. . . my parents and youngest sister arrived in Utah all O.K., and settled in West Jordan. President Schade of our conference also sailed on the same ship as my mother, and President Gertsen took his place. He and my mother were raised and went to school together in the same little country town by the name of Wherring, Denmark, and he told Annie and I that Brother Jensen had married our mother, expecting to marry her daughters also. We couldn't believe that, but however his statement came true in time. Mother was 16 years his senior to the day, both being born July 19.
We children did not have to wait a year as some of Mother's friends from Parowan sent money for her emigration, not knowing she had already emigrated with what was called the first emigration. So my sister Annie and I came with the last emigration from Odense three months after Mother had left.
We left on August 25, 1874 at 4:00 p.m. along with a few other passengers, but not a soul we knew. Just imagine two kiddies like us starting out on such a journey. The boat or sailing vessel had not gone very far from land when I got seasick. There were three fat steers on board and just a wooden picket fence between their heels and where I fell and lay there until nearly six o'clock the next morning. I was so deathly sick, laying there on the bare floor vomiting, and almost straining my life out. I couldn't raise my head, not a pillow or a mat under me and everybody saying "just as well throw that child out in the sea first as last, for she will never live to see Utah" and just imagine my poor little sister pulling and tugging at me trying to drag me away from the heels of the cattle, scared to death that they would kick and kill me. But I was too sick to care or even to think, so I lay there at the heels of the cattle on the rough dirty floor from about 5 p.m. until the next morning when we got close to land. Then my seasickness began wearing off. We reached Copenhagen between 6 and 7 a.m. August 24, and remained there a day and a night when the Mormon emigrants from Norway and Sweden joined us. The day we spent in sightseeing, visiting Thorvaldsen Museum, and other beautiful places in the beautiful city of Denmark's Copenhagen, its capital. Then we started on the North Sea. It took us three days and nights to cross it. We landed at Hull, England and took the train for Liverpool. We had to go through long tunnels and I remember being frightened almost out of my senses. It took us over thirty minutes to go through some and I thought we would never see light again. While standing around waiting for the baggage men to haul all those trunks, bedding, and luggage off the ship to the train, and off the train again into the big ocean liner, I could not for the life of me imagine how they could understand each other, but now I understand. I was only a child then with the understanding of a child. Children raised in large cities in Denmark were very innocent. Then we left Liverpool, got on board the great large ship, and started across the Atlantic Ocean, which took us fourteen days to cross, and nearly all the time we saw nothing but the great ship with its load plowing through the great waters and the blue sky above you. During the days when the weather was fair we would be [p.8] permitted under the lifesaving boats, which were launched all around the edge of the giant steamer, to be in the shade of the scorching sun. The top deck was flat with an iron railing all around. We were a long way up above the water and it was beautiful to stand by the railing, looking down on the great massive water below us. There was kind of a lonely, longing feeling attached to it, but when the sea was rough we were supposed to stay in our own quarters where we belonged. That was way down at the bottom of the ship. As I told you, we came as third class, the same as animals, so we were down in the dungeon, (you might call it,) like a great long loft in a barn only so much larger than anyone can comprehend who hasn't been there, with two long narrow tables and benches on each side of the tables so that made four benches, all stationary, nailed solid. Then at the side was our bunks, just rough lumber, nailed up like big square boxes one above another. Three or four could lay side by side. The older people generally occupied the lower bunks and the younger ones had to step on the lower ones and crawl up in the top ones. Oh no, we didn't have springs or mattress to lie on. Some had their feather beds, but even they got awfully hard. We had to furnish our own bedding, but we were advised not to take anything we did not absolutely have to have as we were pretty much all poor and could not afford to pay excess baggage charges, and of course, when we got to Utah everything would be fine and dandy. At mealtimes after we got our ration, as I have said, we had to stand in rows to get our allotment, but then we would go to the table and eat like real human beings. Sometimes the ship would start rocking like a cradle from one side to the other and if we were at the table eating we would often tip over backwards and go on the floor, as there were no backs to our benches, to say nothing about rocking chairs, or upholstered cushions. Our potatoes, tin plates and cups would also go rolling and for the scramble to catch them. For believe me, we were hungry. We would have been thankful to eat what people now throw out. Well, I remember one day I was going up on the middle deck. The sea was rough so we were not permitted on the top deck or it would surely have been the last of us, as the ship rolled from side to side, laying on one side and then on the other. Of course, they had trap doors fastened down tight so the water could not get into the ship. The middle deck was where the first and second class passengers lived like human beings in nicely furnished rooms or apartments. The kitchens were on that floor also and there were great long aisles for us to go through after we climbed a ladder from our quarters to get to the middle deck, or what they called the middle deck, which was like a great large room. I came through one of those long aisles which was like a long, narrow hall with doors all the way leading into the rooms and kitchens. The hall, or aisle, was narrow just so two could pass each other. When I got to the end I stood there bracing myself and watching a poor elderly lady roll from one side of the ship to the other, and quite a number of the crew trying their best to catch her. The dear old soul was crying for help, but the ship rolled so that not even the crew dared let go of their holding. She rolled back and forth several times before some of the crew finally reached her.
After two weeks on the ocean, we landed in New York all safe and sound. Not even I was thrown overboard, as so many predicted I would be. We were on the train eight or nine days and nights from New York to Salt Lake City, Utah, sitting straight up in our seats unless we leaned on each other or lay in each others lap, as there were two in each seat and just the straw or wicker seats. We couldn't even get hold of a pillow. We landed in Salt Lake City on September 24, 1874. This is the way I came to Utah, but the many poor dear souls who came many years before me surely had hard times. Peace and blessings be unto their memories for they [p.9] deserve all they will ever get. . . . [p.10]
BIB: "History of a polygamist wife in Heber Valley..." (CHL). [Contains autobiography of Jensine Marie Jensen Moulton (Ms 5445, fd
. 1, pp. 8-10.)]
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