Christen Olesen

  Generelle notater:

Han blev født den 8 marts 1862, døbt i kirken den 20 juli 1862, søn af gårdmand Ole Thomsen og hustru Mette Cathrine Bertelsdatter, 33 år i Vesterby.
Faddere: husmand Niels Bertelsens kone bar drengen, gårdmand Søren Thomsens kone fulgte med, gårdmand Søren Thomsen af Østerby samt husmand Niels Bertelsen, ibid og Christen Jensen Gjøl i Vesterby.
(Kilde: Øland kirkebog 1854 - 1874, opslag 19, Hjørring amt).

Christen Olesen Thompson was born in Oland Hjorring Denmark, March 8, 1862. He was the sixth child of Ole Thompson (Thomassen on Danish records) and Mette Katrine Bertelsen. "Are you ready for this?" Granmother had fourteen children.
My father Christen displayed musical ability so grandfather gave him a violin and sent him to a teacher, however he only had a few lessons as grandfather died and father being the oldest son had to help earn their living.
Grandfather Ole died in 1874. he was fifty-three years old and grandmother was forty-five.
Father remembered attending the Lutheran church and sometimes the Methodist church.
In 1877 grandmother married Niels Christian Nielsen. He was fifteen years younger than grandmother. (some grandmother)
Grandmother's oldest child Annie Marie married and with her husband immigrated to America making their home in Augusta, Wisconsin. Their first child was born in August 1879. They remained in Augusta. My brother, Berthel, visited them in 1911. I think grandmother and husband came to America a little later, about 1880.
Niels Nielsen was a good man, bringing grandmother's sons, Christen, Peter, Soren and Ole, also her daughter Olena to America with them. The rest of the family had died as small children.
Many of Niels Nielsen's relatives live around here and they are all intelligent, as well as prosperous peoples.
The family came west seeking employment. They came to Hyrum in 1882, acquired land and a home. Father and Uncle Peter both worked on the Northern Pacific Railroad in Montana in 1883. My mother also worked in Bozeman, Montana as a cook or waitress for the working men. She was just a young girl. I'm not sure if that is where they first became acquainted.
Father use to tell me that mother (print to faded to copy), located on a ranch in blacksmith fork canyon some 20 miles east of Hyrum. Father would walk all the way up the ranch to visit my Mother Annie. The girls working there were all carefully chaperoned, some as while in Montana.
Father also worked in Idaho building canals. He was a good carpenter and cabinet maker. He could saw or hammer with either right or left hand equally well.
Father and his brothers and ssister Olena were all converted to the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Father in 1884.
Father and mother, Annie Christina Johnson were married in the Logan Temple in 1887. They were blessed with 10 children. The oldest, a girl, died from diphtheria when she was four years old. The next two boys died in infancy. The five sons, Berthel, Joy, Ariel, Marion and Elmer. After seven sons, I'm sure I was a welcome Christmas gift. Mother died following the birth of another girl (stillborn).
Father had a general store on east main street in Hyrum. Between customers he would practice his violin and one winter he taught himself to play the clarinet. He also built coffins for people and hired an expert to paint them, some were covered with plush.
Shortly after 1990 he attended the St. Louis College of Embalming so he could make better conditions in the south end of the valley when there were deaths. People gradually accepted the idea of having the dead embalmed. At first father had a horse hearse, later a modern funeral car.
He played his violin (fiddle) for many dances and socials. Fiddling old time music. Polkas, (heal and toe) mazurkas, quadrillen, schottische and how they loved to waltz to the strains of "The Blue Danube" and "Over the Waves". He played his clarinet with the Hyrum Band, formed in 1900 with 14 members.
In 1906, father returned to Denmark as a missionary for his church. He made several converts, some of whom I met as a girl. While he was away his sister Olena died, also his father-in-law which was a difficult experience for my mother. Father had just returned home when his mother died at the age of 79. She outlived her husband by a few years.
Mother died August 17, 1909, leaving father with 6 children; the oldest 18 years, youngest 4 1/2 years. Grandmother Johnson came to help with the children. Father had a woman come to do the washings and ironing.
In 1911, father married again. A Swedish lady, Clara Djerf Sventzer Shaw. She spoke quite broken English and Swedish. Father was her third husband. She had two daughters, Lottie and Lydia.
I seemed to be the only one of the eight children made happy by the marriage; however, in a short time her daughters accepted father and my brothers accepted her. When father married again, my brother Berthel was a missionary to the North Easter States. Before returning home he went to embalming school. After he returned home he would escort our step-sister Lydia to all the meetings. As a result she quit her boyfriend and he gave up his former girlfriend. he went to work as a mortician for Stohl Furniture and undertaking at Brigham City. They said he was to represent their business place in Malad, Idaho, so he proposed to Lydia by letter and their first home was in Malad. They were married for almost sixty-two years.
I remember father would have us kneel in prayer just before the evening meal as we all seemed to be together at that time.
In 1916, Hyrum citizens built a beautiful dance pavilion. Father did a good deal of important carpentry work there. The pavilion had the only spring floor in the State of Utah and soon became the best dance hall in the State. A huge sign "Home of the Silver Players" painted across the north end could be seen from far and near. Father played the clarinet with the Silver Players. They played to dances throughout the valley and southern Idaho almost every week night. Sometimes Salt Lake City's leading dance band would come to the Elite Hall and there would be continuous dancing, with Salt Lake Band in one end of the pavilion balcony and Silver Players at the other end.
I can still picture father in winter bundled in a big brown fur coat with wool scarf and gloves, but always derby hat. His health wasn't good. He had a heart condition. Father was pleased with his family. He worried a good deal when two of his sons, Ariel and Marion were serving in World War !.
By 1924, Elmer had to miss many of his classes at the University in Logan to assist father when there were funerals.
By winter 1925, father wasn't able to care for his business and Berthel would come over from Brigham City where he was employed as a mortician and with Elmer's help managed father's business.
Father died suddenly September 24, 1926 in the morning. It was his request that my husband, baby and me spend a couple hours with him the night before and when we were ready to leave, father said, "I have a new record, play it before you go home." The record was "Lay My Head Beneath a Rose."
Side note, above taken and copied from Aunt Anona's typed record. I loved her and enjoyed our visits when we traveled to her home in Wellsville.

The "Manuscript History of the Scandinavian Mission" (see LDS Church Archives, SLC, UT) for Sunday, April 12, 1908 reports: “On this and the preceding day a conference of the Aalborg Conference was held in the new L.D.S. Chapel in Valdemarsgade 2 in Aalborg, attended by Mission President Soren Rasmussen, Elders John A. Olsen and Oluf J. Andersen of the ‘Scandinaviens Stjerne’ office and Hans F. Jensen and Newman Beck from the Copenhagen Conference. Conference President Charles Jensen from the Aarhus Conf and the twenty-three elders from Zion laboring in the Aalborg Conference including Conference President Hyrum J. Jensen. The reports given by the several branch presidents showed progress during the past six months, fourteen persons had been added to the Church by baptism. Good work had been done in the Sunday School organizations, in which 103 children belonging to non-Mormon parents were enrolled. Splendid discourses were delivered by Pres. Soren Rasmussen… and other Elders from Zion. A Priesthood meeting was held on Monday, April 13th and a sacrament meeting held in the evening of the same day, at which the authorities of the church and mission were sustained and the following appointments of Elders made in the Aalborg Conference. Hyrum J. Jensen was sustained as president of the Aalborg Conference and of the Aalborg Branch, Sister Ingeborg Olesen as secretary, and Simon Christensen as traveling Elder in the Aalborg Conference. Erastus Christensen, Christen O. Thompson, J.C. Nielsen, James P. Rasmussen, George Sidney Schow were appointed to labor in the Aalborg Branch; Ole C. Larsen… in the Frederikshavn Branch;… and Andrew Olsen… in the Hadsund District. On Tuesday evening, April 14th, the M.I.A. held their conference, and a farewell party with a good program closed the conference gatherings on Wednesday evening, April 15th.”

In a letter home to his wife, Caroline, Erastus Christensen recorded, "Now dear conferanse is over, we have had the best time that I have ever had here--a fine time; all good meetings a good spiret; we have had five days of it. My dear my name was the first one chosen to labor here in the city so I will be here untill I am relased. Nearly all the saints and friends came and shuck my hand and exspresed their gladness for me, and wished me success. We have the same Pres. Their was some changes out in the branches. I expect to be released in the faul conferanse. I did not ask but the Pres asked me if I thought I could stand it now untill we have winter and told him I could stand summer. Now bro Chas Jensen has been here and Ole Larsen. We have had a good time; they both send regards to you. They ar now both up to Skagen the north point of Denmark. Franklin is here also. He is p[la]ying the organ now while I am writing; he sends hilsen... Now dear their ar so many here and I have it all to look after, our Pres is also up to Skagen and their 15 Elders here and they all come and aske me about every thing; it is hard to write. I will write soon again and tell more. (Letter of 17 April 1907 as found in Nelson, Brent L. & Brenda K. Nelson. "All Our Hopes Are In You: The Lives of Erastus Christensen, Caroline Anderson Christensen & Cleo Anderson Nelson, in Letters and Other Writings, 1881-1981," CC Nelson, Sr.: Riverton, UT, 2003, pp. 129-130.)

  Begivenheder i hans liv:

• Bopæl, 1870, Øland, Øster Han, Hjørring, Danmark.

• Konfirmation, 23 Apr. 1876, Øland, Hjørring, Danmark.

• Indvandring, 1880.

• Konfirmation, 23 Apr. 1876, Øland, Hjørring, Denmark.

• Bopæl, 1900, Hyrum, Cache, Utah, United States.

• Bopæl, 1920, Hyrum, Cache, Utah, United States.

• Dåb, 7 Aug. 1884.

• Bopæl, 1910, Hyrum, Cache, Utah, United States.

• Mission, 1906, Scandinavia.

• Obituary, 28 Sep. 1926, Utah, United States.

Christen blev gift med Anna Christine Johansen den 5 Jan. 1887 i Logan, Cache, Utah, United States. (Anna Christine Johansen blev født den 29 Jul. 1868 i Frederiksberg, København, Danmark, dåb den 11 Okt. 1868 i Frederiksberg, København, Danmark, døde den 17 Aug. 1909 i Hyrum, Cache, Utah, United States og blev begravet i 1909 i Hyrum, Cache, Utah, United States.)

Christen blev derefter gift med Clara Christina Djerf den 18 Okt. 1911 i Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, United States. (Clara Christina Djerf blev født den 10 Jul. 1863 i Vestra Harg, Østergotland, sverige, døde den 28 Jun. 1940 i Oakland, Alameda, Californien, USA og blev begravet i Hyrum, Cache, Utah, USA.)