Historic Pictures

Spring time is here. Time to start thinking about planting a garden.

The Stake would like to remind us and encourage us to be prepared and have a three months food storage supply. Items that you grow in your garden could be canned and used as part of this food storage. In the case of an emergency, the Church cannot provide food for everyone in the Church. We are asked to help ourselves and be prepared. You can also buy a few extra cans of food each month to add to your storage. Be sure to use and rotate the food that you have in your storage.

“Conflict amid Conversion: Mormon Proselytizing in Russian Finland, 1860-1914.”

MHA May 2007 Conference Paper

Zachary R. Jones¹

On a cold Swedish winter’s day in 1884, a letter arrived on the desk of the Anthon H. Lund, a mission leader of the LDS Church’s Stockholm Sweden Missionary Conference. This letter, from Mormon missionary August L. Hedberg who was then serving in Finland, reported that in the last few weeks he had baptized a number of individuals, but everywhere “police officers were after me. [and] The newspapers throughout the province were filled with stories concerning me.”² This letter, like the many documents unstudied before my research, captures the essence of LDS missionary labors in Imperial Russia’s province, the Grand Duchy of Finland [modern day Finland], as LDS missionaries labored there intently from 1875 to 1892.

This paper aims to briefly address the Mormon image in Russia between 1860 and 1917 and LDS missionary efforts in Finland between 1875 and 1892. My study of Mormon image in Russia argues that Russians, and in some ways Europeans, viewed Mormonism quite differently than Americans. The different perceptions of Mormonism (discussed shortly) that I have discovered offer new perspectives on Mormon, Finnish, and Russian history. LDS missionary efforts in Russian Finland, a province ruled by Russia from 1809 to 1917, tell us a great deal about how Russian rule affected religious life in Finland and how LDS missionaries reacted under political and ecclesiastical pressure. All in all, Mormon efforts in the Grand Duchy of Finland failed because Mormonism was, as Russians and Finns saw it, ‘fanatical.’ The Russian government wanted nothing to do with a ‘violent, socialist, and sexually perverse religious sect.’ However, although Mormonism was considered detrimental to Russia society, numerous Finns still embraced the LDS faith and it transformed their lives. While it landed LDS missionaries and Finnish converts in jail, Mormonism nonetheless empowered converts with a newfound ability to leave an oppressive society, pursue newfound economic opportunities in the American West, and become involved in a controversial yet captivating religious movement. Mormonism was truly bittersweet for Finnish converts, and it may have been the gamble of their lives. Perhaps that is the Mormon enigma, namely that 19^th century Mormonism was just as attractive as it was fanatical to those who encountered it, and that is why missionaries like Elder Hedberg were able to baptize converts while simultaneously have Finland’s newspapers filled with debasing stories about Mormonism.

Mormon Image: In my quest to document the image of Mormonism in Russia and Finland I have stumbled across, in some ways, how Mormonism was viewed across the whole of Europe. I say this because nearly every published source in Russian, Finnish, or Swedish produced during this period on Mormonism was translated from a European language or composed by accessing European sources. Importantly, Russians and Finns learned about Mormonism from Europeans before Mormonism even entered their nations. This partly occurred because educated Russians and some Finns were bi- tri- and even quad-lingual and European books, and Western knowledge in general, was regularly imported from Europe. Thus in many ways, the image of Mormonism in Russia provides a general macro-view of how Mormonism was viewed across Europe during the late 19^th century.

Although I am unsure if I am the first to say this, I want to make the statement that Europeans perceived Mormonism very differently than did Americans. Studies by historian David B. Davis have shown how American anti-Mormon portrayals (as well as anti-Masonic and anti-Catholic) were formulated by mainstream Protestant America in effort to show how the LDS faith did not conform to the cultural norms of the dominate American culture, such as Protestantism, the authority of the Bible, and the proper role of women outlined by the Cult of Domesticity.³ European religious culture was, however, not so homogenous. It was filled with numerous religions, ethnicities, cultures, languages, political ideologies, and economic systems—sometimes warring—and an entire mass of social forces not present in the US. These forces saturated portrayals of Mormonism penned by European and later Russian authors. In essence, Europeans and Russians made sense of Mormonism in relation to their respective society’s cultural norms; and that is why the Russian perception of Mormonism is entirely unique.

The ways in which Europeans wrote about Mormonism differed from American publications in a number of ways. European Anti-Mormon literature contained similar themes also found in anti-Semitic literature, such as containing descriptions of ritual murders conducted during Mormon temple worship, also a common charge leveled at the European Jewry.⁴ While polygamy was criticized as well, criticism—especially in French political cartoons—used comedy to make light of and mock polygamy, while American attacked it in dark religious terms as being ‘wicked.’⁵ Generally, Europeans placed different and less emphasis on Mormon theology however, primarily because they were not trying to condemn Mormons as un-American.⁶ The stark differences occurred as European authors placed greater focus on the Mormon economy (both from a capitalist and socialist/Marxist perspective) and viewed Mormonism as a social experiment. It was no surprise to any Russian when Russian aristocrat Eduard Tsimmerman remarked in his published travel account, after staying in Salt Lake City for a short period, that “Mormon life could be summed up by their work alone.”⁷ Thus, during the late 19^th century the Russian political right, left, and far left discussed Mormonism from these vantages in numerous scholarly and revolutionary journals.⁸

More directly related to my studies, Mormon image in Russia was continually fed by newspaper accounts carried over from British, French, Swedish, and German newspapers.⁹ While some of these papers themselves lifted headlines from American periodicals, many discussed Mormon endeavors in Europe, such as migration and missionary endeavors. European books were often read and cited by Russian authors who wrote about Mormonism. Two of most common German texts used by Russian authors were Moritz Busch’s 1855 Die Mormonen and Robert von Schlagintweit’s 1878 Die Mormonen. European books and travel accounts about Utah were regularly translated into Russian and read widely on account of Russia’s fascination with the American West The account of French adventurer Émile Jonveaux in his L'Amérique actuelle, which contained a chapter concerning his 1869 visit to Salt Lake City, was so popular that it was translated into Russian in 1872. Yet, according to Russian literary critic Serfim Serfimovich Shashkov, Russians in Saint Petersburg relied on British author William H. Dixon’s two volume book New America for information about Mormonism, which was translated into Russian in 1870.¹⁰ While the book contained a vast discussion of Mormonism in comparison to Islam, he too saw Salt Lake City as a place where “work is considered holy.”¹¹ While Finns also read these Russian works (because they were forced to learn Russian), there were also accounts in Finnish available. Perhaps the most popular and publicly debated Finnish work consisted of the bold and daring feminist writer Alexandra Gripenberg, and her published 1888 travel account, A Half Year in the New World. In this work she reported about life in Salt Lake City, where she resided for a few months, and provided a detailed and damning description of polygamist life in reflection of Finnish values.¹²

While gauging the actual reception of a populous from literary works in near impossible, I have found some specific examples that demonstrate how Russians perceived Mormonism, namely how the Russian state and clergy viewed the LDS faith.

When missionaries entered Finland, they entered an imperial territory governed by tsarist Russia, which amounted to foreign culture governing an equally differing culture. For the tsarist state, religion played a key role in ruling non-ethnic Russians, and the Orthodox clergy worked hard to convert Finns to Orthodoxy and the Russian way of life. And while Finns could legally practice Lutheranism or Russian Orthodoxy, Orthodoxy enjoyed advantages. In citizenship terms, being Orthodox was a determining factor for advancement in economic and political life and the state evaluated regime loyalty in reflection of Orthodox membership.

This is important because when missionaries entered Finland in 1875 they butted heads with the Orthodox clergy, the unofficial but still frontline government representatives. Prior to LDS missionary arrival in Finland, the Orthodox clergy had discussed Mormonism for years. It was considered evil and classified as a “fanatical” sect, and the clergy regularly voiced their fear of loosing followers to the sure “eternal damnation” Mormonism would bring them. In fact, prior to 1875 Mormonism was so well known and had such a negative reputation that the Orthodox clergy adopted the process of nicknaming native Russian religious shakers in the Samarsk Province who experimented with sex and polygamy as Mormoni [Mormons]. The nickname stuck and the sexual immorality of these Mormoni was a topic of debate across the whole of Orthodoxy, regularly reported on in church bulletins, books, and comprised a discussion panel at the national 1898 Third All Russian Missionary Conference in Kiev.¹³

Even the Russian government, and Tsar Alexander II himself, had had past dealings with Mormonism. Mormonism surfaced in the Russian political sphere during 1857-58 as the Utah War was playing out, primarily because a rumor (unfounded of course) surfaced that Brigham Young was going to lead the saints to Russian Alaska to avoid Johnston’s approaching army. These rumors reputedly led the tsar to remark that Russia should defiantly consider selling Alaska.¹⁴ In subsequent years a number of Russian diplomats also publicly condemned Mormonism. Perhaps the most telling example occurred when Russian ambassador to the United States M. Kokosoff was criticized by American religious-liberals in an interview about the lack of religious freedom in Imperial Russia. In his rejoinder he specifically mentioned Mormonism and Mormon polygamy as a danger to Russian culture and religious life.¹⁵ Albert Heard, tsarist Russia’s one-time Ambassador to China, also stated in his religious treatise and memoir that Mormonism should also be eschewed because of its socialist practices which posed a great threat to Russian economic and political stability.¹⁶

Thus when LDS missionaries began preaching in Finland in 1875, the St. Petersburg based Orthodox Church organ Tserkovnyi viestnik [The Church Messenger], which oversaw the Finland Diocese, zealously condemned Mormonism and warned Orthodox believers everywhere to eschew LDS missionaries.¹⁷ Finnish newspapers were also bursting with similar condemnations penned by Lutheran priests.¹⁸ The Orthodox and Lutheran clergy, mutual enemies during religious peacetime, teamed-up against Mormon missionaries to ensure that the police arrested them wherever they preached. Through their combined efforts and incitement of the masses against Mormonism, a government appeal was submitted to the tsar asking for an official ban on Mormonism, which the tsar officially granted in April 1878.

Proselytizing: As for discussing the actual missionary work and convert life in Finland, I do not really have the time to discuss everything I would like to, but I would like to touch upon certain aspects of their work. Essentially, the LDS Church began proselyting in Finland in 1875, a ministry which lasted 17 years. During this period every year a missionary or group of missionaries were sent to Finland to preach, and as mission leader Nils Flygare specified to leaders in SLC, he wanted every year “1 Finn or Swede to go to Finland; but he should be a man with some expereance in mission life.”¹⁹ The Church sent Swedish Mormons to Finland primarily because Swedish was the official language of Finland and because Finland was Russia’s most progressive province from where the Church hoped to springboard into Russia proper. These missionaries were all siphoned from the Scandinavian Mission’s Stockholm Conference, the Conference which oversaw all of the missionary work in Finland and most in Russia proper after 1895.

Missionary work in Finland began with a bold move during the fall of 1875 when leaders of the Stockholm Conference commissioned two missionaries, brothers Carl A. and John E. Sundström, to cross the border into Russian Finland and begin preaching. Arriving in the Grand Duchy later that month, the Sundströms canvassed town after town, proselytizing and selling religious tracts and copies of the Book of Mormon. A few months into their ministry the Sundströms had confrontational run-ins with local clergy and police who were attempting to quell a religious ‘Great Awakening’ that was occurring in Finland during this period. When the Sundströms were first approached by local police while preaching in a public town square, they were told the law forbade proselytizing non-Orthodox messages. In response the Sundströms investigated the law further and found that Grand Duchy jurisprudence technically forbade only those who ‘stood’ to preach. For the next few months they circumvented the law by giving sermons while ‘sitting’ on chairs in the public square.²⁰ As one can expect, the tactic of sitting on chairs to preach was short-lived, but by the end of the year they had baptized enough people to establish a branch at Nikolaistad, a town named for Tsar Nicholas I. The following spring Swedish Elder Axel Tullgren was assigned to Nikolaistad (modern day Vaasa) to serve as the congregation’s Branch President and to preach in the surrounding area. Within a few months more branches were established amounting to around 100 converts. Tullgren, who spent sixteen months there, the longest of any missionary in Finland, reported that he personally held 250 meetings, baptized 24 people, and oversaw the organization of three branches before he was arrested “in a very rough and impolite manner” and deported by the tsarist police in 1877.²¹

From their early ministry, and from the roughly 30 missionaries who later preached in Finland, surviving records indicate that around 300 Finns were baptized and we know that five branches were organized between 1875 and 1892.²² The Okhrana (a special tsarist police force) however, worked in tandem with the Orthodox clergy and the Finnish Lutheran clergy to quell LDS preaching throughout this period. Although it was illegal to practice any religion other than Lutheranism or Russian Orthodoxy in Finland, Mormonism was still officially banned in 1878 by the Russian government and actions were taken to specifically stop Mormon missionaries from entering Finland. However, missionaries continued to sneak into Finland, often by way of a small mission-owned boat. Although missionaries continued to baptize Finns, it began to become increasingly difficult to hold a meeting or Sunday service. When the police discovered when and where a LDS meeting was being held, according to D. M. Olson’s 1880 report,

one or more of those officials [the police] enter the house in which an elder holds a meeting. The first thing he does is to break up the meeting, next to forbid him to speak to the people about religion, then to give him, at the longest, twenty-four hours to leave [the country] in.²³

Missionaries were also often threatened with arrest and exile to Siberia, but it appears no LDS missionaries were ever exiled there. And while missionary work and being a LDS convert in Finland was already difficult, Russian governmental policy transformed 1881 when Tsar Alexander II was assassinated on the streets Saint Petersburg by a terrorist’s hand-thrown bomb. Alexander’s assassination transformed LDS ministry in Finland by heightening Russian xenophobia and marshalling a fear of perceived terrorists. In response the government allotted increased manpower to police Finland, and after 1881 the Okhrana had the power to secretly shadow LDS missionaries, engage in sting arrests, deport captured missionaries, stop LDS literature from being mailed into Finland, and keep tabs on local converts. After 1881 missionaries were forced to hold church meetings at secret locations after sunset, baptisms were performed after dark and in remote areas to avoid detection, and missionaries did not reside in one town for extensive periods to avoid capture. As Stockholm Conference leader Niels Wilhelmsen put it, during this period the missionaries in Finland were continually “followed by the Russian authorities.”²⁴ On the whole, the motif that emerged consisted of Swedish missionaries serving in Finland for around six months before they fled or were captured and deported back to Sweden. By the mid-1880s missionary work and local branches were collapsing in response to Okhrana actions and convert migration to Zion. Writing from Finland in 1886 Elder F. R. Sandberg attacked Russian rule as outright “despotism” and expressed sorrow over how disconnected Finland’s branches had become, “there are some brethren and sisters which haven’t been visited in over two years.”²⁵ Finnish converts would later go decades without official church contact by mail or personal visit.

The story of Johannes Blom, a convert who lived in Finland during this period, and his religious experience in the Grand Duchy provides an example of what many proselytes underwent in response to conditions under Russian rule. Blom was a relatively new convert and zealous member-missionary who regularly worked with the full-time missionaries. In the summer of 1884 Blom traveled to a secluded area, to avoid police detection, to baptize two people he’d been teaching. Unbeknownst to Blom the Okhrana trailed him to the baptismal site, and after the baptism was performed, the police rushed from their hiding places and arrested him. He was later sentenced to 30 days in prison and allowed only bread and water for sustenance during his jail term. Fined 600 marks, and combined with court costs Blom’s debt amounted to 1,510 marks—a huge sum for the period. Not an affluent man, Blom, married with young children, had to sell his furniture and belongings to pay court fines before serving his 30-day sentence at the Helsinki prison during the Christmas season. Shortly after his release from jail, Blom and his family fled Finland and relocated at the Utah Territory were they lived for the remainder of their lives. The Bloms were one family—of many—above whose names in the Nickolistad Branch Record the words appeared “Immigrated to Zion.”²⁶

After experiencing perennial trouble and continual missionary deportations, in 1892 the Stockholm Conference stopped sending missionaries to Finland, abandoning Finland and its recent converts. For the next twenty years missionary visits to Finland were sporadic, and primarily occurred because a Finnish family in Saint Petersburg requested baptism in 1895. In subsequent years Finnish members continued to practice underground and without much or any contact from the Church. In fact, during the 1910s, convert Anders Johanson traveled to Stockholm on behalf of the small Larsmo branch to determine if the Stockholm Conference still knew that there were Finnish Latter-day Saints still practicing. After a eventful journey, he found the mission office in Stockholm, was warmly received, and returned to his branch in Finland with a new zeal that continued underground for a generation.²⁷ Missionary work however was not reopened in Finland until 1946.

In conclusion, in some regards missionary work in Finland was a failure, and it could easily be classified as one of the Church’s failed 19^th century missions. However, the efforts of these missionaries brought converted Finns to Utah and paved the path toward the creation of the Finnish Mission in the 1940s, since some converts continued to practice underground until the Church returned. Today Finland has a temple and the descendants of these early converts populate the pews in Finland. While Russian imperialism has left Finland today, 19^th century LDS missionary endeavors highlight the role of clergy and the police in tsarist rule. And the unique way Russians discussed Mormonism helps us greater understand this enigmatic religion’s role in Russia and across Europe.

Thank you.

1 Zach Jones was born in Logan, Utah. He received a BA in History from Utah State University, a MA in Comparative History from the College of William & Mary, VA, and is currently pursuing a MLIS degree and a career in the archival field. This paper presented at the 2007 MHA Conference was a version of Jones’ MA thesis at the College of William & Mary.

2 August L. Hedberg to Anthon H. Lund, letter, 22 Nov 1884, Nordstjernan 46 (1884): 376-377. See English version of this letter published in Andrew Jenson, History of the Scandinavian Mission (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1927), 281-282.

3 David Brion. Davis, “Some Ideological Functions of Prejudice in Ante-Bellum America,” American Quarterly 15, no. 2 (Summer 1963): 115-125.

4 For illustrations of and a discussion of ritual sacrifices in Mormon temples, see Richard Burton, “Voyage a la cité des saints: capitale du pays des Mormons,” Le Tour du monde; nouveau journal des voyages (1862): 153-155, 355-400. For a discussion of ritual sacrifices among the European Jewry, see Robert Nemes, “Hungary’s Anti-Semetic Provinces: Violence and Ritural Murder,” Slavic Review 66, no. 1 (Spring 2007): 20-44.

5 See Wilfried Decoo, “The Image of Mormonism in French Literature: Part I,” Brigham Young University Studies 14 (Spring 1974): 157-175.

6 See D. L. Ashliman, “The Image of Utah and the Mormons in Nineteenth-Century Germany,” Utah Historical Quarterly 35, no. 3 (1967): 209-227; William Mulder, “Image of Zion: Mormonism as an American Influence in Scandinavia,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 43, no. 1 (1956): 18-38; and Edwina Jo Snow, “British Travelers View the Saints,” Brigham Young University Studies 31, no. 2 (1991): 63-81.

7 Eduard Romanovich Tsimmerman, Puteschestvie po Amerikie v 1869-1870 (Moscow: K. T. Soldatnekova, 1872): 304.

8 There are numbers articles available, however, I recommend from the left perspective; Pyotr Lavrov, “Severo-Amerikanskoe sektatorstvo,” Otechestvennye zapiski. Tom CLXXVII, no. 4 (April 1868), Otdel I, 403-470; Tom CLXXVIII, no. 6 (June 1868), Otdel I, 273-336; Tom CLXXIX, no. 7 (July 1868), Otdel I, 269-318; and Tom CLXXIX, no. 8 (August 1868), Otdel I, 324-354; and for the rightwing perspective; Artur Benni, “Mormonism i Sodinennye Shtaty,” Vremia 10 (1861): 321-355.

9 See Kim Östman, “Early Mormonism in Finnish Newspapers, 1840-1849,” BCC Papers 1, no. 1 (2006); and Gene A. Sessions and Stephen W. Stathis, “The Mormon Invasion of Russian America: Dynamics of a Potent Myth,” Utah Historical Quarterly. 45 (1977): 22-43.

10 Serfim Serfimovich Shashkov, Review of Mormonism, its Rise, Progress and Present Condition by N. W. Green, appearing under the title “Tsarstvo Mormonov,” Delo 12 (Dec 1871): 97-118.

11 William Hepworth Dixon, New America: Volume I (reprint, Leipzig: Adamant Media Corporation, 2006): 207.

12 See English translation as; Alexandra Gripenberg, A Half Year in the New World (Trans. Ernest J. Moyne. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1954).

13 There are numberous works available, but the following are perhaps the best staring points. See S. M. M., Besiedy o tak nazyvaemoi Mormonskoi verii (Samara, Russia: A. I. Matrosova, 1904); Aleksei Mastushenskii, “Sekta Mormonov v Samarskoi Eparkhi,” in Deianiia 3-go vserossiskogo missionerskago sezda v Kazani po voprosam vnutrenni missi i raskolosektahtstva (ed. V. M. Skvortsov, 2^nd ed, Kiev: I. I. Choklova, 1898), 109-113; and Timofei Ivanovich Butkevich, “Mormoni,” in Obzor Russkikh sekt i ikh tolkov (Kharkov, Gubernskaia pravleniia, 1910): 597-600.

14 Gene A. Sessions and Stephen W. Stathis, “The Mormon Invasion of Russian America: Dynamics of a Potent Myth,” Utah Historical Quarterly 45 (1977): 22-43.

15 Published interview, M. Kokofsoff, “The Russian View,” New York Times (25 Jan 1912): 10.

16 See Albert F. Heard, The Russian Church and Russian Decent (1887, reprint, New York: AMS Press Inc., 1971).

17 “Mormoni,” Tserkovnii viestnik 1, no. 46 (20 Nov. 1876): 11-13; “Smert glavi Mormonov,” Tserkovnii viestnik 2, no. 35 (3 Sept. 1877): 13; and “Religiozniya sekti v Amerike,” Tserkovnii viestnik 3, no. 51-52 (22-29 Dec. 1879): 7-8.

18 The Library of Finland has digitized many of its historic newspapers that can be keyword searched. There are numerous articles on Mormonism in Finnish papers during this period.

19 Nils C. Flygare to W. Budge, letter, 3 March 1879, Nils C. Flygare Letter book, 1878-1879, MS 8428, LDS Church Archives.

20 John Andersson to editor Deseret News, letter, 29 March 1876, Millennial Star 38 (1876): 331.

21 Axel Tullgren to Ola N. Liljenquist, letter, 19 Dec 1876, in History of the Scandinavian Mission, 227-228.

22 For surviving membership records see Nikolaistad Branch, Finland, Meeting Minutes, 1876-1897, MS LR 14149 21, LDS Church Archives.

23 D. M. Olson to William Budge, letter, 3 April 1880, Millennial Star 42 (1880): 238-239.

24 Niels Wilhelmsen, report of Scandinavian Mission, 24 Dec 1880, in History of the Scandinavian Mission, 249.

25 F. R. Sandberg to N. C. Flygare, letter, 5 Aug 1886, Nordstjernan 10 (1886): 252.

26 See Johan Blom, letter, 18 July 1884, in History of the Scandinavian Mission, 281, 296; N. C. Flygare, report on missionary work, Ogden Standard Examiner, 8 April 1886; and A. H. Lund to Millennial Star, letter, 12 Dec 1884, Millennial Star 46 (1884): 814-815.

27 See Stig A. Stromberg, Power in a Positive Attitude: the Saga of a Finnish Latter-day Saint (Orem: Sharpspear Press, 2004).

1

The Old Rock House On First Street in Newton

By Defonda D. Collier

When I wrote the date on a check this June day in 1985, I thought of an inscription cut into the rocks on the south side of Grandpa’s rock house just under the south porch -- 1885.

No one ever told us what it meant, but I used to trace it with my fingers. Later on I wondered if it meant when the house was built. It Did. I read Uncle Joe’s Journal which said " enough of the rock house was completed so the family could move in before the winter of 1885--86." So it is now 100 years since that partially completed rock house became the first permanent home of Christian Hansen Larsen, and his wife Mariane, their four sons and two daughters ranging in age from Lorenzo who was 16 to William who was 2. Grandpa and Grandma were in their Forties. Soon two rooms would be added to the ground floor with two rooms above them on a second story.

This wonderful rock home became the first permanent home for the family and would bring to an end their pioneering activity in the harsh deserts of the early American west . For 17 years they had plowed virgin soil, built temporary homes with materials at hand, carried water and coaxed streams across parched land or between rows of vegetables in the garden. What a contrast this life had been to their life in the ‘old country’ with its emerald landscape, mild sea side climate, adequate rainfall for crops and where the highest mountain would be but a low hill to them now.

Now they were able to acquire land, livestock, fruit trees, gardens and settle down in the little town town to farm the land and make their contribution to society and the Church.

The rock home would stay in the family for nearly a century, exerting its magnetic pull on children, grandchildren of grandchildren who still drive by and hear someone say, "My Grandpa built this house" or" my Mother was born here". It will always be a shire to come back to.

Though none of the sons and daughters of the first family were born in the home, many if not most of the grandchildren were, as it became a launching pad for each new family while a home was being prepared. By the time the new century was only a few years old, all of these children would be married and in homes of their own and soon would have twenty - five growing grandchildren. Aunt Caroline never married.

In the days of our growing up it was like a human universe with the old rock home as the sun with five planets revolved around it. The five families lived only a few minutes walk from each other and from the center of the system. We were a grand mixture of parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins and great aunts; a microcosm of society with people of all ages from new born babies to old age and with diversified personalities and dispositions. Though we were a heterogeneous lot, at the same time there was a strong sense of family and a security, as we knew not only one home but six homes where we were always welcome, at least for an hour or two, or more if need be.

The children saw each other daily as we sat side by side in day school and Sunday School We were often all together at the old home for family gatherings, both planned or casual drop-in visits. Holidays were always an excuse for sharing a freezer of ice cream and fun and games on Grandpa’s lawn or cow pasture. Some of us were best friends which called for additional time together.

Our little universe also had its satellites - people not part of the immediate family but tied to it by more distant blood relationship or by ties of endearment. Aunt Annie Sorensen was grandpa’s sister. "Tante Anne" as she was called in Danish. For years she lived at grandpa’s home for extended periods, alternating with her married daughter in Weber County. She made a polygamous marriage which for many years went very well. The two wives were devoted to each other. Karen, the first wife, said before she died, "Annie, promise me when you die you will be buried by my side." Annie was to lose Karen, and soon after, her two remaining children. Hans, the father, then married a widow lady with a family. When the Manifesto was passed, this family moved to Idaho and Aunt Annie was left to take care of herself.

Catty corner across the street from grandpa’s home was another smaller rock house built by Lars Neils Christensen, Grandma’s stepfather. When he died, his two daughters Aunt Dora and aunt Annie, came from Brigham City to live with Aunt Lizzie, a younger daughter by a subsequent marriage with Grandpa’s oldest sister. This was another auxiliary home for us.

NOTE: This was my parents first home and where I was Born. (Cyrel).

We all remember Aunt Lizzie as the village post mistress. When we would be sent to the post office for the mail we were sometimes invited into her inner sanctum but we had been warned by our mothers that this was out of bounds.

One well - remembered day I watched Aunt Lizzie being helped into a little one-horse buggy by a man that I did not know. He reminded me of Grandpa but his beard was dark brown, not gray as was grandpa’s. She rode away with him and never came back to the little house and I never got over it. To this day I remember how deprived I felt. We later found her out in the Hansen home but it was never the same. She had become the beloved mother to the Hansen children.

Aunt Dora and Aunt Annie later built a lovely frame house across the street.

NOTE: This is where I was raised from 4 years old till I got married. (Cyrel)

Aunt May came into the family by assignment of the Bishop. Two little Danish girls had been orphaned. The Bishop said, "Brother Larsen, will you take May and raise her as your own" and "Lorenzo, will you take Olga, her little sister? This was done. They grew up, married and left town but all of her life Aunt May made frequent visits back to the home and family, to the delight of us all. NOTE: Olga married and moved to Boltimore Md. So her visits were few, I met her and her son at Grandpa and Grandma’s fiftieth Weding Aniversery. (Cyrel)

But beyond these were - Einer Pedersen, Godfrey Hansen, Louis and Theodore Lohdefink, Carl Anderson, Carl Jorgensen, Canute Fabricious, Danish them all. When Grandpa was semi - retired from his farm work in favor of his sons, he went back for a visit to the old country ostensibly to obtain records of his ancestors. Could it also have been to report back to the folks back home in the old country? Grandpa was proud of his family, his home and what hard work and thirty four years had done for them in this land so far away. Grandma refused to go with him. One crossing of the ocean was enough for her. He took Mary his grown daughter with him. In three or four months they were ready to return back to their adopted land. It had been good to them. But here were these boys looking for a chance to get to America too. Grandpa saw the light in their eyes that could not be denied. He and his family set up their own perpetual immigration company. The boys would be helped with transportation in exchange for labor on the Larsen Farm’s and would live in one or another of the Larsen homes during their tenure. They too maintained life long ties of endearment to the family and made periodic visits back to their American home.

By 1919, Grandpa and Grandma were gone and Aunt Caroline was alone in the big house. That year she accepted a call by her sister and brothers to spend the next few winters in Logan and make a home for five nieces and nephews who were ready for high school. "But I can’t go and leave this house empty" she said. The Dowdle family with six children had outgrown the little home down by the creek. They moved up to the rock house and made it their permanent home.

Soon after Mother was widowed, her children had also left home and she and Auntie lived alone in the home until mother’s death in 1952. Then Auntie was alone. At eighty-four years she gracefully , if reluctantly agreed to go to a rest home in Logan. It was no longer safe for her to be alone. She outlived all of her brothers and sisters and was three months short of her one hundredth birthday when she quietly passed away.

It is sad to record that the old home we knew and loved was desecrated by antique hunters and later when Auntie could see she could never go back, she decided to let it go to save it from further damage. Though the sale of the house was legal enough, it was bought by insensitive and uncaring people who refused to allow her back through the door to get her personal effects. This was a devastating experience for her and for us all who had loved and lived and revered the old Rock Home in Newton.

(Used by permission of DeFonda D. Collier, August 1989.