Married Ane Dorothea Andersdatter
Jens-Pauline-Lexia-Marie
Died 25 May 1865
Buried in Fairview
All I have about Jens is this account of his death. Hopefully I can add more someday.
Jens was proud of his recently completed dugout. This was to be the home of his family. A dugout was a room dug into the side of a hill with a thatched roof made of logs, sticks and dirt. The floor was dirt; the walls usually logs. Jens' dugout was in a hillside near the edge of the town of Faitview, Utah. Few tools were available but he had tried very hard to make everything he did the very best that could be done. Some of the dugouts let dirt from the roof fall through onto the people inside, but Jens had carefully crafted hand-hewn boards to make a ceiling, making sure his would not. He had also made steps into the dugout which prevented a lot of dirt from being tracked into his home. He had secured a four-paned window to place in the end by the door to let light into the room. His dugout was indeed something to be proud of.
The dugout was fitted with a "four-poster bedstead" fashioned from small poles. The springs were of rawhide strips woven back and forth on which to place the bedding that consisted of a feather tick or a straw tick used as a mattress. He had also made a table and a long bench. These, with the chests in which they had brought their belongings from Denmark, comprised the furniture. Their home was meager, to say the least. but everything had been built with pride and the result was one of comfort for its time.
Jens had recently joined the Church and left his native land of Denmark to come to Utah to live with the Saints. His beloved sister, Ane Marie, had come before him on this journey. She was a hunchback and in very delicate health, and, being hardly able to care for herself, her gentle brother Jens had always taken care of her and felt he had to do so in Utah, also. He loved her greatly and was truly a kind and compassionate brother.
This was new country, and Jens worked at whatever he could do to sustain himself and his small family. He and his wife Ane Dorthea had a young son Hugo. Another daughter, Pauline, was born to them while they lived in the dugout. Ane Marie also lived with them in the dugout.
Ane Dorthea learned to card and spin wool and sometimes she received vegetables and other things for her work. Times were hard. All the work they could do was hardly enough to "keep the wolf away."
In the spring of 1865, when the Indians under Chief Black Hawk became unruly and threatening, the townspeople decided to put their sheep all together and hire someone to herd them away from town where there was good food. The job was offered to Jens at a very good wage. Ane Dorthea strongly protested because of the fear of the Indians. They were not on the warpath yet, but things were so unsettled that she felt there was danger for him. Jens felt torn because of his desperate need for work. He had to provide for his family and there was no more work available. Finally, he decided to accept the job because of the good wage.
During the week, Jens kept watch of the animals. There was a herd-house for him to live in and a corral to keep the sheep in. He had his dog with him for a companion and helper. At the end of the week, Jens would come home and spend the weekend with his family.
Things seemed ideal for a few weeks. Then, before people were aware, the Indians went on the warpath. They came from the south robbing, plundering, and murdering as they went! They killed a man at Gunnison and continued north running off the horses and cattle as they came. In the evening of May the twenty-fifth, Jens was just penning his sheep for the night. The redskins saw him and wanting no witnesses to their thievery riddled him with bullets. They did not mutilate his body but rifled the camp, taking what would be of use to them. After murdering Jens and stealing what they wanted, they headed up the canyon. As they passed through Strawberry Canyon, they came upon the Givens homestead and slaughtered all of them--mother, father, and five children. This was the beginning of the Black Hawk War. Jens was later noted as the second man killed in the Black Hawk War.
The next day, Jens' dog came home alone acting strangely. Ane Dorthea was very concerned. The dog never came home in the middle of the week and never without Jens. She sent word to the men of the town and they formed a group to go to the camp to see if anything was wrong. As they arrived in the camp, the dog led the men to where Jens' body was lying over the gate just as he had fallen when the Indians shot him.
They carried his body back to his heartbroken wife, Ane Dorthea, and his beloved sister Ane Marie. They buried Jens along with the Givens family there in Fairview.
After the death of Jens, his crippled sister never seemed the same. Her grief could not be quieted. She continued to assert that she could not live alone. Ane Dorthea assured her, "We will always stay together, and I will work for you." She would shake her head and say, "I will be too great a burden."
She sank lower and lower until August the twenty-fifth, 1865, three months to the day after her brother had been killed, her spirit passed peacefully to the other side. She was buried beside her beloved brother. In life they were together and in death they were not separated.
Little six-year old Hugo was working with his uncle in Richfield at the time his father was killed. Because it was spring, the rivers were full and could not be crossed until late summer when they were smaller. When he was finally able to come home, his uncle dropped him off in the morning at the head of the long dirt road leading to the dugout.
By early afternoon, his mother walked up the path to see where her little Hugo could be. She found him asleep under a tree. This little soul could not bring himself to return to his home where he knew his father would not be. He had cried himself to sleep under the tree.
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