Utah
Spouse: Hansen, Julia Sarah Marie
Marriage date: 28 March 1870
Death date: 6 June 1875
Death place: Mount Pleasant, Sanpete Co., Utah
Burial place: Mount Pleasant City Cemetery, Mount Pleasant, Sanpete Co., Utah
As a young man, Paul learned the cabinetmaking and masonry trades. He gained employment as a journeyman, contractor, and builder in Malmöhus, Sweden, before hearing Mormon missionaries preach. Paul accepted their teachings and was baptized in 1855 by Niels Adler. He was the first member of his family to join the Church and was instrumental in the conversion of three of his sisters and his mother. He served a local mission in Sweden and was jailed for preaching the gospel in his homeland before he sailed to America in 1859 (see Hampshire, “Paul Paulsen Dehlin—Biographical Sketch,” 1).
He and his wife Elna sold their jewelry to purchase a wagon and an ox team to cross the plains with the Robert F. Nelsen company. They and their children, her parents, two brothers, and one sister made the arduous journey to the Salt Lake Valley, arriving on 15 September 1859. They settled in Mount Pleasant, Sanpete County, where Paul opened the largest furniture business outside of Salt Lake City. He proved to be a good businessman and became a member of the city council and director of the Mount Pleasant Co-op (see Hampshire, “Paul Paulsen Dehlin—Biographical Sketch,” 1).
In 1871, Paul accepted a mission call to Scandinavia to preside over the Skåne Conference. On the mission he contracted smallpox. His daughter wrote that he was “a solid mass from head to foot, and when the mass peeled off[,] all of the hair on his head came off with it, leaving him entirely bald.” President Peterson forbade anyone to see him except two people whom he had set apart to take care of him. They never contracted the disease, but someone else who visited caught the dreaded illness and died. Despite his bout with smallpox, Paul served a successful two-year mission in which he said he “never felt better in his life” (Hampshire, “Paul Paulsen Dehlin—Biographical Sketch,” 2).
He sailed from Copenhagen on 27 June 1873 aboard the steamer Pacific to England. From England he voyaged on the Wisconsin to the United States. He arrived in New York Harbor on 15 July 1873 and at his home in Mount Pleasant on 24 July 1873. After being home for nearly two years, he contracted typhoid fever. Paul died on 6 June 1875 at age forty-five. He is remembered by his posterity as “being loved by all and . . . generous with those in need” (Hampshire, “Paul Paulsen Dehlin—Biographical Sketch,” 1–4).
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