Soren and Kirsten Jacobson Jensen Family Photos and History

Hans Jakobsen and Maren Hansen

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Soren and Kirsten Jacobson Jensen

I never did know much about Soren and Christena. A while later, I typed up an interview report of Eddie Jacobson where he answered some specific questions about his life. He said that as a young boy of eleven, he received permission to visit his aunt and uncle: "I was eleven (11) years old, my parants desided to let me go to Provo to stay with my Uncle Soren and Aunt Christena Jensen. I got on the train at Leamington, with Fredic R. Lyman as my guardian. he was going to Salt Lake for April Confrience. I stayed in Provo until October. Then I Came home with George Finlinson who was coming home from Salt Lake October Confrence." [Referenced in the April 2005 Newsletter, Vol. 1 No. 4.] This would have been in 1896.

I wondered about Soren and Christena over the years. I did not know anything about their family. They obviously had children (or a child), but there was nothing in my records or any mention of them from the family over the years. I did have a birth and death date for him, so I decided to try looking him up in the Provo Daily Herald newspaper at the time of his death in 1932. I found an obituary. I work in the Marriott Library of the University of Utah and could easily look this up in the microfilms there. I also found a similar obituary in the Deseret News:

Obituary - June 30, 1932, Deseret News [differences in the one from the Provo Daily Herald on June 29 are in brackets]:
Provo - Soren Jensen died Tuesday morning at the Utah county infirmary [from infirmities incident to old age]. He was born in Denmark, January 27, 1844 and came to this country in 1887. For a number of years he served as caretaker [gardener] of the Stake tabernacle grounds.
None of his children are living, but he is survived by several grandchildren. Services will be held Saturday at 1:30 p.m. in the Sixth Ward chapel. Friends may call at the ward chapel at 1 P.M. on the day of the services. Interment will be in the Provo Cemetery [under the direction of the Deseret Mortuary].

Soren actually came to America in 1867. I found the following records about the immigration of the family and Soren:

Maren Jacobsen 48 Widow Sealands Page 2
Kirsten Jacobsen 26 Children
Ole Jacobsen 14
Hans P. Rasmussen 23 Farmer
Jacob Hansen 24 Farmer
[Copenhagen Conf. 1867, Emig.S.M.- LDS Fam. Hist. film 025696]

Soren Jensen 22 Gartner Jutland
[Aarhus Conf. 1867, Emig.S.M.- film 025696]

According to the history of Ole Hansen Jacobson [Referenced in the October 2004 Newsletter, Vol. 1 No. 2.]:

"Ole, his mother, his sister Christina and husband Soren Jensen became very much interested in the message the Elders had for them. They soon became converted to the truthfulness of the Gospel and started to make preparations to come to Zion. In 1867 at the age of 14, Ole and his family left their native land with many other converts to sail for America.

" ... The Jacobson family first settled in Bear River, a small town near Brigham City. They also lived in Brigham City for a while. Ole had learned some about carpenter work in Denmark so he worked as an apprentice for a cabinet maker in Brigham City to help meet their living expenses."

According to the records of the church, Maren was baptized 28 Oct. 1866, a few months after her husband Hans Jakobsen died. Hans forbade her joining the church. Ole Hansen was baptized on 18 Oct. 1867 . Kirsten was baptized 4 March 1867 . The then came to America.

The family settled first in Bear River City, near Brigham City, probably shortly after Soren and Kirsten were married in the Endowment House on 28 Dec. 1867 . From Ole Hansen's history, we know he eventually moved to Provo, did some work in the Tintic mines and then Leamington and finally in Oak City. Maren ended up in Provo, because that is listed as her death place in 1893. There still was not much known of them.

Over the years, I still had some questions about Soren and Christena and their family. I did occasional searches when I could. I felt I needed to do something for them. I was not sure what it would be. Perhaps it was just curiosity on my part.

A few weeks ago, while searching for information about another ancestor of mine, it was brought to my attention that the University of Utah has a collection of digitized newspapers from early Utah. Some of these were produced by BYU and some by the U of U. While I was searching for information for the other ancestor, I thought I would try to look for anything concerning Soren Jensen. I came across the following newspaper clipping from the Deseret News (Issued 19 Feb. 1879):

"DIED
...
"In Brigham City, Feb 6, 1879, of diphtheria, SOREN PETER, son of Soren Jensen, born December 4, 1868.

"Also on February 8, 1879 of the same disease, FRITZ EMANUEL, son of Soren Jensen, born July 17, 1878.

"Also on February 9, 1879, the same disease, JOSEPH LORENZO, son of Soren Jensen, born Jan. 24, 1874.
"Scandinavia papers, please copy."

In the same paper, under "Local and Other Matters. From Friday's Daily, Feb. 14" it says:

"Diphtheria. - Bro. David Booth of Brigham City, writes to us concerning the ravages of diphtheria in that city, which is usually considered one of the healthiest places in the Territory. In another column appears the notices of the death of three children of Bro. Soren Jensen, all from this Frightful disease, and our correspondent writes that his remaining child is also very low. A child of President Oliver G. Snow also died and was buried on the 11th. Sickness among the children is very prevalent and it seems that in but few cases do the afflicted ones recover."

Now this all took me by surprise. What a tragedy! Was this indeed the same Soren Jensen of our family?

Next, I searched the census records of the 1870 Census and found the following:

Census of inhabitants of Bear River CIty, Box Elder County, Territory of Utah, July 9, 1870, page 3, Starting on line 18:

Jensen, Soren age 26 (he was born in 1844), farm laborer, born in Denmark, both parents of foreign birth.
-- Christina, age 30
-- Peter, age 1

These matched Soren and Christena in age and location. It showed that they had a son Peter, probably the same Soren Peter mentioned in the newspaper article, because, having been born in February 1869, he would have been 1 year old. One puzzle, but yet interesting is that in the same household in the census record are listed two others:

Mortinsen, Mary, age 51, born in Denmark, both parents of foreign birth.
-- Ole, age 17, also born in Denmark with foreign parents.

Now why the name is listed as Mortinsen is unknown, but the ages match exactly mother Maren Hansen and Ole Hansen Jacobson. It is known that Maren was with her family in Bear River City at this time as was Ole Hansen. This is likely them. I researched the LDS church records for Brigham City and Bear River City of the time and could find no reference to any of the family. This also included baptisms records.

I also looked into the Danish LDS records for 1865 and found an entry for Soren Jensen as baptized on 15 Oct. 1865. This matches information found in the Family History Library IGI for him. Some places it lists his birthplace as "Uland," but in one place it lists his birthplace as Harlev, Aarhus, Denmark. As listed in the emigration records, he is from Jutland, which is the main peninsula of Denmark, and it would have been pronounced "Yoo- land" which could easily have been spelled Uland. This might be him. It is possible that this is the same Soren Jensen as the person who came in the emigration in 1867 with the Jacobson family.

Also found in the Family History records is Annena Christena Jensen, daughter of Soren and Christine Jensen, born 22 Apr. 1872. From other records, I believe this should be 22 April 1871. This fits well within the family of Soren and Christena Jensen:

Soren Peter - b. 4 Dec. 1868
Annena - b. 22 Apr. 1871
Joseph Lorenzo - b. 24 Jan. 1874
Fritz Emanuel - b. 17 July 1878

The records also show Annena being married to Christian Simon Rasmussen with 4 children: Mabel, Reaphy, Effie and Raymond.

The 1880 census for either Bear River City or Provo show nothing of the family, that I could find. The 1890 census is mostly missing, but the 1900 census brings all this together:

Provo Precinct, Utah County, state of Utah, Ward 2, sheet 2, lines 4 June 1900, bottom two lines:

Jensen, Soren - birth month/year: Jan 1844, married 32 years, born in Denmark, immigrated in 1867.
-- , Christina - birth month/year: Oct 1840, married 32 years, born in Denmark, immigrated in 1867. Mother of 4 children, 1 living.

Provo Precinct, Utah County, state of Utah, Ward 5th, sheet 38, lines 22 June 1900, starting with line 55 (5th line of the page):

Rasmussen, Christian - birth month/year: April 1863, married 10 years, born in Denmark, immigrated in 1876
-- , Annena - birth month/year: April 1871, married 10 years, born in Utah, parents bron in Denmark. Mother of 4 children, 4 living.
-- , Maybell C. - birth month/year: Sept. 1890, single, born in Utah, father born in Denmark, mother in Utah.
-- , Reaphy S. - birth month/year: March. 1893, single, born in Utah, father born in Denmark, mother in Utah.
-- , Effie V. - birth month/year: Dec. 1896, single, born in Utah, father born in Denmark, mother in Utah.
-- , Raymond - birth month/year: May 1898, single, born in Utah, father born in Denmark, mother in Utah.

Later, in the 1930 Census for Chino, California, we find Christian Rasmussen with his son, Raymond and also includes another daughter, Florence, age 29 with her son, Robert L. West, age 4 years, 5 months (census taken April 2, 1930).

In searching the Deseret News for 1910, we find the obituary for Annie C. Rasmussen:

Obituary Deseret news 1910-06-22 p3
"Rasmussen, Annie C. - At the family residence in the Sixth Ward, Provo, Utah county, Utah. Mrs. Annie C. Rasmussen, wife of C. S. Rasmussen, died June 21, from blood poisoning, following an attack of quincey. She was born in Bear River City, Boxelder county, Utah, April 22, 1871, but has lived in Provo the greater part of her life. She leaves her husband and seven children, and her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Soren Jensen of Provo city."

Apparently, we are still missing one of her children.

So now we have the details of the family and the photos. Soren and Christena Jensen moved to Provo, probably shortly after the death of their 3 sons. Their daughter Annena must have met and married Christian Simon Rasmussen in the latter part of 1889. She then died in 1910. By the time of the photograph in June 1925, all four of their children had died. The three others in the second photo were their oldest granddaughter Mabel and two of her daughters. I don't know who those daughters are, but Mabel Hanson's obituary lists two surviving daughters and one son at the time of her death on July 26, 1990: Leona Fern Foust and Annena Faye Jeppson. The son is Ronald C. Hanson.

From all this it appears that those in the photograph are Soren and Christine, Mabel, Leona and Faye. In working through this whole process, I was able to find three children who were previously unknown, one of the sons needing temple work. Soren Peter may have been baptized, but no record can be found. Since he was only 10 when he died, He was accountable and needs his temple work done. That can now be accomplished.