Carl Gustave Bjelke and his wife Mary Wall ~~~Pioneers of the Month ~~~March 2023

 

Carl Gustave Bjelke, son of Niels and Catherine was born in Malmo Sweden December 13, 1823. He learned the trade of shoemakers.  He joined the Latter Day Saint Church in 1857 and immigrated to Utah in 1861, crossing the plains in an ox train under Captain Murdock.

After residing in Salt Lake for one year he came to Mt. Pleasant in 1862 and worked at his trade and on a farm.

When he landed in New York he had just 50 cents left and he gave that to a Danish emigrant whose wife and baby were ill.

He was the only one in his family to come to this country except for a cousin by the name Streeper whose posterity is living in Davis County.

He lived in the fort the first winter and the next winter he had a shop where the Texico Service Station now stands (no longer).

Anthon H. Lund who later became prominent in the Church lived here with him during the winter.

He served 3 and 1/2 years in the mission field in the old country before coming here and was the means of converting several families to the Gospel, who then came to Utah and were located in Fairview and Moroni.

Mr. Bjelke was married to Mary Wall in the fall of 63. Seven children were born to them and four of them passed away in infancy.

The couple moved to Moroni in 1866.  That was the year the Black Hawk War was an uprising.  The subject of this sketch is Captain Swenson Company. 

After spending years in Moroni, they moved back to Mt. Pleasant where they resided ever since. 

After coming back to Mt. Pleasant Mr. Bjelke worked with four other shoemakers: Hafen, Hendricksen, Nielsen, and Omen to make shoes for the growing community.

He was one of the companies that built the amusement hall which was afterward sold to Duncan McMillan and became the Wasatch Academy and later the First Presbyterian Church. 

He was also one of the first stockholders of the Snpete Coop in business 58 years.

Mr. Bjelke died in December of his 85th year. He belonged to the King's Hussars while in Sweden  

(1823 to 1909)

The following are the original manuscripts found on Family Search 

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OBITUARY OF MRS. MARY BJELKE

MOUNT PLEASANT -- Mrs. Mary Wall BJELKE, 84, widow of Carl G. BJELKE, pioneer shoemaker of this city, and a Mount Pleasant resident 67 years, died Monday evening a the family home following a paralytic stroke.

Mrs. BJELKE came to Utah and Mount Pleasant in 1857 from Vanersberg, Sweden, where she was born May 23, 1847, a daughter of Carl and Katherine WALL. She was married the same year in Mount Pleasant and had resided here continuously since, excepting the winter of 1866-67, when her husband was enrolled with the Blackhawk war company, and they were in Moroni. Mr. BJELKE died in 1909.

She is survived by a daughter and two sons, Mrs. G. W. BRAND, J. A. and O W. BJELKE, Mount Pleasant; five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

Funeral Services will be held Thursday at 2:00 p.m. in the First Presbyterian Church with interment in the family plot in Mount Pleasant City Cemetery.

(Published in The Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City, UT), Wednesday, July 08, 1931.)
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