|
| Related Stories | Condensed from the book "A Journey Back in Time" by Mary Olson Almond | |
Children
|
THE OLSONS Unlike the Twitchells, almost all of our other ancestors heard the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ in their own country before coming to America. In some ways their hardships and sacrifices were greater. They gave up their friends, sometimes their relatives, their homes, and their possessions. This was so about my father's folks, the Olsons. My father, Charles Frederick Olson, was born April 28, 1863, in Ungsjo, Christianstad, Sweden, and was the son of Margretha Nelson and John Nils Per Olson. He was only three years old when he sailed the wide Atlantic ocean in a squeaky, condemned ship on his way to America. The ship was the old Kenilworth with Captain Joseph S. Rawlins at the helm. Little Charlie left his native land before he was old enough to remember. Because he was so young, he could not understand why they had left home. Later he learned they had joined the true Church and were on their way to Utah. There must have been a great lonely feeling that crept over his parents as they thought of all their beloved possessions they were leaving behind--possessions, friends, and relatives. Nevertheless, they found themselves like driftwood in the great ocean, with only the old unsafe wooden ship between them and the new land they so much wanted to share. Indeed, the old insecure ship was their only hope of life itself, as well as the realization of their cherished dreams of reaching Zion. Being in the middle of such a vast ocean was not their only fear. Would they be accepted in a strange new land? Would the saints in Utah be friendly to them? Well, they now had the precious gospel that they would have in common with their new neighbors, and they intended to try hard to adapt to a new way of life. As little Charlie's mother sat in fear and wonder, she thought of the things she had done in Sweden: she remembered how she used to take little Charlie, her youngest, down on the Baltic shore to scrub him clean. One time after his cold bath in sea water, she put him in one of the big brick ovens that was still warm from baking bread, to warm him. There was no fire in the big brick oven. It was just nice and warm. The oven was used by many in the community, and while Margretha was relaxing for a few minutes, someone came along and built a fire to bake bread. Suddenly Margretha sprang to her feet and grabbed her baby, and sighed to herself, "what a close call." She was thinking of many other things she had done in Sweden. She very likely thought of the scenery there. I imagine she recalled the happy days of her courtship and marriage; there was the joy of rearing her four children; the pleasure of the companionship of her friends. But she was very anxious to get her children to America, so that they could grow up to be true Latter-day Saints in Zion. In those days before the Church had stakes all over the world as it does now, Salt Lake City and Utah were all the Zion there was. This gentle mother, Margretha, had a lot of pluck and fortitude; she was ill when they left Sweden, being pregnant with her 5th child. She was very seasick all the way across the ocean. They were four months and six days on the entire trip. It took one month and three weeks to go from Germany to New York. It took two months and two weeks to cross the plains. "They left Germany May 23, 1866; landed in New York July 17, 1866, and arrived in Salt Lake Valley October 1, 1866." As I have told you, Margretha was pregnant, and in New York she had a very bad fall. Where they stayed in New York, was on the 2nd floor of a hotel with a tall stairway outside of the building to climb up to enter their rooms. Once inside, on the same wall as the outside door, was another door to a bathroom (Oh, not plumbed). When Margretha got up in the night to go to the bathroom, she opened the wrong door--the outside door--and fell to the ground. She would not let her husband, Grandpa John Nils, call a doctor, for they had just enough money left to buy the wagon and supplies they needed to cross the plains. When he suggested that he could work for a while, she would not agree to that, for she felt if anything happened to her that she died, he would not get the children to Salt Lake City--the only Zion there was back then. He believed the Church was true, but had not been baptized. The hardships that my father's mother, Margretha, had to endure crossing the plains proved too much for her. When they got as far as where Nebraska is now, she died, leaving motherless her little boy, Charlie, three years old, and her three older children. (John, fifteen years old, Andrew twelve years old, and Mary, seven years old). A crude coffin was fashioned of boards taken from the wagon box, and as they carried her away, little Charlie never forgot how he had to stay behind by the wagon with his sister, Mary. We never did find a picture of Margretha. My mother, Celinda Twitchell Olson gave me a picture of Margretha's mother, Hannah Olson--my father's grandmother. As they journeyed on they had trouble now and then, but once, when they were fixing the wheel of the wagon, the prop holding the wagon up, fell. The axle of the wagon that holds the wheels together, fell on Andrew's neck. He was hurt badly, but they went on the best they could. His neck was broken, and grew stiff. All his life he could not turn his neck. He had to turn his head by turning his shoulders also. He was only about 40 years old when he died. Maybe you have wondered about the name of Charlie's father, John Nils Per Olson. This is the explanation: Per Olson and Karna Johnson had a pair of twin boys named Nils and John. When they were nine years old John died. Nils was broken hearted; he thought so much of his twin brother. When Nils was grown and married he named his first son, John, after his twin brother, and he named him Nils after himself, so his son was John Nils, and he called him John Nils. All of his other children had the last name of Nilson, as was the custom, except John Nils who took for his last name, when he came to America, the name of his grandfather, Per Olson, which made the name John Nils Per Olson. So now, we see my grandfather's name written, John Nils Per Olson, (which is right). People writing genealogy records, who do not know the story, write his name John Nils Person Olson, and even John Nilson Person Olson. After arriving in Utah, John Nils Per Olson, my grandfather, found he could not manage to care for the children and earn a living too, so the two older boys earned their own way. Mary went to live at the home of Bishop Ruben Miller, and Charlie was given to a family by the name of Colburn at Peterson, Utah. John Nils worked in Peterson, Utah, but lived about two miles from the Colburns. When little Charlie was just passed three years old, one of the big Colburn girls gave him a spanking because he accidentally wet his pants. As a result, he ran away and went back to his father's house. He told me of how desperate he was and how brave he had to be to walk across a very high, long footbridge, over the Weber river. From then on Charlie lived with his father, who had married Harriet Burl, so Charlie had a stepmother. Charlie's father John Nils Per Olson was baptized November 4, 1866, just one month after they arrived in Salt Lake City. Later, John Nils and wife, Harriet, and Charlie moved to South Jordan. John Nils had his Patriarchal Blessing in Taylorsville, Utah. He had his first wife, Margretha and his second wife, Harriet, sealed to him in the Endowment House on the same day, May 31, 1869, three years after arriving in Salt Lake City. Sometime later he went to Idaho and lived for several years. He lived in a small town, Portage, Utah just south of Malad, Idaho for a while. It was there that his son, Charles Olson and wife Celinda with their baby twin girls, Mable and Margaret, visited John Nils and his wife and family and that was the last time they saw him. John Nils then moved to Soda Springs, Idaho. He died in Soda Springs, Idaho on May 5, 1905 and was buried there. John Nils had a sister, Kjirsti Nilson Swenson, who lived in and around Salt Lake City. My folks called her Auntie Swenson. She was baptized in Sweden in 1863, after Margretha was baptized. Auntie Swenson was very well off financially. Many years later she left a will dividing her wealth among her own children and also among her brother, John Nils's children. There was so much disagreement about the will that it was contested in court for a long time, until the lawyers got most of the money. My father had predicted that this would happen, as he stayed out on the ranch and laughed at them. I believe he received five hundred dollars. My father's brothers, John N. Olson, and Andrew Olson, filled missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Sweden. They found and visited their grandfather, Nils Person, and great-grandfather, Per Olson, and taught them the Gospel. Both grandfathers accepted it, but didn't understand why they should come to Utah, and said they thought they were too old and would finish the rest of their lives there in Sweden. |