"History of Kirstine Sandersen Sorensen" By Norma Sorensen Taylor
I believe my maternal great-grandmother, Kirstine Sandersen Sorensen, was "strong enough to serve the common needs of the day, and strong enough to meet the uncommon needs as well," at least until she died in childbirth along with her sixteenth baby. When I was so young that I had not yet asked how babies came to be, I can remember my mother and her sisters maligning John Sorensen, their grandfather and my great-grandfather. They talked about him as if he ought to have been tried for the death of his wife.
I visited the small town of Æbelnæs on the Isle of Møn, south of Zealand, the island on which Copenhagen is located, where Kirstine was born in 1843. A large yellow stucco, thatch-roofed house looked so old that I wondered if it could be the very one she passed by on her way to work every day as a servant when she was a young girl. The open fields must have looked much the same then, grasses waving in the wind and brushing her long skirts as she made her way across the pastures.
Parish records show that she was dobt (baptized) into the Lutheran Church on Sunday the 17th of December 1843 in Damsholte. Her daab (christening) was witnessed by several Æbelnæs men, who were blacksmiths, and their wives. On a June morning in 2000, the sun just drying the last drops of a spring rain, I visited the parish church where this christening occurred. It was hexagonal and of the same yellow stucco as the thatch-roofed house, beautiful in its symmetry, set in the midst of a kirkegård, the Danish name for church garden or cemetery. Inside the chapel, a miniature ship hung from the high ceiling, poised above the pews. Ships like these were typical ornaments in Danish churches because parishioners were often seafarers looking for protection in their work. I wonder if Kirstine walked along the seashore not far from Æbelnæs prior to her emigration and contemplated the possibilities of her new life in Zion.
She was baptized into the Mormon church at the age of twelve in 1855, having possibly heard about this new gospel preached in the home other employers. Being poor and illiterate, she had likely begun working as a scullery maid or nursery maid when she was ten or eleven. Her parents and other members of her family were baptized later than she, no doubt partially through her influence. At age nineteen, she shows up on immigration records traveling in 1862 with the Fredrick Christiansen family. Since she did not borrow money from the Perpetual Emigrating Fund, the Christiansen family may have paid her passage. They embarked in the early spring, going from their home to the island of Lolland where a steamboat carried them to Kiel. I wonder, once in landlocked Utah, if Kirstine remembered her last view of the Baltic Sea and if she longed for the brush of salty breezes on her cheek and the smells of a beach.
No autobiography explains her experiences, but a great-granddaughter, Norma Sorensen Taylor, has reconstructed Kirstine's life, using marriage and birth records as well as historical records and events of the time period. It is a chronicle of hardship in birth and death as Kirstine became a polygamist wife and mother of sixteen under difficult circumstances, finally dying in childbirth at age forty-two.
Following their arrival in Kiel, a railroad trip took the emigrants across the German peninsula to the seaport of Hamburg, Germany. On Wednesday, April 9, 1862, they boarded the ship Humbolt under the direction of Captain H. B. Boysen; they set sail with 323 emigrating saints in the care of Elder Hans C. Hansen. Elder Hansen had been laboring as a missionary in Scandinavia and was returning to his home in Zion.The Humbolt crossed the Atlantic in a scant five weeks, arriving in New York Harbor on the 20th of May 1862.
As other immigrants then, Kirstine was processed through Castle Garden before being allowed to enter the mainland. The company of Saints was met by American elders who served as agents to help them further their journey.As the Danish Saints who came in 1862 were soon to learn, New York was not America, but it was part of the spirit of America—big, garrulous, bustling, noisy. The great buildings, massive piles of masonry blackened with soot, filled a narrow neck of land skirted by two rivers that poured into the ocean to form a natural harbor; it was impressive. It is doubtful that the Danish emigrants, hard pressed by their own problems, had more than a vague realization of the bloody Civil War raging in the land of their adoption. They had their own appointment with destiny and no time to lose.The Humbolt was the first ship of the four ships carrying Danish saints to arrive in New York that year.
Passengers of the four ships would eventually meet in Florence, Nebraska, to continue their journey to Utah. The passengers of the Humbolt began their journey by railroad to St. Joseph, Missouri, and from there by steamship up the Missouri River to Florence.Florence was a bustling frontier camp located on the west bank of the Missouri River at a point now known as North Omaha. Here, for the time being, was one of the spots where the East and West met face to face. On one side were the railroads and civilization; on the other, vast stretches of wilderness, Indians, deserts, mountains—the great land of the future. As might be expected, the place was seething with people: scouts, traders, freighters, home seekers, soldiers.
With the Civil War raging, the demand was limitless for horses, mules, oxen, cattle—everything used for transportation or food. Needs were increased by the constant stream of Mormon emigrants going west. The half-bewildered Danish Saints were confronted not only by many strange people but also by strange conditions. The area contained thousands of head of livestock. Wagon trains were being outfitted by Mormon scouts and plainsmen, some of them sent directly from Salt Lake City.The Danish saints from the Humbolt, Franklin, Athenia, and Electra were reshuffled into four companies for crossing the plains. Two companies were organized from those who had financial means to buy all their necessary equipment.
These were placed under the leadership of Elders Hans C. Hansen and Ola N. Liljenquist. Kirstine and the Fredrick Christiansen family were members of this wagon train, which broke camp at Florence on July 14. For several days they had trouble learning to drive the oxen. Not only were the drivers inexperienced, but also, the oxen didn't understand Danish. It has not been recorded which had to learn a new language, the oxen or the drivers, perhaps both, for they came to understand one another and the journey resumed successfully. The journey across Nebraska and Wyoming and into Salt Lake Valley was accomplished in the heat of summer. Food was scarce and everyone able-bodied enough walked beside the wagons. They reached the Salt Lake Valley on the 23rd of September 1862.A great many Danish saints were sent to Ephraim, and that is possibly where Kirstine met John Sorensen [twenty-two years her senior, an emigrant who, with his wife Else Marie, had left Denmark in 1854 and apparently lost three children on the journey; three more children were born to them in Utah, but only one lived to adulthood]. Kirstine and John were married for time and all eternity on the 27th of December 1862 in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City.John and Kirstine settled in the area now known as Gunnison.
During 1862 and 1863, the two settlements previously called Chalk Hill and Kearns Camp were being amalgamated into one settlement on the present site of Gunnison to be safe from spring floods. Most homes were built during the spring of 1863; winter must have been difficult in temporary housing.Kirstine was a plural wife, for John had married a woman named Hannah Andersen. Hannah was also a Danish immigrant but much [sixteen years] older than Kirstine, which must have caused some friction. Else Marie, John's other wife, isn't listed in the Gunnison Ward records ... and ... the 1870 census doesn't list Else Marie [who apparently died sometime between censuses, joining two of her children who died]. An eleven-year-old daughter of John and Else, Mary Christine, is listed on the census.On November 11, 1863, Kirstine gave birth to her first child, a daughter she named Maria. Sadly, Maria died on the 23rd of December 1863. On the 9th of February 1864, Hannah had her first child, whom she named Hannah. Kirstine and Hannah must have struggled to establish a home in the newly settled area.
On the 7th of November 1864, Kirstine gave birth to a son they named John after his father. She must have worried she would lose her second child when winter marked an outbreak of smallpox, but John beat the odds and lived to adulthood.Indians that had been camped near Gunnison contracted smallpox and they blamed the settlers. War was inevitable because of the anger of the Indians, so plans were devised to protect everyone. For three years, Indian raiding parties plagued the Gunnison settlement, which was located halfway on the three-hundred-mile battlefront.On the 25th of May 1866, Kirstine gave birth to a daughter they named Christine. During this time the Indian raids were particularly frequent so Judge Peacock came with directions from Brigham Young to build a fort. Cabins were to be moved in line for the outside walls of the fort. With ready obedience, the people set to work enclosing four city blocks.
Walls between the cabins were rocked up to a height of seven feet with peepholes near the top. At each corner, circular structures with many lookouts served as small camps for the watchmen. There was a substantial gate on each side in line with the cross streets. In less than a month's time the fort was in fair condition against attacks. During July of 1866, in the midst of all this chaos, the baby Christine died. The Indian raids stopped during the winter to give the settlers a respite, but spring and summer brought renewed attacks.
Mary Ann, John's and Kirstine's fourth child, was born the 13th of June 1867. Hannah also gave birth to 1867. A peace pact was consummated with Chief Black Hawk in the fall of 1867. Unfortunately some of his warriors weren't ready for peace, especially Jake Arapeen, whose father had contracted smallpox and died in 1864.Fort Gunnison became a haven for settlers from many settlements during 1867 and 1868. A sense of normalcy was provided by organizing activities such as Relief Society, Sunday School and Priesthood quorums. Quilting bees, singing, dancing, as well as worship services, helped to balance the normal work of sustaining a family. Finally on the 19th of August 1868 peace was negotiated between Jake Arapeen and the other hostile warriors. The settlers decided to remain in the fort until spring.
In the spring of 1869, the people moved from the fort to their city lots; there they set out fruit trees, shade trees, planted gardens and made improvements to beautify their homes and make them inviting. During this beehive of activity, Kirstine gave birth to her fifth child, a daughter they named Minnie Martine, who was born on the 17th of June 1869. Peace brought many changes as men worked to make life easier by building a sawmill, a co-op store, and by establishing a cattle cooperative. Women kept their homes, tended the children, planted gardens, made tallow candles, and mended and performed the hundreds of little tasks needed to survive in a pioneer settlement.
A Deseret News article written in 1870 by Hans Thunnison, the postmaster, explains conditions:
We have but a small settlement of 90 families. The grasshoppers preyed heavily upon us the last years. The losses sustained from them and the burdens we had to endure during the Black Hawk War were equally severe, but we are improving. Our fields at present look barren and desolate, except about 250 acres planted with wheat, mostly late grain, which looks very promising and will, we hope--with addition of peas, potatoes, corn, etc., all of which appear to be doing well--suffice to feed the inhabitants of this place for the coming year.
A new rock schoolhouse 24 x 24 feet will soon be finished. With the good road now made up Twelve Mile Canyon we expect an abundant supply of lumber. The people appear to be well generally, the weather is fine and as soon as the grasshoppers get wings they take their flight to other parts.
On the 19th of February 1871, Kirstine and John were blessed with twin daughters, which they named Amelia and Emma Eliza. Unfortunately, these little spirits weren't long for this life for on the 14 of April 1871 Emma Eliza died and Amelia joined her twin on May 7,1871.
On September 28, 1871, John and Hannah filed a mutual petition for divorce, which was granted. Hannah received custody of their two daughters, Hannah, age six, and Maria, age four, as well as a property settlement. On May 13, 1872, a daughter was born to John and Kirstine, whom they named Victoria ... but in August Victoria died. On December 24, 1873, a son named Christian Louis joined the growing Sorensen clan.
In 1874, John began farming in an area that eventually became known as Mayfield. Kirstine and the children remained in Gunnison during this time. On December 26, 1875, Kirstine gave birth to a son she named Sanders after her father. He died the same day he was born. Sanders was the last child born in Gunnison, for the family moved to Mayfield in the spring of 1876. It is possible that John and Kirstine were called by church authorities to Mayfield to participate in the newly organized United Order [a communal society], for they settled on the north side of the creek where it was being practiced. On the south side of the creek, another settlement was established by English immigrants who had moved from Ephraim. The settlement was called New London and they had a separate ward and bishopric until 1877 when the two settlements were combined.
During the rigors of moving, Kirstine was pregnant. She worked throughout the summer and fall to build a home. In addition to caring for her family and helping with hard work, she waged a constant war on lizards, snakes, and rodents that would share her dwelling in spite of all she could do. On November 9, 1876, Kirstine gave birth to her eleventh child, a daughter named Ricka Malinda [my grandmother].
In the newly emerging community, settlers found a need for recreation. In a delightful nook on a bend of the creek, all of the trees, shrubs, and turf were cleared of dead branches and a bowery was built. In this beautiful little park, called the Grove, both aesthetic and practical needs were satisfied. Meetings and socials were held in the bowery, picnics and games were enjoyed in the shade of the tall cottonwoods, and the "old swimming hole," screened by squaw berries and birch, provided pleasure on hot summer days. Here the family water barrel, mounted on a two-wheeled cart in summer and a bobsled in winter, was filled as needed from the creek. Baptisms were also performed here.
Brigham Young dedicated the Manti Temple site on April 25, 1877. The Twelve Mile (Mayfield) residents counted the milestones from twelve to one as they plodded by ox team to witness the groundbreaking ceremonies.
The United Order was disbanded in 1877 and sometime thereafter Kirstine and John moved to the south side of the creek and built a home. Four children were born to John and Kirstine in the next five years. Their twelfth child, David was born on January 4, 1879. A daughter named Ephalone was born May 27, 1881, and died on June 8, 1881. Louis was born August 27, 1882, and died a scant two and a half months later on November 2,1882. Joseph Alma was born December 5, 1883. On December 17, 1885.
Kirstine died in childbirth [ten days short of her twenty-third wedding anniversary, and the child also died]. Her married daughter, Mary Ann, helped her mother in her struggle, but to no avail. At the age of forty-two, Kirstine Sandersen Sorensen left this life as she had lived it, struggling. She was buried in the Mayfield Cemetery, but unfortunately the location of her grave and the graves of her babies is unknown.
Apparently the original grave marker, assuming there ever was one, was made of wood and disintegrated. The cemetery records do not chronicle where Kirstine was buried, only that she was interred. Long after her death, a grandson had a granite marker for her placed next to his family plot. I can hear my Aunt Blanche, were she alive today, cursing John Sorensen for not putting a permanent marker on his wife's grave at the time of her death, one more insult to her. But how do we know what his feelings were at the time; perhaps he was overcome by grief, perhaps even by guilt and remorse. Without a diary or memoir, what can we know? No picture of Kirstine exists that I have been able to locate, so I cannot even visualize her appearance.
Considering the beliefs about the importance of raising posterity, was Kirstine a willing partner in the conception of sixteen children, children she believed would be hers "on the other side of the veil? Was this "the why of so many children? Did Kirstine and her husband rejoice in each birth; and after the death of each child, did Kirstine long for a new baby to fill the void, one to cradle in her empty arms, to nestle at her breast? Did she feel blessed to be free of the scourge of biblical women who begged for a cure for barrenness: Sarah before she bore Isaac, Hannah before she bore Samuel, Elisabeth prior to delivering John? Did Kirstine consider herself a handmaiden of the Lord as well as the wife of John Sorensen? And finally, did the women who lived in those small cabins visible in the photograph of Nauvoo consider themselves handmaidens of the Lord, finding Nauvoo beautiful because of their fulfilled calling to multiply and replenish the earth?
I believe my maternal great-grandmother, Kirstine Sandersen Sorensen, was "strong enough to serve the common needs of the day, and strong enough to meet the uncommon needs as well," at least until she died in childbirth along with her sixteenth baby. When I was so young that I had not yet asked how babies came to be, I can remember my mother and her sisters maligning John Sorensen, their grandfather and my great-grandfather. They talked about him as if he ought to have been tried for the death of his wife.
I visited the small town of Æbelnæs on the Isle of Møn, south of Zealand, the island on which Copenhagen is located, where Kirstine was born in 1843. A large yellow stucco, thatch-roofed house looked so old that I wondered if it could be the very one she passed by on her way to work every day as a servant when she was a young girl. The open fields must have looked much the same then, grasses waving in the wind and brushing her long skirts as she made her way across the pastures.
Parish records show that she was dobt (baptized) into the Lutheran Church on Sunday the 17th of December 1843 in Damsholte. Her daab (christening) was witnessed by several Æbelnæs men, who were blacksmiths, and their wives. On a June morning in 2000, the sun just drying the last drops of a spring rain, I visited the parish church where this christening occurred. It was hexagonal and of the same yellow stucco as the thatch-roofed house, beautiful in its symmetry, set in the midst of a kirkegård, the Danish name for church garden or cemetery. Inside the chapel, a miniature ship hung from the high ceiling, poised above the pews. Ships like these were typical ornaments in Danish churches because parishioners were often seafarers looking for protection in their work. I wonder if Kirstine walked along the seashore not far from Æbelnæs prior to her emigration and contemplated the possibilities of her new life in Zion.
She was baptized into the Mormon church at the age of twelve in 1855, having possibly heard about this new gospel preached in the home other employers. Being poor and illiterate, she had likely begun working as a scullery maid or nursery maid when she was ten or eleven. Her parents and other members of her family were baptized later than she, no doubt partially through her influence. At age nineteen, she shows up on immigration records traveling in 1862 with the Fredrick Christiansen family. Since she did not borrow money from the Perpetual Emigrating Fund, the Christiansen family may have paid her passage. They embarked in the early spring, going from their home to the island of Lolland where a steamboat carried them to Kiel. I wonder, once in landlocked Utah, if Kirstine remembered her last view of the Baltic Sea and if she longed for the brush of salty breezes on her cheek and the smells of a beach.
No autobiography explains her experiences, but a great-granddaughter, Norma Sorensen Taylor, has reconstructed Kirstine's life, using marriage and birth records as well as historical records and events of the time period. It is a chronicle of hardship in birth and death as Kirstine became a polygamist wife and mother of sixteen under difficult circumstances, finally dying in childbirth at age forty-two.
Following their arrival in Kiel, a railroad trip took the emigrants across the German peninsula to the seaport of Hamburg, Germany. On Wednesday, April 9, 1862, they boarded the ship Humbolt under the direction of Captain H. B. Boysen; they set sail with 323 emigrating saints in the care of Elder Hans C. Hansen. Elder Hansen had been laboring as a missionary in Scandinavia and was returning to his home in Zion.The Humbolt crossed the Atlantic in a scant five weeks, arriving in New York Harbor on the 20th of May 1862.
As other immigrants then, Kirstine was processed through Castle Garden before being allowed to enter the mainland. The company of Saints was met by American elders who served as agents to help them further their journey.As the Danish Saints who came in 1862 were soon to learn, New York was not America, but it was part of the spirit of America—big, garrulous, bustling, noisy. The great buildings, massive piles of masonry blackened with soot, filled a narrow neck of land skirted by two rivers that poured into the ocean to form a natural harbor; it was impressive. It is doubtful that the Danish emigrants, hard pressed by their own problems, had more than a vague realization of the bloody Civil War raging in the land of their adoption. They had their own appointment with destiny and no time to lose.The Humbolt was the first ship of the four ships carrying Danish saints to arrive in New York that year.
Passengers of the four ships would eventually meet in Florence, Nebraska, to continue their journey to Utah. The passengers of the Humbolt began their journey by railroad to St. Joseph, Missouri, and from there by steamship up the Missouri River to Florence.Florence was a bustling frontier camp located on the west bank of the Missouri River at a point now known as North Omaha. Here, for the time being, was one of the spots where the East and West met face to face. On one side were the railroads and civilization; on the other, vast stretches of wilderness, Indians, deserts, mountains—the great land of the future. As might be expected, the place was seething with people: scouts, traders, freighters, home seekers, soldiers.
With the Civil War raging, the demand was limitless for horses, mules, oxen, cattle—everything used for transportation or food. Needs were increased by the constant stream of Mormon emigrants going west. The half-bewildered Danish Saints were confronted not only by many strange people but also by strange conditions. The area contained thousands of head of livestock. Wagon trains were being outfitted by Mormon scouts and plainsmen, some of them sent directly from Salt Lake City.The Danish saints from the Humbolt, Franklin, Athenia, and Electra were reshuffled into four companies for crossing the plains. Two companies were organized from those who had financial means to buy all their necessary equipment.
These were placed under the leadership of Elders Hans C. Hansen and Ola N. Liljenquist. Kirstine and the Fredrick Christiansen family were members of this wagon train, which broke camp at Florence on July 14. For several days they had trouble learning to drive the oxen. Not only were the drivers inexperienced, but also, the oxen didn't understand Danish. It has not been recorded which had to learn a new language, the oxen or the drivers, perhaps both, for they came to understand one another and the journey resumed successfully. The journey across Nebraska and Wyoming and into Salt Lake Valley was accomplished in the heat of summer. Food was scarce and everyone able-bodied enough walked beside the wagons. They reached the Salt Lake Valley on the 23rd of September 1862.A great many Danish saints were sent to Ephraim, and that is possibly where Kirstine met John Sorensen [twenty-two years her senior, an emigrant who, with his wife Else Marie, had left Denmark in 1854 and apparently lost three children on the journey; three more children were born to them in Utah, but only one lived to adulthood]. Kirstine and John were married for time and all eternity on the 27th of December 1862 in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City.John and Kirstine settled in the area now known as Gunnison.
During 1862 and 1863, the two settlements previously called Chalk Hill and Kearns Camp were being amalgamated into one settlement on the present site of Gunnison to be safe from spring floods. Most homes were built during the spring of 1863; winter must have been difficult in temporary housing.Kirstine was a plural wife, for John had married a woman named Hannah Andersen. Hannah was also a Danish immigrant but much [sixteen years] older than Kirstine, which must have caused some friction. Else Marie, John's other wife, isn't listed in the Gunnison Ward records ... and ... the 1870 census doesn't list Else Marie [who apparently died sometime between censuses, joining two of her children who died]. An eleven-year-old daughter of John and Else, Mary Christine, is listed on the census.On November 11, 1863, Kirstine gave birth to her first child, a daughter she named Maria. Sadly, Maria died on the 23rd of December 1863. On the 9th of February 1864, Hannah had her first child, whom she named Hannah. Kirstine and Hannah must have struggled to establish a home in the newly settled area.
On the 7th of November 1864, Kirstine gave birth to a son they named John after his father. She must have worried she would lose her second child when winter marked an outbreak of smallpox, but John beat the odds and lived to adulthood.Indians that had been camped near Gunnison contracted smallpox and they blamed the settlers. War was inevitable because of the anger of the Indians, so plans were devised to protect everyone. For three years, Indian raiding parties plagued the Gunnison settlement, which was located halfway on the three-hundred-mile battlefront.On the 25th of May 1866, Kirstine gave birth to a daughter they named Christine. During this time the Indian raids were particularly frequent so Judge Peacock came with directions from Brigham Young to build a fort. Cabins were to be moved in line for the outside walls of the fort. With ready obedience, the people set to work enclosing four city blocks.
Walls between the cabins were rocked up to a height of seven feet with peepholes near the top. At each corner, circular structures with many lookouts served as small camps for the watchmen. There was a substantial gate on each side in line with the cross streets. In less than a month's time the fort was in fair condition against attacks. During July of 1866, in the midst of all this chaos, the baby Christine died. The Indian raids stopped during the winter to give the settlers a respite, but spring and summer brought renewed attacks.
Mary Ann, John's and Kirstine's fourth child, was born the 13th of June 1867. Hannah also gave birth to 1867. A peace pact was consummated with Chief Black Hawk in the fall of 1867. Unfortunately some of his warriors weren't ready for peace, especially Jake Arapeen, whose father had contracted smallpox and died in 1864.Fort Gunnison became a haven for settlers from many settlements during 1867 and 1868. A sense of normalcy was provided by organizing activities such as Relief Society, Sunday School and Priesthood quorums. Quilting bees, singing, dancing, as well as worship services, helped to balance the normal work of sustaining a family. Finally on the 19th of August 1868 peace was negotiated between Jake Arapeen and the other hostile warriors. The settlers decided to remain in the fort until spring.
In the spring of 1869, the people moved from the fort to their city lots; there they set out fruit trees, shade trees, planted gardens and made improvements to beautify their homes and make them inviting. During this beehive of activity, Kirstine gave birth to her fifth child, a daughter they named Minnie Martine, who was born on the 17th of June 1869. Peace brought many changes as men worked to make life easier by building a sawmill, a co-op store, and by establishing a cattle cooperative. Women kept their homes, tended the children, planted gardens, made tallow candles, and mended and performed the hundreds of little tasks needed to survive in a pioneer settlement.
A Deseret News article written in 1870 by Hans Thunnison, the postmaster, explains conditions:
We have but a small settlement of 90 families. The grasshoppers preyed heavily upon us the last years. The losses sustained from them and the burdens we had to endure during the Black Hawk War were equally severe, but we are improving. Our fields at present look barren and desolate, except about 250 acres planted with wheat, mostly late grain, which looks very promising and will, we hope--with addition of peas, potatoes, corn, etc., all of which appear to be doing well--suffice to feed the inhabitants of this place for the coming year.
A new rock schoolhouse 24 x 24 feet will soon be finished. With the good road now made up Twelve Mile Canyon we expect an abundant supply of lumber. The people appear to be well generally, the weather is fine and as soon as the grasshoppers get wings they take their flight to other parts.
On the 19th of February 1871, Kirstine and John were blessed with twin daughters, which they named Amelia and Emma Eliza. Unfortunately, these little spirits weren't long for this life for on the 14 of April 1871 Emma Eliza died and Amelia joined her twin on May 7,1871.
On September 28, 1871, John and Hannah filed a mutual petition for divorce, which was granted. Hannah received custody of their two daughters, Hannah, age six, and Maria, age four, as well as a property settlement. On May 13, 1872, a daughter was born to John and Kirstine, whom they named Victoria ... but in August Victoria died. On December 24, 1873, a son named Christian Louis joined the growing Sorensen clan.
In 1874, John began farming in an area that eventually became known as Mayfield. Kirstine and the children remained in Gunnison during this time. On December 26, 1875, Kirstine gave birth to a son she named Sanders after her father. He died the same day he was born. Sanders was the last child born in Gunnison, for the family moved to Mayfield in the spring of 1876. It is possible that John and Kirstine were called by church authorities to Mayfield to participate in the newly organized United Order [a communal society], for they settled on the north side of the creek where it was being practiced. On the south side of the creek, another settlement was established by English immigrants who had moved from Ephraim. The settlement was called New London and they had a separate ward and bishopric until 1877 when the two settlements were combined.
During the rigors of moving, Kirstine was pregnant. She worked throughout the summer and fall to build a home. In addition to caring for her family and helping with hard work, she waged a constant war on lizards, snakes, and rodents that would share her dwelling in spite of all she could do. On November 9, 1876, Kirstine gave birth to her eleventh child, a daughter named Ricka Malinda [my grandmother].
In the newly emerging community, settlers found a need for recreation. In a delightful nook on a bend of the creek, all of the trees, shrubs, and turf were cleared of dead branches and a bowery was built. In this beautiful little park, called the Grove, both aesthetic and practical needs were satisfied. Meetings and socials were held in the bowery, picnics and games were enjoyed in the shade of the tall cottonwoods, and the "old swimming hole," screened by squaw berries and birch, provided pleasure on hot summer days. Here the family water barrel, mounted on a two-wheeled cart in summer and a bobsled in winter, was filled as needed from the creek. Baptisms were also performed here.
Brigham Young dedicated the Manti Temple site on April 25, 1877. The Twelve Mile (Mayfield) residents counted the milestones from twelve to one as they plodded by ox team to witness the groundbreaking ceremonies.
The United Order was disbanded in 1877 and sometime thereafter Kirstine and John moved to the south side of the creek and built a home. Four children were born to John and Kirstine in the next five years. Their twelfth child, David was born on January 4, 1879. A daughter named Ephalone was born May 27, 1881, and died on June 8, 1881. Louis was born August 27, 1882, and died a scant two and a half months later on November 2,1882. Joseph Alma was born December 5, 1883. On December 17, 1885.
Kirstine died in childbirth [ten days short of her twenty-third wedding anniversary, and the child also died]. Her married daughter, Mary Ann, helped her mother in her struggle, but to no avail. At the age of forty-two, Kirstine Sandersen Sorensen left this life as she had lived it, struggling. She was buried in the Mayfield Cemetery, but unfortunately the location of her grave and the graves of her babies is unknown.
Apparently the original grave marker, assuming there ever was one, was made of wood and disintegrated. The cemetery records do not chronicle where Kirstine was buried, only that she was interred. Long after her death, a grandson had a granite marker for her placed next to his family plot. I can hear my Aunt Blanche, were she alive today, cursing John Sorensen for not putting a permanent marker on his wife's grave at the time of her death, one more insult to her. But how do we know what his feelings were at the time; perhaps he was overcome by grief, perhaps even by guilt and remorse. Without a diary or memoir, what can we know? No picture of Kirstine exists that I have been able to locate, so I cannot even visualize her appearance.
Considering the beliefs about the importance of raising posterity, was Kirstine a willing partner in the conception of sixteen children, children she believed would be hers "on the other side of the veil? Was this "the why of so many children? Did Kirstine and her husband rejoice in each birth; and after the death of each child, did Kirstine long for a new baby to fill the void, one to cradle in her empty arms, to nestle at her breast? Did she feel blessed to be free of the scourge of biblical women who begged for a cure for barrenness: Sarah before she bore Isaac, Hannah before she bore Samuel, Elisabeth prior to delivering John? Did Kirstine consider herself a handmaiden of the Lord as well as the wife of John Sorensen? And finally, did the women who lived in those small cabins visible in the photograph of Nauvoo consider themselves handmaidens of the Lord, finding Nauvoo beautiful because of their fulfilled calling to multiply and replenish the earth?
"History of Kirstine Sandersen Sorensen" By Norma Sorensen Taylor
I believe my maternal great-grandmother, Kirstine Sandersen Sorensen, was "strong enough to serve the common needs of the day, and strong enough to meet the uncommon needs as well," at least until she died in childbirth along with her sixteenth baby. When I was so young that I had not yet asked how babies came to be, I can remember my mother and her sisters maligning John Sorensen, their grandfather and my great-grandfather. They talked about him as if he ought to have been tried for the death of his wife.
I visited the small town of Æbelnæs on the Isle of Møn, south of Zealand, the island on which Copenhagen is located, where Kirstine was born in 1843. A large yellow stucco, thatch-roofed house looked so old that I wondered if it could be the very one she passed by on her way to work every day as a servant when she was a young girl. The open fields must have looked much the same then, grasses waving in the wind and brushing her long skirts as she made her way across the pastures.
Parish records show that she was dobt (baptized) into the Lutheran Church on Sunday the 17th of December 1843 in Damsholte. Her daab (christening) was witnessed by several Æbelnæs men, who were blacksmiths, and their wives. On a June morning in 2000, the sun just drying the last drops of a spring rain, I visited the parish church where this christening occurred. It was hexagonal and of the same yellow stucco as the thatch-roofed house, beautiful in its symmetry, set in the midst of a kirkegård, the Danish name for church garden or cemetery. Inside the chapel, a miniature ship hung from the high ceiling, poised above the pews. Ships like these were typical ornaments in Danish churches because parishioners were often seafarers looking for protection in their work. I wonder if Kirstine walked along the seashore not far from Æbelnæs prior to her emigration and contemplated the possibilities of her new life in Zion.
She was baptized into the Mormon church at the age of twelve in 1855, having possibly heard about this new gospel preached in the home other employers. Being poor and illiterate, she had likely begun working as a scullery maid or nursery maid when she was ten or eleven. Her parents and other members of her family were baptized later than she, no doubt partially through her influence. At age nineteen, she shows up on immigration records traveling in 1862 with the Fredrick Christiansen family. Since she did not borrow money from the Perpetual Emigrating Fund, the Christiansen family may have paid her passage. They embarked in the early spring, going from their home to the island of Lolland where a steamboat carried them to Kiel. I wonder, once in landlocked Utah, if Kirstine remembered her last view of the Baltic Sea and if she longed for the brush of salty breezes on her cheek and the smells of a beach.
No autobiography explains her experiences, but a great-granddaughter, Norma Sorensen Taylor, has reconstructed Kirstine's life, using marriage and birth records as well as historical records and events of the time period. It is a chronicle of hardship in birth and death as Kirstine became a polygamist wife and mother of sixteen under difficult circumstances, finally dying in childbirth at age forty-two.
Following their arrival in Kiel, a railroad trip took the emigrants across the German peninsula to the seaport of Hamburg, Germany. On Wednesday, April 9, 1862, they boarded the ship Humbolt under the direction of Captain H. B. Boysen; they set sail with 323 emigrating saints in the care of Elder Hans C. Hansen. Elder Hansen had been laboring as a missionary in Scandinavia and was returning to his home in Zion.The Humbolt crossed the Atlantic in a scant five weeks, arriving in New York Harbor on the 20th of May 1862.
As other immigrants then, Kirstine was processed through Castle Garden before being allowed to enter the mainland. The company of Saints was met by American elders who served as agents to help them further their journey.As the Danish Saints who came in 1862 were soon to learn, New York was not America, but it was part of the spirit of America—big, garrulous, bustling, noisy. The great buildings, massive piles of masonry blackened with soot, filled a narrow neck of land skirted by two rivers that poured into the ocean to form a natural harbor; it was impressive. It is doubtful that the Danish emigrants, hard pressed by their own problems, had more than a vague realization of the bloody Civil War raging in the land of their adoption. They had their own appointment with destiny and no time to lose.The Humbolt was the first ship of the four ships carrying Danish saints to arrive in New York that year.
Passengers of the four ships would eventually meet in Florence, Nebraska, to continue their journey to Utah. The passengers of the Humbolt began their journey by railroad to St. Joseph, Missouri, and from there by steamship up the Missouri River to Florence.Florence was a bustling frontier camp located on the west bank of the Missouri River at a point now known as North Omaha. Here, for the time being, was one of the spots where the East and West met face to face. On one side were the railroads and civilization; on the other, vast stretches of wilderness, Indians, deserts, mountains—the great land of the future. As might be expected, the place was seething with people: scouts, traders, freighters, home seekers, soldiers.
With the Civil War raging, the demand was limitless for horses, mules, oxen, cattle—everything used for transportation or food. Needs were increased by the constant stream of Mormon emigrants going west. The half-bewildered Danish Saints were confronted not only by many strange people but also by strange conditions. The area contained thousands of head of livestock. Wagon trains were being outfitted by Mormon scouts and plainsmen, some of them sent directly from Salt Lake City.The Danish saints from the Humbolt, Franklin, Athenia, and Electra were reshuffled into four companies for crossing the plains. Two companies were organized from those who had financial means to buy all their necessary equipment.
These were placed under the leadership of Elders Hans C. Hansen and Ola N. Liljenquist. Kirstine and the Fredrick Christiansen family were members of this wagon train, which broke camp at Florence on July 14. For several days they had trouble learning to drive the oxen. Not only were the drivers inexperienced, but also, the oxen didn't understand Danish. It has not been recorded which had to learn a new language, the oxen or the drivers, perhaps both, for they came to understand one another and the journey resumed successfully. The journey across Nebraska and Wyoming and into Salt Lake Valley was accomplished in the heat of summer. Food was scarce and everyone able-bodied enough walked beside the wagons. They reached the Salt Lake Valley on the 23rd of September 1862.A great many Danish saints were sent to Ephraim, and that is possibly where Kirstine met John Sorensen [twenty-two years her senior, an emigrant who, with his wife Else Marie, had left Denmark in 1854 and apparently lost three children on the journey; three more children were born to them in Utah, but only one lived to adulthood]. Kirstine and John were married for time and all eternity on the 27th of December 1862 in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City.John and Kirstine settled in the area now known as Gunnison.
During 1862 and 1863, the two settlements previously called Chalk Hill and Kearns Camp were being amalgamated into one settlement on the present site of Gunnison to be safe from spring floods. Most homes were built during the spring of 1863; winter must have been difficult in temporary housing.Kirstine was a plural wife, for John had married a woman named Hannah Andersen. Hannah was also a Danish immigrant but much [sixteen years] older than Kirstine, which must have caused some friction. Else Marie, John's other wife, isn't listed in the Gunnison Ward records ... and ... the 1870 census doesn't list Else Marie [who apparently died sometime between censuses, joining two of her children who died]. An eleven-year-old daughter of John and Else, Mary Christine, is listed on the census.On November 11, 1863, Kirstine gave birth to her first child, a daughter she named Maria. Sadly, Maria died on the 23rd of December 1863. On the 9th of February 1864, Hannah had her first child, whom she named Hannah. Kirstine and Hannah must have struggled to establish a home in the newly settled area.
On the 7th of November 1864, Kirstine gave birth to a son they named John after his father. She must have worried she would lose her second child when winter marked an outbreak of smallpox, but John beat the odds and lived to adulthood.Indians that had been camped near Gunnison contracted smallpox and they blamed the settlers. War was inevitable because of the anger of the Indians, so plans were devised to protect everyone. For three years, Indian raiding parties plagued the Gunnison settlement, which was located halfway on the three-hundred-mile battlefront.On the 25th of May 1866, Kirstine gave birth to a daughter they named Christine. During this time the Indian raids were particularly frequent so Judge Peacock came with directions from Brigham Young to build a fort. Cabins were to be moved in line for the outside walls of the fort. With ready obedience, the people set to work enclosing four city blocks.
Walls between the cabins were rocked up to a height of seven feet with peepholes near the top. At each corner, circular structures with many lookouts served as small camps for the watchmen. There was a substantial gate on each side in line with the cross streets. In less than a month's time the fort was in fair condition against attacks. During July of 1866, in the midst of all this chaos, the baby Christine died. The Indian raids stopped during the winter to give the settlers a respite, but spring and summer brought renewed attacks.
Mary Ann, John's and Kirstine's fourth child, was born the 13th of June 1867. Hannah also gave birth to 1867. A peace pact was consummated with Chief Black Hawk in the fall of 1867. Unfortunately some of his warriors weren't ready for peace, especially Jake Arapeen, whose father had contracted smallpox and died in 1864.Fort Gunnison became a haven for settlers from many settlements during 1867 and 1868. A sense of normalcy was provided by organizing activities such as Relief Society, Sunday School and Priesthood quorums. Quilting bees, singing, dancing, as well as worship services, helped to balance the normal work of sustaining a family. Finally on the 19th of August 1868 peace was negotiated between Jake Arapeen and the other hostile warriors. The settlers decided to remain in the fort until spring.
In the spring of 1869, the people moved from the fort to their city lots; there they set out fruit trees, shade trees, planted gardens and made improvements to beautify their homes and make them inviting. During this beehive of activity, Kirstine gave birth to her fifth child, a daughter they named Minnie Martine, who was born on the 17th of June 1869. Peace brought many changes as men worked to make life easier by building a sawmill, a co-op store, and by establishing a cattle cooperative. Women kept their homes, tended the children, planted gardens, made tallow candles, and mended and performed the hundreds of little tasks needed to survive in a pioneer settlement.
A Deseret News article written in 1870 by Hans Thunnison, the postmaster, explains conditions:
We have but a small settlement of 90 families. The grasshoppers preyed heavily upon us the last years. The losses sustained from them and the burdens we had to endure during the Black Hawk War were equally severe, but we are improving. Our fields at present look barren and desolate, except about 250 acres planted with wheat, mostly late grain, which looks very promising and will, we hope--with addition of peas, potatoes, corn, etc., all of which appear to be doing well--suffice to feed the inhabitants of this place for the coming year.
A new rock schoolhouse 24 x 24 feet will soon be finished. With the good road now made up Twelve Mile Canyon we expect an abundant supply of lumber. The people appear to be well generally, the weather is fine and as soon as the grasshoppers get wings they take their flight to other parts.
On the 19th of February 1871, Kirstine and John were blessed with twin daughters, which they named Amelia and Emma Eliza. Unfortunately, these little spirits weren't long for this life for on the 14 of April 1871 Emma Eliza died and Amelia joined her twin on May 7,1871.
On September 28, 1871, John and Hannah filed a mutual petition for divorce, which was granted. Hannah received custody of their two daughters, Hannah, age six, and Maria, age four, as well as a property settlement. On May 13, 1872, a daughter was born to John and Kirstine, whom they named Victoria ... but in August Victoria died. On December 24, 1873, a son named Christian Louis joined the growing Sorensen clan.
In 1874, John began farming in an area that eventually became known as Mayfield. Kirstine and the children remained in Gunnison during this time. On December 26, 1875, Kirstine gave birth to a son she named Sanders after her father. He died the same day he was born. Sanders was the last child born in Gunnison, for the family moved to Mayfield in the spring of 1876. It is possible that John and Kirstine were called by church authorities to Mayfield to participate in the newly organized United Order [a communal society], for they settled on the north side of the creek where it was being practiced. On the south side of the creek, another settlement was established by English immigrants who had moved from Ephraim. The settlement was called New London and they had a separate ward and bishopric until 1877 when the two settlements were combined.
During the rigors of moving, Kirstine was pregnant. She worked throughout the summer and fall to build a home. In addition to caring for her family and helping with hard work, she waged a constant war on lizards, snakes, and rodents that would share her dwelling in spite of all she could do. On November 9, 1876, Kirstine gave birth to her eleventh child, a daughter named Ricka Malinda [my grandmother].
In the newly emerging community, settlers found a need for recreation. In a delightful nook on a bend of the creek, all of the trees, shrubs, and turf were cleared of dead branches and a bowery was built. In this beautiful little park, called the Grove, both aesthetic and practical needs were satisfied. Meetings and socials were held in the bowery, picnics and games were enjoyed in the shade of the tall cottonwoods, and the "old swimming hole," screened by squaw berries and birch, provided pleasure on hot summer days. Here the family water barrel, mounted on a two-wheeled cart in summer and a bobsled in winter, was filled as needed from the creek. Baptisms were also performed here.
Brigham Young dedicated the Manti Temple site on April 25, 1877. The Twelve Mile (Mayfield) residents counted the milestones from twelve to one as they plodded by ox team to witness the groundbreaking ceremonies.
The United Order was disbanded in 1877 and sometime thereafter Kirstine and John moved to the south side of the creek and built a home. Four children were born to John and Kirstine in the next five years. Their twelfth child, David was born on January 4, 1879. A daughter named Ephalone was born May 27, 1881, and died on June 8, 1881. Louis was born August 27, 1882, and died a scant two and a half months later on November 2,1882. Joseph Alma was born December 5, 1883. On December 17, 1885.
Kirstine died in childbirth [ten days short of her twenty-third wedding anniversary, and the child also died]. Her married daughter, Mary Ann, helped her mother in her struggle, but to no avail. At the age of forty-two, Kirstine Sandersen Sorensen left this life as she had lived it, struggling. She was buried in the Mayfield Cemetery, but unfortunately the location of her grave and the graves of her babies is unknown.
Apparently the original grave marker, assuming there ever was one, was made of wood and disintegrated. The cemetery records do not chronicle where Kirstine was buried, only that she was interred. Long after her death, a grandson had a granite marker for her placed next to his family plot. I can hear my Aunt Blanche, were she alive today, cursing John Sorensen for not putting a permanent marker on his wife's grave at the time of her death, one more insult to her. But how do we know what his feelings were at the time; perhaps he was overcome by grief, perhaps even by guilt and remorse. Without a diary or memoir, what can we know? No picture of Kirstine exists that I have been able to locate, so I cannot even visualize her appearance.
Considering the beliefs about the importance of raising posterity, was Kirstine a willing partner in the conception of sixteen children, children she believed would be hers "on the other side of the veil? Was this "the why of so many children? Did Kirstine and her husband rejoice in each birth; and after the death of each child, did Kirstine long for a new baby to fill the void, one to cradle in her empty arms, to nestle at her breast? Did she feel blessed to be free of the scourge of biblical women who begged for a cure for barrenness: Sarah before she bore Isaac, Hannah before she bore Samuel, Elisabeth prior to delivering John? Did Kirstine consider herself a handmaiden of the Lord as well as the wife of John Sorensen? And finally, did the women who lived in those small cabins visible in the photograph of Nauvoo consider themselves handmaidens of the Lord, finding Nauvoo beautiful because of their fulfilled calling to multiply and replenish the earth?
I believe my maternal great-grandmother, Kirstine Sandersen Sorensen, was "strong enough to serve the common needs of the day, and strong enough to meet the uncommon needs as well," at least until she died in childbirth along with her sixteenth baby. When I was so young that I had not yet asked how babies came to be, I can remember my mother and her sisters maligning John Sorensen, their grandfather and my great-grandfather. They talked about him as if he ought to have been tried for the death of his wife.
I visited the small town of Æbelnæs on the Isle of Møn, south of Zealand, the island on which Copenhagen is located, where Kirstine was born in 1843. A large yellow stucco, thatch-roofed house looked so old that I wondered if it could be the very one she passed by on her way to work every day as a servant when she was a young girl. The open fields must have looked much the same then, grasses waving in the wind and brushing her long skirts as she made her way across the pastures.
Parish records show that she was dobt (baptized) into the Lutheran Church on Sunday the 17th of December 1843 in Damsholte. Her daab (christening) was witnessed by several Æbelnæs men, who were blacksmiths, and their wives. On a June morning in 2000, the sun just drying the last drops of a spring rain, I visited the parish church where this christening occurred. It was hexagonal and of the same yellow stucco as the thatch-roofed house, beautiful in its symmetry, set in the midst of a kirkegård, the Danish name for church garden or cemetery. Inside the chapel, a miniature ship hung from the high ceiling, poised above the pews. Ships like these were typical ornaments in Danish churches because parishioners were often seafarers looking for protection in their work. I wonder if Kirstine walked along the seashore not far from Æbelnæs prior to her emigration and contemplated the possibilities of her new life in Zion.
She was baptized into the Mormon church at the age of twelve in 1855, having possibly heard about this new gospel preached in the home other employers. Being poor and illiterate, she had likely begun working as a scullery maid or nursery maid when she was ten or eleven. Her parents and other members of her family were baptized later than she, no doubt partially through her influence. At age nineteen, she shows up on immigration records traveling in 1862 with the Fredrick Christiansen family. Since she did not borrow money from the Perpetual Emigrating Fund, the Christiansen family may have paid her passage. They embarked in the early spring, going from their home to the island of Lolland where a steamboat carried them to Kiel. I wonder, once in landlocked Utah, if Kirstine remembered her last view of the Baltic Sea and if she longed for the brush of salty breezes on her cheek and the smells of a beach.
No autobiography explains her experiences, but a great-granddaughter, Norma Sorensen Taylor, has reconstructed Kirstine's life, using marriage and birth records as well as historical records and events of the time period. It is a chronicle of hardship in birth and death as Kirstine became a polygamist wife and mother of sixteen under difficult circumstances, finally dying in childbirth at age forty-two.
Following their arrival in Kiel, a railroad trip took the emigrants across the German peninsula to the seaport of Hamburg, Germany. On Wednesday, April 9, 1862, they boarded the ship Humbolt under the direction of Captain H. B. Boysen; they set sail with 323 emigrating saints in the care of Elder Hans C. Hansen. Elder Hansen had been laboring as a missionary in Scandinavia and was returning to his home in Zion.The Humbolt crossed the Atlantic in a scant five weeks, arriving in New York Harbor on the 20th of May 1862.
As other immigrants then, Kirstine was processed through Castle Garden before being allowed to enter the mainland. The company of Saints was met by American elders who served as agents to help them further their journey.As the Danish Saints who came in 1862 were soon to learn, New York was not America, but it was part of the spirit of America—big, garrulous, bustling, noisy. The great buildings, massive piles of masonry blackened with soot, filled a narrow neck of land skirted by two rivers that poured into the ocean to form a natural harbor; it was impressive. It is doubtful that the Danish emigrants, hard pressed by their own problems, had more than a vague realization of the bloody Civil War raging in the land of their adoption. They had their own appointment with destiny and no time to lose.The Humbolt was the first ship of the four ships carrying Danish saints to arrive in New York that year.
Passengers of the four ships would eventually meet in Florence, Nebraska, to continue their journey to Utah. The passengers of the Humbolt began their journey by railroad to St. Joseph, Missouri, and from there by steamship up the Missouri River to Florence.Florence was a bustling frontier camp located on the west bank of the Missouri River at a point now known as North Omaha. Here, for the time being, was one of the spots where the East and West met face to face. On one side were the railroads and civilization; on the other, vast stretches of wilderness, Indians, deserts, mountains—the great land of the future. As might be expected, the place was seething with people: scouts, traders, freighters, home seekers, soldiers.
With the Civil War raging, the demand was limitless for horses, mules, oxen, cattle—everything used for transportation or food. Needs were increased by the constant stream of Mormon emigrants going west. The half-bewildered Danish Saints were confronted not only by many strange people but also by strange conditions. The area contained thousands of head of livestock. Wagon trains were being outfitted by Mormon scouts and plainsmen, some of them sent directly from Salt Lake City.The Danish saints from the Humbolt, Franklin, Athenia, and Electra were reshuffled into four companies for crossing the plains. Two companies were organized from those who had financial means to buy all their necessary equipment.
These were placed under the leadership of Elders Hans C. Hansen and Ola N. Liljenquist. Kirstine and the Fredrick Christiansen family were members of this wagon train, which broke camp at Florence on July 14. For several days they had trouble learning to drive the oxen. Not only were the drivers inexperienced, but also, the oxen didn't understand Danish. It has not been recorded which had to learn a new language, the oxen or the drivers, perhaps both, for they came to understand one another and the journey resumed successfully. The journey across Nebraska and Wyoming and into Salt Lake Valley was accomplished in the heat of summer. Food was scarce and everyone able-bodied enough walked beside the wagons. They reached the Salt Lake Valley on the 23rd of September 1862.A great many Danish saints were sent to Ephraim, and that is possibly where Kirstine met John Sorensen [twenty-two years her senior, an emigrant who, with his wife Else Marie, had left Denmark in 1854 and apparently lost three children on the journey; three more children were born to them in Utah, but only one lived to adulthood]. Kirstine and John were married for time and all eternity on the 27th of December 1862 in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City.John and Kirstine settled in the area now known as Gunnison.
During 1862 and 1863, the two settlements previously called Chalk Hill and Kearns Camp were being amalgamated into one settlement on the present site of Gunnison to be safe from spring floods. Most homes were built during the spring of 1863; winter must have been difficult in temporary housing.Kirstine was a plural wife, for John had married a woman named Hannah Andersen. Hannah was also a Danish immigrant but much [sixteen years] older than Kirstine, which must have caused some friction. Else Marie, John's other wife, isn't listed in the Gunnison Ward records ... and ... the 1870 census doesn't list Else Marie [who apparently died sometime between censuses, joining two of her children who died]. An eleven-year-old daughter of John and Else, Mary Christine, is listed on the census.On November 11, 1863, Kirstine gave birth to her first child, a daughter she named Maria. Sadly, Maria died on the 23rd of December 1863. On the 9th of February 1864, Hannah had her first child, whom she named Hannah. Kirstine and Hannah must have struggled to establish a home in the newly settled area.
On the 7th of November 1864, Kirstine gave birth to a son they named John after his father. She must have worried she would lose her second child when winter marked an outbreak of smallpox, but John beat the odds and lived to adulthood.Indians that had been camped near Gunnison contracted smallpox and they blamed the settlers. War was inevitable because of the anger of the Indians, so plans were devised to protect everyone. For three years, Indian raiding parties plagued the Gunnison settlement, which was located halfway on the three-hundred-mile battlefront.On the 25th of May 1866, Kirstine gave birth to a daughter they named Christine. During this time the Indian raids were particularly frequent so Judge Peacock came with directions from Brigham Young to build a fort. Cabins were to be moved in line for the outside walls of the fort. With ready obedience, the people set to work enclosing four city blocks.
Walls between the cabins were rocked up to a height of seven feet with peepholes near the top. At each corner, circular structures with many lookouts served as small camps for the watchmen. There was a substantial gate on each side in line with the cross streets. In less than a month's time the fort was in fair condition against attacks. During July of 1866, in the midst of all this chaos, the baby Christine died. The Indian raids stopped during the winter to give the settlers a respite, but spring and summer brought renewed attacks.
Mary Ann, John's and Kirstine's fourth child, was born the 13th of June 1867. Hannah also gave birth to 1867. A peace pact was consummated with Chief Black Hawk in the fall of 1867. Unfortunately some of his warriors weren't ready for peace, especially Jake Arapeen, whose father had contracted smallpox and died in 1864.Fort Gunnison became a haven for settlers from many settlements during 1867 and 1868. A sense of normalcy was provided by organizing activities such as Relief Society, Sunday School and Priesthood quorums. Quilting bees, singing, dancing, as well as worship services, helped to balance the normal work of sustaining a family. Finally on the 19th of August 1868 peace was negotiated between Jake Arapeen and the other hostile warriors. The settlers decided to remain in the fort until spring.
In the spring of 1869, the people moved from the fort to their city lots; there they set out fruit trees, shade trees, planted gardens and made improvements to beautify their homes and make them inviting. During this beehive of activity, Kirstine gave birth to her fifth child, a daughter they named Minnie Martine, who was born on the 17th of June 1869. Peace brought many changes as men worked to make life easier by building a sawmill, a co-op store, and by establishing a cattle cooperative. Women kept their homes, tended the children, planted gardens, made tallow candles, and mended and performed the hundreds of little tasks needed to survive in a pioneer settlement.
A Deseret News article written in 1870 by Hans Thunnison, the postmaster, explains conditions:
We have but a small settlement of 90 families. The grasshoppers preyed heavily upon us the last years. The losses sustained from them and the burdens we had to endure during the Black Hawk War were equally severe, but we are improving. Our fields at present look barren and desolate, except about 250 acres planted with wheat, mostly late grain, which looks very promising and will, we hope--with addition of peas, potatoes, corn, etc., all of which appear to be doing well--suffice to feed the inhabitants of this place for the coming year.
A new rock schoolhouse 24 x 24 feet will soon be finished. With the good road now made up Twelve Mile Canyon we expect an abundant supply of lumber. The people appear to be well generally, the weather is fine and as soon as the grasshoppers get wings they take their flight to other parts.
On the 19th of February 1871, Kirstine and John were blessed with twin daughters, which they named Amelia and Emma Eliza. Unfortunately, these little spirits weren't long for this life for on the 14 of April 1871 Emma Eliza died and Amelia joined her twin on May 7,1871.
On September 28, 1871, John and Hannah filed a mutual petition for divorce, which was granted. Hannah received custody of their two daughters, Hannah, age six, and Maria, age four, as well as a property settlement. On May 13, 1872, a daughter was born to John and Kirstine, whom they named Victoria ... but in August Victoria died. On December 24, 1873, a son named Christian Louis joined the growing Sorensen clan.
In 1874, John began farming in an area that eventually became known as Mayfield. Kirstine and the children remained in Gunnison during this time. On December 26, 1875, Kirstine gave birth to a son she named Sanders after her father. He died the same day he was born. Sanders was the last child born in Gunnison, for the family moved to Mayfield in the spring of 1876. It is possible that John and Kirstine were called by church authorities to Mayfield to participate in the newly organized United Order [a communal society], for they settled on the north side of the creek where it was being practiced. On the south side of the creek, another settlement was established by English immigrants who had moved from Ephraim. The settlement was called New London and they had a separate ward and bishopric until 1877 when the two settlements were combined.
During the rigors of moving, Kirstine was pregnant. She worked throughout the summer and fall to build a home. In addition to caring for her family and helping with hard work, she waged a constant war on lizards, snakes, and rodents that would share her dwelling in spite of all she could do. On November 9, 1876, Kirstine gave birth to her eleventh child, a daughter named Ricka Malinda [my grandmother].
In the newly emerging community, settlers found a need for recreation. In a delightful nook on a bend of the creek, all of the trees, shrubs, and turf were cleared of dead branches and a bowery was built. In this beautiful little park, called the Grove, both aesthetic and practical needs were satisfied. Meetings and socials were held in the bowery, picnics and games were enjoyed in the shade of the tall cottonwoods, and the "old swimming hole," screened by squaw berries and birch, provided pleasure on hot summer days. Here the family water barrel, mounted on a two-wheeled cart in summer and a bobsled in winter, was filled as needed from the creek. Baptisms were also performed here.
Brigham Young dedicated the Manti Temple site on April 25, 1877. The Twelve Mile (Mayfield) residents counted the milestones from twelve to one as they plodded by ox team to witness the groundbreaking ceremonies.
The United Order was disbanded in 1877 and sometime thereafter Kirstine and John moved to the south side of the creek and built a home. Four children were born to John and Kirstine in the next five years. Their twelfth child, David was born on January 4, 1879. A daughter named Ephalone was born May 27, 1881, and died on June 8, 1881. Louis was born August 27, 1882, and died a scant two and a half months later on November 2,1882. Joseph Alma was born December 5, 1883. On December 17, 1885.
Kirstine died in childbirth [ten days short of her twenty-third wedding anniversary, and the child also died]. Her married daughter, Mary Ann, helped her mother in her struggle, but to no avail. At the age of forty-two, Kirstine Sandersen Sorensen left this life as she had lived it, struggling. She was buried in the Mayfield Cemetery, but unfortunately the location of her grave and the graves of her babies is unknown.
Apparently the original grave marker, assuming there ever was one, was made of wood and disintegrated. The cemetery records do not chronicle where Kirstine was buried, only that she was interred. Long after her death, a grandson had a granite marker for her placed next to his family plot. I can hear my Aunt Blanche, were she alive today, cursing John Sorensen for not putting a permanent marker on his wife's grave at the time of her death, one more insult to her. But how do we know what his feelings were at the time; perhaps he was overcome by grief, perhaps even by guilt and remorse. Without a diary or memoir, what can we know? No picture of Kirstine exists that I have been able to locate, so I cannot even visualize her appearance.
Considering the beliefs about the importance of raising posterity, was Kirstine a willing partner in the conception of sixteen children, children she believed would be hers "on the other side of the veil? Was this "the why of so many children? Did Kirstine and her husband rejoice in each birth; and after the death of each child, did Kirstine long for a new baby to fill the void, one to cradle in her empty arms, to nestle at her breast? Did she feel blessed to be free of the scourge of biblical women who begged for a cure for barrenness: Sarah before she bore Isaac, Hannah before she bore Samuel, Elisabeth prior to delivering John? Did Kirstine consider herself a handmaiden of the Lord as well as the wife of John Sorensen? And finally, did the women who lived in those small cabins visible in the photograph of Nauvoo consider themselves handmaidens of the Lord, finding Nauvoo beautiful because of their fulfilled calling to multiply and replenish the earth?
Family Members
Siblings
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