Michelle offered to share these extraordinary clips of an interview conducted by her of her 95-year-old great uncle Al Glauser, allowing us to come face to face with a witness of history.

My great uncle, John Alvon Glauser, was born in 1913. He is the oldest of the seven children of John and Lena Glauser, both Swiss immigrants who met and married in Logan, Utah. Lena’s maiden name was von Niederhausern, resulting in the “von” in “Alvon” (as a fun side story, Lena gave my Grandpa the letter N without a period or anything for his middle name since “Niederhausern” was so long–when people asked what it stood for, he always said “nothing” with a serious face). Al served a mission in Switzerland and Germany from 1934 to 1937. Because his stories of his mission have fascinated me for years, I felt like someone needed to record the story. As a result, last time I was in Salt Lake, I drove up to his house and recorded this video (the person asking questions and responding now and then is yours truly).

Al’s love for his mission led him to meet up with many old mission companions for years in a group they called “The Forty-Niners” (after the address of their mission home). After his mission, Uncle Al found and married the lovely pianist and organist Beverly Brown, who had thought he would never call her again after their first date. They had two daughters, Shirley and Mitzi. With his brother, Reed, my grandpa, he continued the business his dad had started, Egg Products. After retirement, he was invited into the Dirty Shirts Club (see the July 12, 2006 issue of the Salt Lake Tribune — at that time, the average age was 84.8 in this club that golfs and bowls together on Wednesdays). In the last several years, Al has volunteered at LDS Hospital, where he drives cancer patients to their appointments in a golf cart. Having turned 96 on September 19th, he has now outlived all six of his younger siblings and keeps people around him laughing with the jokes he memorizes.

The videos:

Oberammergau

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The Berlin Olympics, Hitler and Mussolini

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Cross-posted from Keepapitchinin — click here for comments.

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New Or-leans some call New Or-leans,
(Van Camp says, “Rhymes with pork and beans;”)
Here Hans and Lena have espied
Where General Jackson goes to ride.
The freedom which Van Camp effects,
The frugal housewife much respects.

The history of Van Camp’s products is a little garbled – corporate legends with impossible dates seem to have been carefully promulgated – but as best as I can sort it out, it’s this: The Van Camp (or Van Campen) family immigrated to North America and settled in New Holland (now New Jersey) in the 17th century. By 1804, Charles Van Camp had settled in Indiana Territory as a farmer and wagonmaker. His son Gilbert was born in Brookville, Indiana in 1817.

Working alternately as a flour miller and a tinsmith, gained business experience and saved money until in 1860 Gilbert moved himself and wife Hester to Indianapolis, where he became junior partner first in the grocery of Fletcher, Williams & Van Camp, and soon after became proprietor of his own business, The Fruit House Grocery. Here he put his metal-working skills to work, and built what is touted as the nation’s first cold-storage food warehouse: He built a house with walls three feet thick, sandwiching cut straw between two sheets of iron. He also experimented with packing fruits and vegetables in tin cans, possibly the first man to do so. One of Hester’s specialities was tender beans flavored with cured pork – pork and beans – which Gilbert canned for his grocery.

Corporate history – and here’s one point where I can’t discern between fact and legend – says that Gilbert Van Camp won a lucrative contract selling canned pork and beans to the U.S. government to feed the troops during the Civil War. That seems rather a tall order for one woman cooking beans on her kitchen stove and one man handcrafting tin cans (they didn’t have a factory yet, and were only in the earliest years of their grocery business). True or not, the legend was perpetuated by another advertisement featuring the Dutch cartoon kids Hans and Lena, in 1904. Shown standing in front of the White House, the kids are accompanied by this jingle:

The White House Hans and Lena view,
On Pennsylvania Avenue;
To Washington folks came in troops,
Supported by Van Camp’s good soups.
The eighteen kinds Van Camp prepares
Relieve the cooks from many cares.

By 1882, Gilbert Van Camp did have a packing plant and had made Indiana the nation’s premier state for the production of canned foods, specializing in pork and beans, canned milk and condensed (he called them “concentrated”) soups. His son Frank joined him in the business that year; with a head for business, Frank soon became his father’s general manager. In 1891, while helping to clean up after a devastating fire at the canning plant, Frank reportedly made a discovery that turned disaster into triumph: While eating his father’s pork and beans for lunch one day, he either – depending on the version of the legend – absent-mindedly mixed his beans with tomato soup, or else opened a blackened ketchup bottle and deliberately poured it on his beans, and discovered that beans in tomato sauce were much more to his liking than the traditional recipe, which, like Boston baked beans, was flavored with molasses.

Which may be one reason why Hans and Lena went to Boston in a 1904 advertisement published in Scribners, touring in an incredibly early version of the automobile:

Upon an auto’s flying seat
Here Hans and Lena Boston greet;
See old South Church and pork and beans,
Original New England scenes.
The “Boston Baked” Van Camp prepares
The housewife frees from many cares.

Pork and beans cooked in a tomato base became wildly popular, made Frank a millionaire, and sent him to California where he added tuna fish – under the brand name Chicken of the Sea – to his company’s repertoire. He found his greatest success in the years between 1900 and his 1909 death, when Van Camp’s Pork and Beans was the nation’s best selling brand.

The years 1903 to 1907, and perhaps a year or two either side of those dates, were also the years when Hans and Lena were used as advertising figures. These cheeky kids accompanied doggerel that was only half a step from irreverence with its claiming for Van Camp’s the heroic achievements of the nation’s leaders.

In Munsey’s Magazine, in 1904, before a photograph of Independence Hall, Lena is waving a flag and Hans beats on a drum made from a Van Camp’s can:

On Independence Day ’tis meet
That Philadelphia’s busy street
Resounds with drum and martial tramp
As Hans and Lena praise Van Camp.
Van Camp, who with his pork and beans,
Has freed a world of household queens.

In McClure’s in 1903, the two are seated at the base of Chicago’s statue of Lincoln:

Beneath the Lincoln Monument,
On great Chicago’s charms intent,
Now Hans and Lena here you see
Enjoying beans and liberty.
The slaves Van Camp emancipates
Are cooks in matrimonial states.

In 1904, the pair traveled from coast to coast. In California –

The Cliff house, on Pacific’s Shore,
Near San Francisco’s Golden Door,
Suggests to Lena and to Hans
The eighteen soups that Van Camp cans;
For those, the great emancipators,
Stand high o’er watery imitators.

– and at Niagara Falls, in the pages of Good Housekeeping:

Quoth Hans to Lena, “What a sight
To view Niag’ra in its might.
You know there’s wondrous power, too,
From every housewife’s point of view
In Van Camp’s Soups – so pure and fine;
They save much labor, Lena mine.”

By now you must think I’ve sold out to giant agribusiness. I haven’t – but ConAgra, if you’re listening, I wouldn’t turn down a case of Van Camp’s Pork and Beans.

This really does have something – however slight – to do with Mormon history.

Really.

I don’t know the date, or the magazine, and apologize for the poor quality of this image that I snagged off of eBay after having been outbid in the purchase of this advertisement months ago. Sometime during these years, perhaps during their 1904 cross-country tour from Niagara to San Francisco, Hans and Lena visited Salt Lake City. Here we see them seated near the Salt Lake Temple, offering their impudent rhyme:

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In Salt Lake City set apart,
The Temple, dear to Mormon heart,
Now Hans and Lena much admire,
And long to place upon each spire
Of Van Camp’s fancy soups a can,
That cooks may know the nobler plan.

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Cross-posted from Keepapitchinin — click here for comments.

Every historian is going to have a personal view of past events and will occasionally take exception to someone else’s interpretation. Those honest disagreements are not of great concern. Neither are the inevitable errors that creep in despite all our best efforts at accuracy. Rather, I object to the manufacture of false history by putting lying words into the mouths or twisted behaviors into the biographies of people of the past.

The principles outlined here are equally valid for blogging about history. (I anticipate an objection to that from one or two people who have been barred from commenting at Keepa. Their unwelcome, however, arises not from their differing views of Mormon history, but from the unrelenting sarcasm of earlier comments.)

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“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor” is one of the oldest tenets of Judeo-Christian civilization. Ancient secular wisdom requires witnesses to make an oath to tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

Historians testify of the past and speak for men and women who can no longer explain their words and defend their actions. At the risk of taking ourselves too seriously, historians have a duty to those men and women – and to you, as readers – to tell the truth about the past to the best of our ability.

You have the right to demand that we honor the values of responsible historians. As expressed by the American Historical Association’s standards of professional conduct, those values include these points:

“Individuals from all backgrounds have a stake in how the past is interpreted, for it cuts to the very heart of their identities.” Especially in Utah, where the notorious “divide” causes such trouble, the past is important. Many of us have hair-trigger sensitivities to how our own stories are told, and it is a short-sighted and callous historian who does not take those sensitivities into account.

“The trust and respect both of one’s peers and of the public at large are among the greatest and most hard-won achievements that any historian can attain. It is foolish indeed to put them at risk.” I spend my days sifting through the records of Utah’s past more intimately than most Tribune readers will ever have the opportunity to do. The value of that effort gradually increases as I build a reputation for fairness and honesty. Its value would be destroyed overnight if I betrayed your trust for cheap laughs or religious partisanship.

“All historians believe in honoring the integrity of the historical record. They do not fabricate evidence. Forgery and fraud violate the most basic foundations [of our craft].” Forgery includes rewriting the words and misstating the beliefs of past Utahns, thus making them appear to say and believe ideas that were abhorrent to them. Fraud includes skipping lightly through generations of history, picking a fact here and a fact there, creating a twisted picture that misrepresents past lives and societies.

“Practicing history with integrity does not mean being neutral or having no point of view.” None of us pretends to be objective – an impossible standard – and each of us interprets the past through our own experience. Realizing that other perspectives exist, however, and that our own knowledge is imperfect, historians have a duty to be generous toward ideas that are cherished by others but which we ourselves do not fully comprehend. Anything else belongs on the editorial page and not in a history column.

“Doing justice to [others’] views means … to see their worlds through their eyes.” My greatest pleasures as a historian have come when readers whose worlds differ from mine have told me that I got it right. My bus driver thanked me for a story about a Catholic priest because he so seldom saw his own people depicted in Utah history. Following a column on Utah’s black history, a woman exchanged half a dozen messages with me before she realized that I was not black. My goal is to write charitably about all Utahns, celebrating what it means to be a Utahn regardless of whether the story reflects my individual past.

It is not possible in the space of 650 words to tell “the whole truth” about any event. But it is possible – it is obligatory – to tell “nothing but the truth,” to represent the past fairly even when events are condensed and people’s words are abbreviated. Out of respect to you whose backgrounds differ from mine, it is also obligatory for me to treat your stories as sympathetically and as courteously as my own.

If I ever do less than that, hold me accountable. Start with a protest to my editor.

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Cross-posted from Keepapitchinin — click here for comments

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It will be seen by obituary notice in another column, that Sister Ursenbach died this morning. She was a lady of superior education and attainments, and true to her integrity in the work of the Lord. She leaves one son, who is now in New York, employed as a scenic artist at one of the leading theatres. She has also two daughters in St. Petersburg, Russia. Deceased was a native of Switzerland, but resided for some time in Russia. – Deseret News Weekly, February 27, 1878

The neutrality of today’s Switzerland makes it the natural home of international organizations of all kinds; its highly educated citizens are renowned producers of fine craftsmanship and precision instruments. The political stability that supports such a state grew out of the turmoil and warfare of the 18th century, when a loose collection of feudal Swiss states began to work out a more permanent alliance.

Among the disputes to be settled was the independence of the French-speaking canton of Vaud, which had long been in thrall to the German-speaking canton of Berne. Among the architects of the independent Vaud movement was Frédéric-César de la Harpe, most of whose adult life prior to the revolution had been spent in the court of Russian Tsar Paul I as tutor to the future Tsar Alexander I.

Swiss history from 1789 through the 1830s roughly paralleled that of France – revolution followed by periods of terror and despotism, appeals to Napoleon for assistance, then a repudiation of Napoleon and appeals to Russia for recognition, exiles and rapprochements and negotiations and experimentation, until a workable Swiss confederation emerged. Frédéric-César de la Harpe himself was in and out of political favor according to the winds of empire, and he maintained a lengthy correspondence with his former pupil Alexander I, a detailed record of statecraft that is still studied today.

When de la Harpe’s cousin, General Amédée Emmanuel François de la Harpe, died fighting with Napoleon for Swiss independence, and when his lands in Vaud were confiscated by the party then in power, de la Harpe made arrangements for Amédée’s widow and children to go to St. Petersburg as respected members of Alexander’s internationally flavored court.

It was St. Petersburg where Amédée’s granddaughter Josephine met her husband, a German named Alexander Ludert, Russia’s long-serving Consul General in Cuba. Josephine and Alexander were married while on a visit to London in 1837.

Josephine lived in St. Petersburg raising two daughters who were born early in the marriage, while her husband traveled between Havana and St. Petersburg every year.

During her youth and early wifehood, Josephine was greatly concerned about religion:

I was born in the Reformed (Protestant) faith, but as age ripened my ideas, my soul was disturbed by thoughts of another world. I was anxious about what there was beyond the grave. I studied all religions, their dogmas and beliefs – I always felt there was something not quite right with the faith into which I was born.

My mind was troubled, my heart discontent, and I tasked myself to find the truth … My mind was attracted to the ideas of Fourier, but my heart was repulsed by a feeling of falseness, a conviction that it was the finest work of man but lacked all inspiration from God. …

I went to Rome to study Catholicism … but I came to the conclusion that even if Catholicism were the one true church of God, I could not follow the priests who administered it in the world. I left Rome in discouragement, convinced that I would make a poor Catholic, knowing I could not blindly accept what I could not understand. …

My only goal was always to discover the true road to heaven, to follow it faithfully, and to keep my eye on life eternal. I finally had to content myself with the thought that I would leave myself in God’s hands, waiting for him to find me since I could not find him.

Josephine had many friends in St. Petersburg, and continued to make that her home base even while she traveled throughout Europe. Her youngest child, a son, was born in Switzerland in 1849, and her two much older daughters prepared for marriage within the international aristocracy at the Russian court. Josephine’s husband evidently died in the early 1850s; widowhood does not seem to have created for her any restrictions in movement and wealth. Her travels took her to Geneva in 1854, her small son accompanying her.

One day while was in Geneva, a friend told me that a Mormon had rented a hall to preach that afternoon. I had barely heard of Mormonism and asked my friend about it.

She said, “I don’t know much about them, either – just that they have built a colony in the great American desert, and they practice polygamy.”

“That could be amusing,” I told her. He was no doubt there to gather recruits, and I was curious as to how he would be received. “Shall we go?” So my friend and I went to listen to that Mormon, solely to pass the time mocking him.

Well, madame [said Josephine, to the woman interviewing her], that man spoke in a way that sent me reeling. The revelations of the Most High given to Joseph Smith struck me with great force, and I suddenly understood why I had never been content with any of the religions I had studied, when I heard the restored gospel.

I testify to you that I heard a voice say to me, “You wanted the truth. There it is.” My heart beat with happiness, a veil of darkness was torn from my soul, a divine light seemed to brighten everything.

I left that meeting converted, but undecided what to do. God spoke to me during the sleepless night that followed. “What are you waiting for? Can’t you see, can’t you feel, that this is the right road?”

The next morning I hunted up the elder and begged him to tell me more. One month later, I was baptized.

From that moment, Josephine had two primary goals: To join the Saints in Zion, and to persuade her two daughters to join her there. She wrote to her daughters, telling them of her new faith and her new plans. Appalled, they wrote back, urging her to return to St. Petersburg where they would free her from her foolhardy ideas.

Josephine would not reconsider – but neither could she convince her daughters to believe her testimony. Always in later life, Josephine counted her greatest sacrifice for the gospel to be not her wealth or position, but the loss of her two daughters, left behind in Russia.

She made plans to emigrate in the winter of 1855-56. Her emigration proved to be a blessing to another woman, as well: Josephine’s rank was such that Swiss officials didn’t blink when Josephine asked to have her passport include travel permission for her “maid” – a young Swiss convert who had been unable to secure a passport in her own name. They left Europe without incident.

Safely out of Europe, safely across the ocean, and safely across half a continent, Josephine learned that the last stage of her journey would have to be made by handcart. No matter. This elegant lady, whose extensive travels had always been made in the most comfortable manner available, walked across the American prairies and mountains, her 6-year-old son at her side, with the Daniel D. McArthur (Second) Handcart Company.

Josephine was sealed as a plural wife to Franklin D. Richards a few months after her arrival in Utah, possibly a marriage contracted solely to assure her of her place in the hereafter; as a 44-year-old matron with the responsibilities of a young son, but without other family ties and now entirely without financial resources, she was not a likely candidate for any other kind of marriage.

But two years later, in 1859, the sealing to Richards was canceled and Josephine was married to Octave Ursenbach, several years her junior, then a young gardener and eventually a legendary missionary to the Swiss, and the founder of an extensive, prominent line of descendants. (Those descendants, however, all come through a wife other than Josephine. There exists today among those descendants a body of family legends about Josephine, some demonstrably false and none of the rest independently verifiable, originating with the other wife and apparently arising out of her rejection of Josephine’s son as an heir of Octave Ursenbach. I would have preferred not to stir the inevitable curiosity with this reference, but I reserve the right to refute, as gently as I can, any legends that might be offered by descendants of the other wife.)

Josephine likely knew Octave in Switzerland: he was baptized in Geneva in 1854, as was Josephine; he did not emigrate to Utah, though, until 1858.

Josephine lived very quietly in Salt Lake City. She took newly arrived emigrants into her home while they got their bearings, especially those from French-speaking countries. One such man was 60-year-old William LeFeuvre who had been baptized on the Isle of Jersey and then had gone to France. For 18 years he heard not a single word about the Church, but he kept his testimony. He immediately came to Utah when he learned that the Saints had gathered there; arriving ill, he died in Josephine’s home.

Josephine supported the silk industry in Utah, raising silkworms and reeling their silk at home. She is known to have written to the French author Victor Hugo introducing him to the gospel; he replied in a brief but courteous note, declining all interest in Mormonism.

When Europeans visited Salt Lake City on tours of the West, Josephine was frequently asked to meet with them, living proof that Mormon women were as cultured and educated and noble as any women in the world. Josephine told her personal history to multiple French interviewers, and her story was published several times in French periodicals and in the memoirs of travelers, preserving her history in Europe even while it remained virtually unknown in the U.S. When a garbled version of one interview appeared in an eastern newspaper in 1870, Josephine wrote to set the record straight:

To the Editor of the New York Herald: –

Permit me to rectify an article published in your paper of the 8th inst., entitled “Mormon Romance.” I still reside in Salt Lake City. I am the grand daughter of General de La Harpe, the Swiss hero who fought for the liberty of his country and who distinguished himself as general of a division under Napoleon the Great.

I was a Protestant, or, rather, an earnest inquirer after truth, when I embraced the gospel – restored to earth with all its spiritual powers, gifts and blessings – as it was preached by the Savior and His apostles. After receiving the truth my greatest desire was to identify myself more directly with the people of God, and for this purpose I made the sacrifice of all I hold most dear and near to me on earth – my children. I was the widow of the Russian General Consul in Havana, and, as you say, I was associated with the aristocracy of that country (Russia), where I had many friends.

It is true that nothing could prevail to stop me from coming to Utah, the place appointed by the Almighty for the gathering of Israel in the last days. As I could not get my means I started with just enough to cross the ocean and the States, and I crossed the great American desert on foot, through great tribulations, it is true, but the God I had enlisted to serve gave me power to endure and to arrive here safely thirteen years ago. “Delusion,” sir, would not have given to a delicate, nervous woman the supernatural strength required to accomplish such a feat.

When I arrived at Council Bluffs I received a letter from one of my relations entreating me to go back, stating that the Swiss Consul and Russian Ambassador had received orders to arrest me and send me back, but I escaped from their hands, and here I am, preferring to serve the true and living God under the inspired voice of a living prophet and apostles, in a modest position than to enjoy all the world can give. With the highest consideration, I remain, sir, yours, respectfully,

Josephine De La Harpe Ursenbach

Octave Ursenbach died in 1871. Josephine’s son, who had assisted in gathering geological and zoological specimens for the Deseret Museum, became a portrait and landscape artist, then moved to New York City where, under the name Joseph Delaharpe, he became one of the most celebrated theater-scenery painters of his generation – one of his earliest productions was the 1873 New York Opera House staging of Mark Twain’s popular Roughing It. Josephine corresponded with her daughters, married in Russia, but never saw them again.

Josephine continued her quiet life, alone but apparently happy, until her death in 1878.

Cross-posted from Keepapitchinin — click here for comments.

She was born 10 September 1848 in Clark County, Missouri, the daughter of John Milton Childress and Nancy Conyers.

She married three times, first to James Osburn on 11 February 1868 in Lewis County, Missouri; he disappears from her life within a couple of years, and I don’t know what happened to him. Nancy married again to George W. Armour, on 12 November 1871, in Lewis County. She raised seven children with him before he died on 12 September 1890, still in Lewis County. And third, she married James T. Turner on 21 December 1897, in Lewis County. Nancy outlived this third husband by many years – he died in 1907, and she lived until 1924, when she died in Illinois.

James T. Turner was no stranger to Nancy when they married – he had been married to Nancy’s sister Sarah Catharine (1844-1897) in 1861, and they raised to adulthood nine of the ten children born to them.

In February 1877, James and Sarah Turner had became members of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and both of them remained true to their conviction of the gospel restored by Joseph Smith to the end of their lives. Sarah’s obituary notes that “she has been one of [that church’s] most active and valued members” in the family’s hometown at Deloit, Iowa. James’s obituary identifies him as a teacher, as a traveling elder, and finally as “president and pastor” of the RLDS branch at Deloit. “He loved the religious and Sunday school work and was teaching a class of young people in the Sunday school … He always attributed [his] success on the farm to Christianity, his motto being “to live honestly and upright before all men and to owe no man.” At his funeral, “the draped pulpit showed the vacancy left by the Pastor.”

When the widowed Nancy Ann Childress Armour married the widowed James T. Turner, she and her youngest child moved to James’s Deloit home. Nancy joined the RLDS church; her RLDS membership record followed her for the rest of her life, and so far as I have any reason to believe, she was a sincere member of that church and a follower of Joseph Smith through the rest of her life.

So what? I don’t usually highlight members of Restoration churches other than The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Why this exception?

Well, it has to do with those bare genealogical facts.

By her marriage to George W. Armour, Nancy Ann Childress was the mother of

Harry Ellington Armour (1874- ), who was the father of

Ruth Lucille Armour (1900-1926), who was the mother of

Stanley Armour Dunham (1918-1992), who was the father of

Stanley Ann Dunham (1942-1995) who was the mother of

A son born in 1961 … who was recently inaugurated as President of the United States of America.

Cross-posted from Keepapitchinin — click here for comments.

Aviva was born in Hungary in 1932, the daughter of an observant Jewish father and a non-religious, possibly Gentile mother. She was exposed in her early childhood to Jewish practice – including the presentation when she was 7 of a beautiful silver-covered Haggadah, the Passover prayer book – but in 1942, when she was 10, Aviva and her mother were separated from her father by World War II. Her father died because he was a Jew; Aviva and her mother, being (or passing as) Hungarians, survived. In part because religion was unimportant to her mother, and in part because she could see little reason to practice a religion that had led to her father’s death, Aviva abandoned any pretense to Jewishness. She emigrated to the United States soon after the war, and Aviva grew to young womanhood thinking nothing of religion.

In her 20s, though, she became dissatisfied with a life focused entirely on the here and now. She studied philosophy and psychology, and investigated exotic Eastern religions. While she found nothing, at first, to fill her need for fixed guiding principles in her life, she enjoyed the search and often found an idea here, and understanding there, that helped her to make sense of her life. And while she did not return to Judaism as a religion, the knowledge that she was “of Israel” was never far from her mind, either.

She read the New Testament – a modern translation, she writes, although she does not identify which – and felt a completely unexpected reaction.

A great love and compassion filled my heart for the man, Jesus, who had given Himself so generously to the people He loved. I could almost see Him walking among us, trying to teach us the right way to live, trying to free us from the burden of sin. Yet we, His chosen ones, rebuked Him; we demanded immediate worldly advantages as proof of His divinity; and we rejected His teachings and ridiculed His claims. I knew then what it meant to be rejected by those you love and whose good you seek. I understood and cried for His suffering and felt myself at the same time flooded with an overwhelming abundance of love, love for all suffering, lonely, misguided humanity, love for my family and friends. Indeed, in that moment I felt I wanted to run and shout from the rooftop the good news that Jesus Christ was truly the Saviour and Messiah for whom my people had waited for so many centuries.

Converted to Christ, but feeling no need to associate with any particular religious body, Aviva began to seek for ways to incorporate Christ’s teachings in her life, but always privately. “A public discourse could only detract from this beauty and meaning, and an institutionalized religion could only stifle and retard my spiritual growth,” she felt. When once she confided to a trusted friend the story of her search, she felt betrayed by a lack of understanding when that friend invited her to attend church services with her.

At this point in her life, she unexpected received a small package from Hungary, from an aunt she had never known well and with whom she had not been in touch for more than ten years. She delayed opening the package, unsure she was willing to reestablish a connection with her own past. Finally, she unwrapped what turned out to be the Haggadah, the Jewish prayer book, given to her by her father when she was a small child.

I opened the book. On the first page was a letter addressed to me by my father and written in 1939 on the occasion of the Passover holidays. In the letter, my father foresaw that the storm then gathering above our heads would not pass us by unscathed; he had a presentiment of the suffering and loss we would have to endure in the coming years.

His heart cried out for me. He ached to think that I might lose my faith in God and give up the peace of my soul for temporal and material advantages. He feared that in such eventuality he might not be by my side to kindle the fire of faith in my heart with his own living words.

he reminded me of the passages in the Bible which state that in the last days God will turn the children’s hearts to their fathers and the fathers’ back to their children, and that young men will see visions and old men will dream dreams. he said that when doubt and disappointment assailed me, I should turn to his words, and to this book, and find renewed courage and faith from the suffering, endurance, and loyalty of our people.

He asked me for only one thing, and that was that I remain loyal to the God of my fathers, the God of Israel.

Moved by her father’s love and concern for her, Aviva was in turmoil.

How could I remain loyal tot he God of Israel, when I knew without a shadow of doubt that Jesus was the God and Redeemer of this world, and that I myself had found redemption and a more abundant life in Him whom my people had rejected and crucified? Yet how could I turn a deaf ear to my father’s last wish? How could I throw away the values for which so many had suffered and died?

Soon after this, Aviva’s friend – the one whom she felt had not understood her search – gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon.

I opened the book at random and began to read. I was amazed to find that it was all about Jews and the House of Israel. I opened it in another place. Still the same familiar style prevailed; the same familiar tone spoke to me describing a kind of relationship between a people and God which is so unique to Judaism and which I remembered reading and learning about when I was very young. I still find it problematical to define what exactly is the nature of the striking similarities between the Old Testament and the book of Mormon which I sensed so keenly right away.

Maybe it was that strong feeling of mutuality that exists in both books between God and men – God needing men to accomplish His purposes, like in the stories of Abraham and Joseph Smith – and men needing God to be able to live in freedom and happiness. Maybe it was because both the Old Testament and the Book of Mormon portrayed a God who was actively involved in the shaping of history, as well as in the personality of a people, like in the stories of Moses and Nephi. maybe it was because both books were so down to earth, so realistic, their heroes so vulnerable and so human in their sufferings and so great in their accomplishments. In both books one can catch a glimpse of the heights of achievement to which the human spirit is capable of rising when in partnership with God, and of the depths to which it can sink when cut off from the source of enlightenment and guidance.

Within the Book of Mormon, she recognized a God involved with humanity and working within a chosen group, “not necessarily for their own benefit and glory, but for the good of the whole human family. [This was] so strikingly different from the gods of any other religion in the East or the West that I had no difficulty whatever in recognizing the voice of Jehovah speaking out of the Book of Mormon.”

Yet there still remained a missing link for me. Granted that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the Book of Mormonw ere one and the same, where did Jesus come into the picture; this Jesus to whom I felt a personal loyalty and love far above anything I ever felt towards the God of my fathers? And then I stumbled upon this passage in the Book of Mormon:

Behold, I am he that gave the law [to Moses], and I am he who covenanted with my people Israel … (3 Nephi 15:5).

Now the light was dawning quickly. I suddenly realized that the God of my fathers, Jehovah, and the God I worshiped, Jesus, are one and the same. It was Jehovah Himself who came unto His people and gave Himself to them and became one with them. How beautiful, how simple, and how logical! Who else should the Messiah be but Jesus Christ Himself? …

After I came to this knowledge, the way ahead became clear. I knew that I could carry out my father’s last wish to remain loyal to our God. There was only one way to do so, and that was by joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Aviva was baptized in 1959.

Since then I have learned from LDS revelations that, indeed, my people did not suffer in vain; that a glorious future awaits them in history; that the light of this world, Jesus Christ Himself, will have His throne among them; and that in the days to come the living word of God will proceed out of Jerusalem. …

All in all, I am content that I have done my own share in the linking up of the generations. I have not snapped the chain which my ancestors forged with their blood and their suffering. I have faith that after me my children will continue to serve the living God, and they will obtain His blessings until the day when we shall all become perfected in Jesus Christ.

Cross-posted from Keepapitchinin — click here for comments.
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One of our correspondents informs us that an Elder, preaching to the people in the place where he lived, stated that the cause of so much sickness and death among the little ones of that settlement last fall and spring was the non-observance by the people of the Word of Wisdom. Our correspondent states that he had been called upon to part with three of his children, and he asks if the doctrine which the elder taught is correct, as it causes him to feel very badly, because he has not been a strict observer, he admits, of the Word of Wisdom.

It is a simple but correct answer to this enquiry to say, that parents who have not been strict in observing the Word of Wisdom are not the only ones who have had to part with their children, but parents who have observed that Word with some degree of strictness have also been compelled to follow their children to the tomb.

It is not wise to generalize in the way this Elder is reported to have done, because, as we all know, children do get sick and die in families where the Word of Wisdom is observed with some care.

We trust our views respecting the benefits of observing the Word of Wisdom are known; at least, we have endeavored to make them known through these columns. We firmly believe that where parents observe the Word of Wisdom, they have a stronger claim on the promises of the Lord and can exercise more faith than they can who neglect the counsel given in that Word. But it is entirely too sweeping to say that the cause of sickness and death in a settlement where the little ones are taken off is due to the non-observance of the Word of Wisdom.

In some wards when a person presents himself for baptism, whether a first baptism or a re-baptism, immediately before being baptized he is required to raise his right arm to the square and covenant before God, angels and witnesses present, that he will keep the commandments of the Lord as they are made known to him. In other wards there is no such covenant required. Which is proper?

We should say that the proper course to be taken with candidates for baptism is to ask them to covenant that they will keep the commandments of the Lord. This is a custom that has prevailed in the Church always, and it is in accordance with the requirements of the Lord in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants.

All those who humble themselves before God, and desire to be baptized and come forth with broken hearts and contrite spirits, and witness before the church that they have truly repented of all their sins, and are willing to take upon them the name of Jesus Christ, having a determination to serve him to the end, and truly manifest by their works that they have received of the Spirit of Christ unto the remission of their sins, shall be received by baptism into his church.

Of course, if candidates for baptism have witnessed before the Church that they have truly repented of all their sins, and are willing to take upon them the name of Jesus Christ and to serve Him to the end, etc., before they come to the water to be baptized, there would be no necessity to ask them to do so then; but if not, they should do so there.

Is it proper to use the words ‘for remission of sins’ in baptizing either in a first baptism or a rebaptism?

It is safe, in first baptisms, to follow the language given to the Church in the revelations. In the form which is there given, the words “for the remission of sins” are not used. As we have explained before in these columns, the man holding the keys has the right to instruct the Elders to modify or change that form, according to circumstances which may arise from time to time in the Church; but where no such modification is given, the safe and proper course for the Elders and priests in baptizing is to follow the words which the Lord has given.

What is the proper attitude to be assumed by the person asking a blessing upon the bread or water in administering the sacrament?

If convenient, it is proper for the person asking a blessing upon the bread and the water to kneel with the Church. But it is not always convenient to do this.

Should the person passing the sacrament single out the Priesthood in the stand, administering to those highest in authority first, when they are not so seated as to take it in proper order?

There is no rule requiring those who are passing the sacrament to hand it to any one person before another. As an act of courtesy, however, when convenient, we notice that it is a general practice throughout the Stakes to present the bread or cup to the President of the Stake first, or if any of the First Presidency or Twelve are there, to pass it to them first. But we have thought that this might be carried too far; for we are all brethren and sisters alike in partaking of the sacrament; and one man is not to be preferred before another, though the natural disposition among the Saints is to honor age or men presiding in the priesthood. At some Stake conferences we have noticed that in passing the sacrament the brethren carry it first to the man holding the highest office in the Priesthood; in others they offer the bread and cup to the first person they come to. So that there is no fixed rule in the Church concerning this.

If a man should be ordained to an office of the Melchisedek Priesthood by an apostle who is corrupt and deep in sin, but who has never been convicted of this sin, will this ordination hold good after the apostle has been convicted and cut off from the Church, or will the one whom he ordained have to receive a second ordination?

A man holding the Priesthood and in good standing in the Church may nevertheless be a sinner and a violator of the laws of God. there have been such cases in the Church; yet while they held the Priesthood and performed acts such as the ordination of men under proper circumstances, those ordinations have not been void. A man properly ordained by another who is in this condition would receive the Priesthood conferred upon him, although it might be subsequently discovered that he who did the ordaining was in transgression at the time. that would not invalidate that ordination, neither would it be necessary for the person thus ordained to be ordained a second time.

To deprive a man legally of his Priesthood, there must be action on the part of proper authority. There have been apostles who have fallen into sin, but they held their apostleship until they were legally deprived of it by action of their own council, or the action of the Church. when they were excommunicated by the council, they lost all the authority which had been conferred upon them; and so also, when excommunicated by the Church, they lost the fellowship of the Saints and all the promises which had been made unto them as members of the Church.

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Cross-posted from Keepapitchinin — click here for comments

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The boat was still rocking heavily on Sunday morning, and Elder Burt was feeling so seasick that he didn’t rise for breakfast. Elder Huish did go to the dining room, but the thought of heavy food made him ill, and he settled for a grapefruit. Elder Huish’s description of their first Sabbath as traveling missionaries:

The ship was rocking badly and it was a hard thing to make the dishes stay in place. I was obliged to leave the table, was dizzy and became seasick – the only time on the ship. On going back to our room, I found that elder Burt had been sick while I was gone, and he was ill several times during the day.

The ship listed and rocked considerably, so we stayed on our beds and slept practically all day Sunday, our main reason being not so much sleepiness as fear of seasickness. We remained in bed all that night, but did not sleep much. … I sang some songs and played a few tunes on my harmonica. Elder Burt had a saxophone along with him. he took it out and tried toplay a few pieces but found that it had a few keys out of commission. So ended the Sabbath on the S.S. Vestris.

Because this was the first time either elder had been to sea, neither realized that the rocking of the boat was abnormal, nor did they understand some of the noises they were hearing. The Vestris had left its dock and steamed straight into the leading edge of a hurricane. As they proceeded southward, the seas got higher and the side-to-side rocking of the boat more violent.

The elders did not know that that the rocking had caused cargo to be ripped loose from its restraints in the hold, nor that the ship’s enormous stores of coal had shifted, preventing the vessel from returning to an upright position as each wave passed. The ship began to list ever more noticeably to one side – to the point where Elder Huish’s record says “The ship was tipped so much that it was hardly possible to stay on the bed, in spite of the railing.”

Nor did the elders know that shifting cargo had ripped four holes in the ship’s hull, and that the ship was taking on water rapidly. The captain had sent out an S.O.S. at 10:00 that Sunday morning, but after putting all available hands, including cooks and ship stewards, to work bailing in the hold, he decided his distress signal had been premature, and he cancelled it.

On Monday morning, both elders rose and decided to try their luck with breakfast. But when they reached the dining room after finding that “it was almost impossible to stand up in the halls, and we had to cling to the railing in order to walk,” they found no stewards in the dining room. Another passenger told them, “They’re all down in the coal bunkers bailing out water. Wouldn’t you rather go without your breakfast than lose your life?” This was the first indication the elders had that the Vestris was in trouble. “This is getting to be a serious matter; something is dreadfully wrong,” Elder Burt said to his companion. The two went back to their room and waited.

About 11:00 that morning, the two young men heard a commotion in the hallway and opened the door. There they found the third class passengers climbing up from below. One of the women with them, having thought that all second class passengers had already been evacuated, was surprised to see the elders. “For heaven’s sake, boy,” she said, “get out of your room, this ship is going to sink.” The elders joined the general exodus to the deck.

It took us quite a while to get there; sometimes we couldn’t climb the slant of the ship, and once I slipped and was thrown against a chair [on] the other side of the room and broke the chair into pieces. We finally reached the deck and had to lean against the wall or hold to the railing of the ship in order to stand up. Even ropes were used to help people from the stairways to the railing.

An amateur photographer with a small kodak camera snapped pictures that morning, some of which were later published in the Baltimore Sun, winning a Pulitzer Prize for that newspaper. The most famous of those pictures shows how badly the Vestris was listing, supporting Elder Huish’s description.

The sailors were attempting to lower lifeboats, a task made especially difficult because the boats had to be lifted so far over the side of the tilting ship. There was no general call by the crew for the passengers to don lifebelts, but most did anyway. Both elders strapped on their belts, over their overcoats. About 2:00 p.m., the ship began its death roll, and Elders Burt and Huish, sitting side by side in Lifeboat 4, realized that their boat had never been cut loose from the ship and would be pulled down with the Vestris sank. Both men jumped out of their boat.

Elder Burt made it into the water before the ship sank. Elder Huish did not.

I was still on the side of the ship when it went down and a big wave came along with the suction of the ship, and took me under. While in the water I caught hold of a panel, the bottom of a life boat or something, and came up. … I floated on a 2×12 plank for a few minutes and pretty soon a life boat, No. 14, came somewhat close and I swam over to it and was helped in the boat. We picked up about twelve more people – 19 in all. I looked constantly in the water and into the other life boats for Elder Burt, but he was not to be seen.

Nineteen in a lifeboat was a pitiful tally. Investigation later revealed that Boat No. 8 had foundered and sank with 65 passengers aboard. Boat No. 1, which rowed away and abandoned No. 8 rather than take any of its passengers aboard, held only about 10 – all but one of them members of the ship’s crew. One recent writer, reviewing the newspaper reports of the next few days, summarized their contents as “The headlines of the day told only of the sinking of the steamship Vestris and the epic achievements of the officers and crew in shouldering aside the women and children and saving their own lives.” In all, an estimated 111-120 perished in the hurricane-tossed waters off Virginia that day, a disproportionate number of them being passengers. The sinking of the Vestris was one of those great maritime incidents that resulted in massive investigation and the changing of laws, in this case the condition and provisions of lifeboats, which on the Vestris were decayed and poorly stocked.

Returning to Elder Huish’s report:

The waves soon drove us from the wreck. We had no rudder and only three oars, so we were helpless in picking up any more people. The water was warm at first, but towards evening it became cold, and I never shook so much through fear of facing the public as I did during that night from cold. We drifted all night, without any flares or torpedoes. Two or three storms came up, one hail storm. By morning the waves were very high and we did not know at any time whether we would be swallowed up or not.

About 11:00 p.m. at night came our first hope, when we saw a flashlight. The ship came nearer and about 4:00 a.m. they picked up one life boat. From then until 8:00 a.m., we drifted and were finally picked up by the American Shipper – the last of the five boats that this ship picked up. We had been trying all the time to get their attention with a flashlight and with our shouts, but to no avail until after dawn.

They gave us something to eat on the ship, and a place to get warm and to dry our clothes. They searched for more survivors as long as there was any hope, and then set sail for new York, and arrived here about 9:00 a.m. We were treated well on the ship, but slept on blankets on the hard floor and were glad to get that.

Other lifeboats were rescued by other ships, and even some lone swimmers who had not made it into lifeboats managed to survive long enough for rescue. Elder Huish hoped and prayed that Elder Burt would be among the survivors, but his body was never recovered.

News of the sinking had reached the mission home in Brooklyn, and two missionaries were waiting at the pier to receive Elder Huish when the American Shipper returned to New York. Elder Huish was cared for at the mission home, the other elders contributing clothing and personal supplies, while his report of events was telegraphed to Salt Lake and to the family of Elder Burt.

Ships carrying Mormon emigrants and missionaries have had a remarkable safety record, but not a perfect one. Elder Keith W. Burt is the third missionary known to have died by accident at sea (the first two being Thomas Atkinson and Hiram S. Kimball, who died in 1863 when the boiler exploded on the small vessel carrying them from the wharf at San Pedro, California out to the steamer that was to have carried them to the Sandwich Islands. Many others have died of illness at sea or in their mission fields and await the day foreseen by John, “And the sea gave up the dead which were in it.” (Revelation 20:13)

Images:

S.S. Vestris
logo of the Lamport & Holt Line
Elder Keith W. Burt
Elder David H. Huish
the listing deck of the Vestris
struggling to lower lifeboats from the Vestris

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Cross-posted from Keepapitchinin — click here for comments.
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Beehive Girls from Thatcher, Arizona

In those days, the Beehive program mirrored many of the activities and trappings of the Boy Scouts: as the girls completed requirements for various skills, called “filling cells” (as if with honey) in their lingo, they won hexagonal-shaped badges to sew onto a sash. Those activities included spiritual goals, homemaking skills, camping, competency with tools, development of physical strength and health, animal care, etc. Their range of activities was easily equivalent to the Boy Scout program — with art needlework and childcare added, and with their hikes made in bloomers or skirts.

These pictures from 1916 show the girls engaged in projects to fill cells, proclaiming their pride in the program with parade floats they built themselves, cooking breakfast in the canyons, playing baseball, and sometimes just clowning around for the camera.

Ladies and gentlemen, our grandmothers!

Malad Stake, Idaho

Binghampton Branch, California

Blackfoot, Idaho

Chester, Idaho

Sandy, Utah

Malad Stake, Idaho, at Lava Hot Springs

Pocatello, Idaho

Bingham 2nd Ward, Utah

Logan 7th Ward, Utah

Wayne Stake, Utah

Teton Stake, Idaho

Hyrum Stake, Utah

North Sanpete Stake, Utah

Blackfoot, Idaho

Providence 1st Ward, Utah

Hyrum Stake, Utah

Chester, Idaho

Pella, Idaho

Granite Stake, Utah

Weber County, Utah
(three stakes combined to sponsor float)

Mt. Pleasant, Utah

Ephraim, Utah

Preston, Idaho
(joint “Day of the Troop” Scout and “Day of the Swarm” Beehive Parade,
15 September 1916)

Spring City, Utah

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Cross-posted from Keepapitchinin — click here for comments.

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A year later their son Severine was born. Although Jensine was to bear to at least three more children in the next few years, Severine was her only child to live past birth, and she devoted herself to his care.

In 1860 an unusual interest in religion swept through Copenhagen, according to Frants’s reminiscences, and the young couple was caught up in the wave. Frants was especially interested in the preaching of the Mormon elders visiting Copenhagen. After having what to him was a dream with religious significance, Frants was baptized as a Latter-day Saint in 1860. Jensine required more time to think and decide; a year later, she, too, was baptized. At least one of her siblings, her next older brother, Carl, had joined the church earlier, and soon emigrated with his young wife and children to Utah.

Their conversion would uproot the Grundvig family. Frants was called as a missionary to work in Nestved, about 50 miles from Copenhagen. The only way to support him financially was to sell his carpenter’s tools, leaving the family to face an uncertain post-mission economic future. Jensine and Severine remained in Copenhagen while Frants served in Nestved for about a year, and then in Christiania (now Oslo) in Norway, where he served for another two years. Jensine supported herself and son by making and selling ladies’ gloves.

Frants was released in the early spring of 1865, and Jensine joined him in Christiania to prepare for emigration. (She joined him in Norway, and in fact he had been sent to Norway in the first place, to avoid being drafted into the Danish military.) Jensine is the one who came up with a plan to earn money for their emigration: She learned from another woman how to make “electrical belts,” powered by batteries – in that generation, a popular folk belief was that electrical current would cure rheumatism and other ills – and sewed enough of them, which Frants sold door-to-door, to earn their passage money in only a few weeks.

Jensine was a fine singer, having sung with a choir in Copenhagen. She also sang while the family was in Christiania (whether for a church choir or in a professional way, I do not know). Frants recalled that on the family’s last night in Christiania, Jensine sang a solo composed by the great master Ole Bull, for which she was “greatly applauded.” The family also had a photograph taken before they left for the New World.

The Gundvigs sailed with other Mormon emigrants from Christiania back to Copenhagen, where they visited quietly for some ten days, then sailed to Hamburg. There they boarded the ship “G. S. Kimball” bound for New York.

It was a difficult six-week ocean crossing. An epidemic of measles struck the emigrant children, eventually killing 32 of them. Severine caught the disease, too. Jensine nursed him day and night. He survived, one of only two or three children on the ship to have caught the measles and lived. The Grundvigs arrived in New York harbor on June 14, 1865, traveled by railroad to the end of the line near the Missouri River, then traveled by river boat to the Mormon outfitting point at Wyoming (a site near Omaha, Nebraska, not the western state).

There the emigrants, nearly all Danish, were unexpectedly delayed due to uncharacteristically poor emigration planning that year. No down-and-back wagon companies had come from Utah to ferry emigrants to the west, and no one had purchased wagons or cattle for emigrant companies. For six weeks, agents scoured the region to purchase the necessary equipment. Few wagons could be found, and none of the Danish brethren were at all familiar with oxen and had to be taught how to drive them. The emigrants were told that due to the scarcity of transport, most of their goods would have to be left behind; the Grundvigs, along with everyone else, disposed of their property at a great loss – residents in the area, having grown accustomed to such “fire sales” on the part of emigrants, would pay virtually nothing for goods they knew would be abandoned if not purchased.

Finally, Miner G. Atwood was appointed by church agents to lead the Danish emigrants to Utah. He had less than 48 hours notice of his appointment before departure. Probably no man in the history of Mormon emigration hustled harder to outfit his company, and then to shepherd the emigrants – whose language he did not speak – overland to Utah. Some of the emigrants of that company, not understanding the handicaps under which Atwood worked, and not appreciating the necessity of his continually pushing the emigrants to move faster and travel more hours in a day than usual due to their late start (it would be well into November before the company reached the Valley), have left unflattering accounts of a harsh taskmaster. In hindsight, though, he seems to have done no more than was necessary for safety, and no emigrant accused him of objective wrongdoing, nor of demanding more than he contributed himself.

When Atwood arrived in camp to organize the company, he discovered it was necessary to purchase more supplies, at relatively high prices due to the urgency of the situation. He assessed each family a certain amount based on family size – the Grundvigs’ share was $50. In order to raise that amount, Frants sold his pocket watch and Jensine contributed her jewelry – including her wedding ring. Finally, the company moved westward.

1865 was the beginning of the Indian wars on the Plains, which would become worse and terrify overland travelers in 1866 and 1867. The Grundvigs’ company was wakened on the night of September 17, near Fort Laramie, to the alarm that Indians were driving off their cattle. Some 22 head were discovered to be missing the next morning; a few were recovered by men sent out to look for strays. From then on, the company posted stronger guards at night – stronger, but more exhausted, as Atwood pushed them to travel as far as possible during each day.

On the morning of September 22, west of Laramie, the company passed through some hilly country on the road. Jensine, walking, as she did every day, grew weary, and Frants stopped with her to rest a while. Ordinarily this would have posed no problem – the company stopped at noon, unhitching the cattle to let them feed and rest, and any stragglers would have plenty of time to catch up. But on this morning, while Jensine and Frants lagged about a mile and a half behind the wagons, a band of Sioux, hiding in the hills along the road, swept down between the Grundvigs and the wagons. Their targets were the loose cattle being herded by a group of boys to the river’s edge. The emigrants, however, saw the Indians coming and ran out of camp with their own weapons, and drove the attackers back down the road … directly into the path of Jensine and Frants.

Two of the Indians grabbed hold of Jensine, and passed her to a third who slung her face down over his horse and rode off. Frants chased after him on foot, calling for help, and fell as if dead from an arrow that pierced his left hip. The emigrants saw what was happening. Several men tried to go to the rescue, but Atwood restrained them, fearing both for the lives of any would-be rescuers and for the safety of the emigrants and cattle left behind. Besides, there were only two horses in the company, so no realistic pursuit was possible.

When the Indians had gone, carrying Jensine with them, Frants pulled the arrow from his hip and crawled toward camp. Rescuers placed him in a wagon where he rode the rest of the way to the Valley, his terrified 7-year-old son by his side. When the company reached a telegraph station, word of Jensine’s kidnapping was sent back to the soldiers at Fort Laramie, who rode out to look for her. They did not find her.

Jensine was never heard from again.

Frants was crippled for two years by his hip wound, until a doctor, probing the hip, discovered that a piece of the arrowhead had broken off and remained inside. After it was surgically removed, Frants recovered.

Frants married again in the Valley, first in 1866 and again in 1874. When he went to the Endowment House with his bride in 1866, he asked to have Jensine sealed to him. Asked whether she was dead, Frants had to say that he did not know. The recorder went for advice from Daniel H. Wells, who was presiding in the Endowment House that day. President Wells came to the door of the room and locked eyes with Frants for a few moments, then nodded, and said “His wife is dead.”

Severine lived to adulthood and raised a large family; through him, Jensine has many living descendants.

Jensine Hostmark Grundvig is the only Mormon emigrant ever to have been taken by Indians in the entire history of Mormon overland travel.

UPDATE: A reader informs me here that Elizabeth Brettle Cottle was also captured by Indians, in 1866. More research, and another story forthcoming …

Cross-posted from Keepapitchinin — click here for comments.