Annie Catherine Hansdatter Christensen

Born 13 October 1841 in Denmark to Hans Christensen and Joanna Christensdatter
Married Jens Peder Olsen 7 Aug 1859
Annie-James Peter-Raymond-Earl
Died 28 Aug 1928 in Ogden
Annie is buried in Ogden

1860 Census 
1870 Census 
1880 Census 
1900 Census 
1920 Census 

I wish I had a photo of Annie, but this is all I can find and it's tiny.  I'd love to have a bigger or better image.  Annie is second from the left with her daughter, granddaughter, and great-grandson.

Personal history of Annie Catherine:

I was born October 13, 1841 in Juland, Denmark. When 7 years old I started to school and attended until I was 12. During vacation time my work was helping in the house and watching the sheep so they would not get on the neighbors’ farm.

During this time my father was a heavy drinker and would be under the influence of liquor every day. My mother made it a matter of prayer that something would transpire that he might change his ways. Not very long after, two Elders came to our door. We were at dinner and my father invited them in. They had dinner with us and during their conversation they drifted into The Gospel of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Although my father was partly under the influence of liquor at the time, he became quite interested. The Elders told him about the first principles of the Gospel and of the gathering of the Saints to Zion. My father had a beautiful mare, of which he thought a great deal and he said he could never go to Zion and leave her behind. The Elders told him he could take her with him which pleased him very much, so he invited them to come again, which they did many times.

To show how the Lord hears and answers prayer, I will relate a dream one of the Elders had the night before they called at our home. He dreamed they went out tracting and they came to a house where there was a hen with a brood of little white chickens in the front yard. They went in there and the people embraced the Gospel. The next morning they started out to look for the chickens and after walking for quite a while the other Elder said: "I am afraid we won't find the chickens today." "Yes, we will, we are going to keep on going till we find them."

After a little more walking they came to our home and there in the front yard was the hen with her brood of white chickens. The Elder said to his companion, "This is the place; this is proof that if we will go to our Heavenly Father in earnestness He will help us overcome our trials and troubles."

My father was the first to embrace the Gospel and it wasn’t long after until the rest of the family were baptized. My father never touched liquor or tobacco after he joined the Church.

We were baptized in the winter of 1852, I being 11 years old at the time. It was necessary to break the ice in the pond on my father’s farm to perform the ordinance, but none of us took cold! We were the only family in that town that joined the Church at that time. My school teacher told the children they should not make fun of me because I was a Mormon.

My father sold his home and belongings, including his beautiful mare, and began to get ready to go to Zion. We children went out to work until they were ready to start. I was hired out to some people in an adjoining town as a nurse girl.

About the first of December 1854 we boarded the sailing vessel at Fredericks Hound for England, but the wind came from the wrong direction and we landed at Norway, where we stayed for one week. During that time we would climb up behind the cliffs to say our prayers so we would not be seen by the ship’s crew. A week later we started out for England and the wind took us back to Fredericks Hound again. This time the wind was favorable and we landed in England Christmas morning 1854. We boarded the train for Liverpool and arrived there in the evening, at which place we stayed for several days waiting for the ship to sail. During this time we had to eat horse flesh. My mother had brought a jar of butter and some dried sausage with her, which, I remember, tasted very good to us.

About the 1st of January, 1855, we boarded the ship "JAMES NERMITH" and sailed with 440 Scandinavian Saints and 1 British Saint across the Atlantic ocean. The first 3 days of our voyage we were all very sea sick, but after getting better I got such an appetite that I couldn’t get enough to eat. My mother, not being very well, could not eat her portion of hard tack, so I got hers as well as my own. One day a terrible storm came up. I was standing on the middle of the deck holding to a large barrel just under the hole of the ship. I felt impressed to move over under the deck and just as I did so and had gone a short distance, a mast beam broke and fell, breaking the barrel to pieces: So you see how necessary it is to heed the promptings of the Spirit at all times.

On Feb. 23, 1855 we landed at New Orleans, from which point we took a steamer and sailed up the Missouri River to St Louis, where we stayed one day and went to Church. From there we sailed to Leavenworth Kansas, where we landed at a place which was later called "MORMON GROVE." We had to clear the snow away so we could pitch our tents, it being necessary for us to wait here until the arrival of the oxen. My brother, sister and a young girl, whose emigration my father had paid for, had to go out to work to help keep up expenses.

After being at Leavenworth some time, CHOLERA broke out in the camp and the Officers came and made us move farther from town. Mother was very sick at that time and quite a number of the young people of the camp died.

The oxen finally came and we started on our long journey across the plains in the P.O. Hansen Company. Our wagon was quite heavily loaded and we all had to WALK unless some of us were sick, in which case we would ride till we were better. When we camped for the night, we young folks would go and gather Buffalo chips (all the Pioneers who crossed the plains with ox teams or hand carts know what they are). We had to cook our supper with them, as wood was very scarce in some places. After supper was over we would talk of the experiences of the day, then sing hymns and have a dance occasionally. We would then have prayers and retire for the night. After traveling for some distance, we were surrounded by INDIANS and had to give them flour and sugar, or whatever we had to keep peace with them.

One day we came to a large herd of Buffalo. They had been down to the river to drink and were returning to the hills. There was such an immense herd that we could feel the ground tremble for quite a distance as they passed over the road. Our oxen became so excited that they ran away, but no one was injured. One of the men killed a buffalo, which provided us with fresh meat for a while.

We waded all the rivers till we came to the Green River, which was so swift and deep that we had to cross in the wagons and the water would almost take the oxen off their feet. After crossing the Green River we had not traveled very far when my mother was bit on the wrist by a scorpion or poisonous insect of some kind. Her arm began to swell until it went up in her body. She was very sick all the rest of the journey, until one evening we reached Salt Lake Valley and my Mother passed away the next morning. This came without seeing the great Salt Lake Valley that she had gone through so much to reach. (This was in the latter part of September, 1855.) It was necessary for my Father to find someone who could speak the DANISH language so he could make arrangements to have my mother buried; the rest of the Company having gone on to Sanpete County leaving us there alone with our dead. We buried her on the same day as she died.

Sister Elizabeth Ann Whitney, or Mother Whitney, as we always called her, came down to our Camp. She had a crippled boy and she asked my father to leave me with her to care for her little boy. She said she would be a mother to me, as I had lost mine. My Father decided it was the best thing to do, as the grasshoppers had taken the crops that year and he didn’t know whether he would be able to get enough food to last through the winter or not. So I went with Sister Whitney, and I must say, she proved a kind and loving Mother to me. My own Mother couldn’t have been better to me than she was, and she will always be Mother Whitney to me.

Apostle Whitney, Grandson of Mother Whitney, was a baby at that time, and I used to pull him around in a two wheeled cart, made from wheels sawed from a log. It was painted blue with indigo. I shall never forget that little blue wagon, nor shall I ever forget my feelings at that time. Just imagine, if you can, a child 14 years old losing my Mother, my Father, Brothers and Sister going away, where I did not know, or if I would ever see them again; being left with perfect strangers who couldn’t speak a word of Danish, nor was I able to speak an English word. I used to go out and hide and cry till my heart would almost break.

As soon as they would miss me they would come and hunt me up. The Crippled boy would teach me what to call different things, and it wasn’t long until I could talk enough to make them understand what I meant.

I lived with Mother Whitney 14 years, at which time my sister married and my brother came to take me to Ephraim, Sanpete County, to keep house for my Father. This I did until he remarried, when I went to live with my Sister. I lived with her until Oct.19,1859, when I WAS MARRIED TO JAMES OLSEN, and moved to my own home, which was a two room adobe house, one room being used for a grainary. Our furniture consisted of a large box which answered for a table and flour bin, 2 or 3 three legged stools, and a wooden bed with rope springs which my Husband made and of which we were very proud. Some shelves made on the wall formed a cupboard to hold the few dishes we had, and we did our cooking by the fire place. When the young folks came in, we would roast some potatoes in the coals for refreshments. Although our house had a dirt roof and dirt floor, we were very content and happy as could be. We would have little house parties and dance in our bare feet.

In the Spring of 1864, my husband was called to go to Omaha Nebraska with ox teams to bring emigrants over the plains. It took them 6 months to make the trip. It rained for 6 weeks! It seemed as though the clouds followed them as they journeyed. There had been a drought and the corn was drying up. The people said if it hadn’t been for the MORMON boys coming and bringing the rain with them they wouldn’t have raised any crops.

In 1865 we were called to move to CIRCLEVILLE and help settle that part of the country. We built a home there and put in crops; also in MARYSVILLE. Our House was a two-room log cabin; the cracks of it were not chinked. Some friends lived in one room and often when we baked pan cakes we would slip them to each other through the cracks between the logs. We lived there about 1½ years, when the INDIANS began to trouble us by stealing our cattle.

The men built a fort around the house and the women and children weren’t allowed outside. We had to go to Manti to get our wheat ground into flour. There weren’t enough men to guard the place and go for flour too, so it was necessary to eat boiled wheat. Finally some of the men put up a wind mill and ran a burr mill with it so they got their wheat ground into coarse graham flour.

One night the INDIANS came and drove off most of our cattle and all the men had to go out and try to save some of them. I was afraid to go to bed. I had mixed bread in the evening and it was up ready to bake. I had no wood and was afraid to go out of the house to get any. After meeting on Sunday afternoons we would all go out and play ninepins; we kept them at our house. I thought we never would play any more, so I baked my bread with them. The INDIANS killed two men at this time.

One day Daniel H.Wells, General Wells, as he was called, came out there and when he saw the conditions we were living in, he ordered us to move back to EPHRAIM, where we had to start anew, as we lost everything we had. My Husband was a Second Lieutenant in the guard, and I am now drawing an INDIAN WAR pension in payment for what we lost.

March 12, 1876 we moved to Manti, where my husband bought a farm from Heber C. Kimball. It is located just below the hill where the MANTI TEMPLE now stands. We lived there five years, when he was called to go on a MISSION to DENMARK. He labored there for 10 months; being sick most of the time; was honorably released to return home. He lived 2 months after returning, and passed away the 16th of October 1883, just one year to the day that he left for the mission field.

I remained on the farm, keeping house for my 5 children until they were all married (4 of my children having passed away before my husband; all of them being boys: 3 of them; one 3, one 6, and one 9 years old, all passed away in 3 weeks with Diphtheria; one of them being laid out in one room, while my youngest son was born in another. He was married November 22nd, 1899, and since that time I have lived with my children).I have gone through all this, with many other things which I haven’t mentioned, For the GOSPEL’S SAKE, which I know to be the TRUE and EVERLASTING GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST of Latter-day Saints. If I live until October 13th, 1921, I will be 80 years old. I am the Mother of 9 children, have 40 grandchildren and 15 great grandchildren.

I hope and trust I may prove FAITHFUL to the end.

Mother [Annie] passed away the 10th of August, 1928, at the age of 86 years, 10 months, at the home of her daughter, Diantha O. Newton, 3463 Grant Ave., Ogden, Utah. I believe Diantha recorded the above history for her mother.