Mette Kirstine Jensen

  Generelle notater:

Hun blev født den 24 august 1850, datter af husmand og bødker Jens Gotfredsen og hustru Karen Jensdatter af Vestergaards Hede.
Ingen dåb nævnt i kirkebogen.
(Kilde: Jetsmark kirkebog 1844 - 1852, opslag 84, Hjørring amt).

History of Martha Christine Gottfredson
By Florence Tuft Sorenson

My mother, Martha Christine Gottfredson, was born Aug. 24, 1850 in Jutland Denmark. She was the daughter of Jens and Karen Jensen Gottfredson. Besides her mother and father, she had three brothers, Peter, Hans and Joseph. Christine (my mother)was next to the youngest of these four children and being the only girl she was always adored by her brother.

When mother was two, Grandfather moved to Aalborg Denmark, a city of considerable size. Here he worked at his trade of Cooper, making tube barrels and buckets.

Grandmother had come from a well to do family who always felt that she had married a poor man. They were owners of a large farm, so large that they kept two hired men and two hired girls. They had three teams of horses and a number of colts, six milk cows and some young cattle. They had a bunch of sheep (about thirty), several hogs, some chickens, ducks and geese. (I might note that even today this would be a large farm in Denmark. My son who was in Denmark on his mission said the farms were very small but so well cultivated and kept that every inch was utilized).

Although grandmothers folks did not approve of her marriage she was always welcome to bring Peter, Hans, Christine and Joseph to visit at the farm as long as she wished, in fact when Peter was seven she left him at the farm when she returned to Aalborg, because he was then old enough to earn his keep.

Grandfather Gottfredson’s family was first Lutherans and later Baptists, but they were later converted to the Mormon faith in 1850. That was the year of my Mothers birth so she was probably born in the church. From the time of their conversion they began to work and save so that they might immigrate to Zion. Toward the end of 1855 they decided they could make the trip, so grandfather walked twenty-four miles to his father in laws farm to get Peter, who was then nine. They walked the twenty-four miles back to Aalborg and in December of 1855 when my mother was five years old they set sail for America in a sailing vessel. They were eleven weeks crossing the ocean.

After reaching America they started west and made it as far as Alton, Illinois in March 1856. Here they were forced to stop, because of lack of means they could go no farther. Grandfather worked at any thing he could get to procure food for his family, at times they could scarcely exist. Four months later while still at Alton, Illinois, grandmother weary and undernourished, contracted what was then known as quick consumption, but is now called pneumonia, and died July 4th 1856. She was buried in Illinois.

Grandfather with his four children gradually made it as far west a St. Louis, Missouri. There grandfather met and married Karen Marie Pedersen Keilhede, also a Danish convert who had recently lost her husband en-route to Utah. This was in the fall of 1856. They went up the Missouri river to Florence, Nebraska and in the spring of 1857 they started for Utah with a handcart. They got as far as the South Platte river about 120 miles distant where grandmother gave premature birth to a baby girl. They blessed and name her Platine for the Platte river of which the South Fork river was a branch. The handcart company left our family there and travelled on to Utah.

Grandfather put step grandmother in the handcart and crossed back over the river and north to a small Mormon settlement called Jenoa where grandfather made a dug-out in the side of the hill. He left his wife and children there and walked to Omaha, which was about six miles south of Florence, to get work. The food supply was exhausted and since grandfather had no opportunity to send supplies the family subsisted for a month on wild grapes and plums, which were plentiful in the latter part of the summer.

Late in the fall step grandmother hired a man with an ox team to haul the family to Omaha, where they remained over the winter.

The following spring of 1858 a few Immigrants came from Denmark on the way to Utah. With them was step grandmothers sister and one Rasmus Olsen to whom she was engaged to be married when they reached Salt Lake. Olsen had some means and bought four yoke of oxen and a Shuttler wagon. They loaded all of their belongings and those of grandfather’s family and started for Utah. The men, women and children, and of whom was Christine now six, walked all the way. They arrived in Salt Lake in September of 1858. It had taken the Gottfredson family just two months less than three years to make the journey from Denmark to Utah.
Salt Lake, the Gottfredson family was called to go to settle Richfield, Sevier County. They were among pioneers there.

In the year 1865 the Black Hawk Indian war broke out and after a canal had been dug from the Sevier River and some grain had been planted the Indians stole Grandfathers team and stock, which left the family without much to do with.

Peter (mother’s brother) served in the Militia all summer and in the fall after danger from the Indians was over for that year, Peter and Hans being destitute for clothing went back as far as Mount Pleasant to get work. The following spring in 1866 Christine also went to Mount Pleasant. None of them returned home to stay after that.

Martha Christine Gottfredson married George Tuft April 10, 1871. They with another couple went by wagon team from Mt. Pleasant to Salt Lake, a distance of 120 miles, and were married in the old endowment house. They returned to Mt. Pleasant and built a two-room log house. Father was a farmer but during the winter months he worked at the Lumber Mills and in a few years he had the material to build the eight-room house, which became a home in every sense of the word, there in was unity, peace and love. Friends, neighbors and relatives were always welcome.

Ten children were born to Mother and Father, myself being the 9th - three sons and seven daughters, one son died in infancy.

Father died Dec. 1 1898, twenty-four hours after being stricken with appendicitis. Then diagnosed as inflammation of the bowels.

Mother at the age of forty-seven was left a widow with nine children, ranging from one married daughter to a babe in arms. Although she was left with means for their support, the task of rearing these children alone was indeed a big one. Her constant prayer was that her life would be spared until her children were grown.

Mother was a wonderful manager. Our home was well kept. We were all taught to do our share. She was a good cook - we were well fed. Mother was a beautiful seamstress so we were well dressed.

We were always encouraged to bring our friends home. Mother was always serving refreshments. She used to say jokingly, it took a lot of cake and ice cream to get my seven daughters married off.

It was not unusual to find mother and her seven daughters, married and single, at the same social function.

Mother found time to serve both church and community.

Her prayers were answered. She lived to see all of her children married and in their own homes.

Martha Christine Gottfredson Tuft died No. 18th, 1923, at the age of seventy-three.

The Life Summary of Mette Christine
When Mette Christine Gottfredson was born on 24 August 1850, in Jetsmark, Hvetbo, Hjørring, Denmark, her father, Jens Gottfredsen, was 40 and her mother, Karen Jensdatter, was 38. She married Phillip Borresen on 2 March 1867, in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah Territory, United States. She lived in Ålborg, Denmark in 1855 and Mount Pleasant Election Precinct, Sanpete, Utah, United States in 1900. She died on 18 November 1923, in Mount Pleasant, Sanpete, Utah, United States, at the age of 73, and was buried in Mount Pleasant City Cemetery, Mount Pleasant, Sanpete, Utah, United States.

  Begivenheder i hendes liv:

• Religion: Baptized-The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Okt. 1856.

• Indvandring, 20 Sep. 1858, Utah, United States.

• Religion: Endowed-The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 2 Mar. 1867.

• Bopæl, 1880, Mount Pleasant, Sanpete, Utah, United States.

• Indvandring, 13 Sep. 1857, Utah, United States.

• Religion: Sealed to parents-The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 25 Okt. 1888, Manti Utah Temple, Manti, Sanpete, Utah, United States.

• Bopæl, 1900, ED 128 Mt. Pleasant Precinct Mt. Pleasan city, Sanpete, Utah, United States.

• Bopæl, 1910, Mt Pleasant, Sanpete, Utah, United States.