Carolina Christina was the daughter of Jens Jensen and Hannah Hansen and is Cordell's great-grandmother on his mother's side and mother to "Ernst" Larsen, Cordell's grandfather.
When Christina was in her first year the family moved to Sanpete County to the town of Mt. Pleasant. In the spring of 1860, the family joined the Ira Allen Company to explore Cache Valley in Northern Utah. They were among the first 21 families to settle Hyrum. They arrived in Hyrum on April 8, 1860, and spent the summer in dugouts, one cabin, and several wagon boxes. There was a total of 77 persons. The family name of Jens Jensen is listed as one of the 21 heads of families on the monument at Camp Hollow, and the first three children of the family are listed on the monument in front of the Hyrum Civic Building as the first settlers of Hyrum. Their home was in the area of 2nd West and 2nd North.
Before Christina was 12 years old, she worked in the fields with her father. One fall her father cut twenty acres of wheat and she bound them into bundles. She helped her father plant 5 acres of corn at one time. He drove the horses and she planted the seeds. She helped him when they harvested the corn; he would cut the corn and she threw it on the wagon. She would load as fast has he could cut it. This was before she was 14 years old.
She often told about hearing the Indians dance and sit in front of their tents after they returned from war with another tribe. They often camped on the dugway south and west of her home now covered by Hyrum Dam. The Indians often rode through the town yelling and screaming, frightening the settlers. The Indians would yell and dance in the doorways of the people until the Bishop would coax them to leave by giving them flour and other goods. She remembered once when a tribe had been on the warpath and when they returned, celebrating and fighting amongst themselves followed. One of their number was killed and then, according to custom, the murderer was put to death and both were buried in the same grave with their feet sticking out of the ground. She told of accompanying her father up Blacksmith Fork Canyon to cut willows for the roof of their home. They came upon an Indian strung up in a tree. A large band of Indians tried to steal her father's horses at one time, but the horses had a good sense of smell and ran back into the yard for protection.
As a young girl she worked in the C. L. Andersen dairy in Blacksmith Fork Canyon milking cows and making cheese. She also worked at Hansen's Dairy on the Bear River before her marriage.
When she was twenty years old, she married Andrew Larson. He was 26 years old. They were married on Dec. 31, 1878, just before her 20th birthday. Her wedding dress was homemade from fabric for which she had spun the yarn herself. Her trousseau consisted of a feather tick, 6 pillow cases, six sheets and four quilts which filled a trunk. She earned all the money for these articles by going out washing for other families five times a week, earning 35 cents a washing. Her prettiest quilt was made of red and green material. She saved every scrap of material she would get for a "nine patch" quilt, the traditional bride's quilt of that day. She loved to piece quilts and was helpful in getting many of the quilts in her children and grand-children's trousseau's.
After their marriage they lived for a number of years in a one-room house they called "Swenson's", probably the landlord's name. Their furniture consisted of a new stove, bed, table and cupboard. Andrew made the cupboard himself. The stove and cupboard were used for many years at her homestead in Ridgedale, Idaho, commonly called Pocatello Valley.
Five children were born to Andrew and Christina--Agnes, Ernest, Effie Cecilia, Archie, and Amos, between the years of 1879 and 1888. Her husband Andrew died March 6, 1893, when her youngest child was five and her oldest fourteen. This is when Christina proved what an enterprising and talented woman she was. She could spin yarn from flax to make cloth. When her oldest son was a baby, she spun 45 yards of cloth. She earned 25 cents a day for spinning this cloth or yarn. She could spin seven skeins a day. There was a mortgage on some land she and Andrew had purchased, and she saved every cent she made to pay off this mortgage. She believed strongly in the value of land. She made use of every bit of grease, cracklings from pork, etc. to make soap for her own use, cooking it in a big drum over an open fire in the yard. She also made their own head cheese and link sausage. She was a fine seamstress and dressmaker, an art she taught to her daughter, Agnes. One of her enterprises was making hair switches for which she had a large clientele. When ladies cut their long hair they would bring it to her, and she could make a hair piece of it which was called a "switch". It was like a ponytail fastened at one end.
Before Andrew's death, they had established a home on the north side of what was then called, "the hollow", but is now Hyrum Dam. During her widowhood, she secured two city lots and eventually had two homes on them. She rented one of them. She also rented her own home after her children were all married and she didn't need the whole house for herself. She planted berries on her city lots and always had enough strawberries and raspberries for her own use and some to sell to her neighbors. She was quick to embrace new industry and to use the soil to bring her an income. She always had dairy cattle and milked cows herself until she was 81 years of age. Most of her pasture land was down in the hollow, where there were two streams of water, a mill race, and the Little Bear River. These are the streams that were dammed to make Hyrum Reservoir. She was in a unique position, as her barn and yard were on the edge of the hill; she could open the gate and the cows would go to pasture by themselves, feeding on their way down the hill, and at night they would come back to the gate when it was time for milking.
In the early 1900's, many people in Hyrum took up dry farming in what was called Pocatello Valley, just over the border in south central Idaho. She was quick to see the wisdom of this, as she always believed land was a good investment. She and each of her children who were old enough homesteaded a sixty acre tract of land and spent many summers there enduring the hardships, disappointments and eventual success of the venture. They would leave Hyrum each spring in covered wagons with a herd of cows following and stay the whole summer on the farm. It was a two-day trip at that time, but it can now be made in a few hours by car. They would stop for lunch at Hansen Dairy or Hampton Bridge and overnight at Mountain Springs. The grandchildren would help drive the cows that followed the wagon.
They had to haul water from areas where wells were dug until they were able to drill a well of their own that was windmill powered. Christina used to bake bread and sell it to other farmers who were batching in the Valley. She would also churn butter and sell it to the others.
When they first started the homestead, they had the usual trouble between the "farmer and the cowboy". The cattlemen had been using the land for cattle ranges, and they resented the farmers filing on the land for farming. Some one burned Grandma Larsen's cabin during the feud after they returned to Hyrum for the winter. This venture proved profitable to all, as the land increased in value and is considered valuable farm land today.
One grand daughter recalled being given a chore to do when she visited Grandma in the summer. She was to pound broken china dishes into fine powder. This she fed to her chickens to make better egg production. It seemed a weird thing to do, but later she found out that people on the East coast used oyster shells for this purpose. She had little or no formal education, barely able to write her name, but she had learned many things the hard way by teaching herself.
All of her grandchildren felt they could call her place home when they needed a friend. Her oldest daughter and three children made their home with her for some time after she was divorced and these children always felt especially close to her. Her home was a place for visiting over coffee cups of "Mormon Tea". Many transients, down on their luck, were given bed and board for a time. Her place was a good place to go Easter walking with the big hill in back to roll eggs down. Grandma would make ableskivers for her hikers. It was fun to spend the night with her and sleep in her feather beds. Her upstairs was especially interesting with folding beds, her hair switch frame, and the loom for weaving carpet rags, and old pictures in huge gilt frames. Grandma's birthday was always a special occasion when children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren gathered for plenty of good food and family socializing.
When Del Monte packing company started to process beans, Grandma was one of the first to sign a contract to furnish beans for them. Beans could be grown on city lots, small plots of ground, and even though it was tedious work, it furnished much needed work and money to students. Before a factory was built in Hyrum, her place was used as a weigh station where people brought their beans to be weighed and graded. You were really considered a drone if you didn't pick beans or fruit to earn money for school clothes and spending money during the summer. Even such things as pianos and new homes were not out of reach of a family working together in a bean patch for a few summers.
Christina's two daughters proceeded her in death and this was a great loss to her. She always said it was harder to lose children than a husband, probably because she was alone and older when her children died. Her daughter, Effie, died in 1908 at the age of 16 and Agnes at the age of 59.
No comments:
Post a Comment