Adapted by Susan W. Howard*
Nielsine Dorthea Thompson Woodland was born 15 Feb 1852 in Sindal, Hjorring Co, Denmark to Dorthe Pedersen and Niels Thomsen. Sindal was a small town eight miles east of the city of Hjorring. Nielsine was the fourth child in a family of eight. In Denmark, the father’s surname was Thomsen, and according to the Scandinavian custom of patronymics, all the children carried the last name of Nielsen, or Nielsdatter. When they came to America, they used the surname Thomsen, which then became Thompson.

Sena, as she became known, told her children of milking cows as a girl. She learned basic reading and writing, along with Danish history. Her hours of schooling were limited by the necessity to spend long hard hours working. Sena took delight in reading library books and in socializing with her many friends.

In 1875 Sena received a letter from her parents that contained enough money for passage to the US. The money had been lent by a co-worker of her father on the railroad. Once she arrived in Richmond, she met the person who made her trip possible, Alfred Woodland. He spoke no Danish, she spoke no English. Still, she was able to let it be known that he was the man she wanted to marry. Her husband Alfred died at age 65 in 1901.

Her home was the place for family gatherings where the adults shared a big meal and talk together while the grandchildren played outside. Her grandson, Philip, especially remembered that she made the best thin pancakes. He also recalled that during Prohibition several of the uncles and cousins made “bathtub” gin in her upstairs bathroom. Philip remembered her knitting long black stockings for the family. She carded the wool, spun it into thread on a spinning wheel she kept in the south upstairs bedroom, and dyed it black in her big bread pans. In her later years she braided rugs for extra income. There was never a time when she wasn’t busy. She was also good at telling fortunes with the tea leaves by pouring out the tea and examining the remaining leaves.

Her son Noah bought the farm from her and paid for it in installments. She died quickly and painlessly of a stroke while working on a quilt at the home of her daughter, Emily Nelson on 24 October 1930. She was 78 years old and had outlived Alfred by nearly thirty years. She was preceded in death by one child, her much-loved firstborn son Peter, who had also died of a stroke while traveling to visit her on 15 May 1928.