Transcript
Transcript for Christensen, Christiana Thomsen, Reminiscences, as told to Ida J. Romney, in "Christensen Family Book of Remembrance, Main Lines Niels C. Christensen, Anthony Christensen, Annie C. Anderson," ed. N. La Verl Christensen [1957], 26
Their first thought was to come to Zion. The Father [Soren Thomsen] and Mother [Mette Marie Thomsen] and six children, with other saints, started the long journey to Utah. They were many weeks crossing the Atlantic in a sailing vessel.
When they left Denmark, Mina [Thomine Christine Thomsen] had hardly recovered from a severe case of measles. She was the second to the oldest of the six Thompson children and took a great deal of the responsibility. At the station where they were to take the train as far west as they could, she took the keg to go get water for the children, and the train left her. She ran and ran down the track until she fell exhausted. She was picked up and taken care of until the next train. She joined the company again before it started across the plains, but the worry and exhaustion had been too much for her. She was sick and unable to walk as the others did.
Grandma [Christiana Thomsen] remembered that the family had four cook stoves in the wagon. They had agreed to carry them for other people.
On these stoves the parents made a bed for the sick Mina. One night when the father lifted her from the wagon into the tent, she said she could hear singing and she joined in the singing of hymns. The next day she was dead. They buried her in a shallow grave and moved on with the company.
Another thing Grandma remembers so distinctly was that Pres. Anthony Lund, who was a young unmarried man at that time, walked across the plains with a young woman named Patria.
After nearly 11 long weeks of walking, the company finally arrived in Utah. The Thompsons were pretty well worn and tired; so were their oxen.