Marinus Christensen's Birth Family

Marinus Christensen was adopted as a small child in Denmark by Jens Christensen and Karen Marie Johannesen. Not long afterward they went to America. Jens died as they crossed the Great Plains so Marinus grew up in the home of his sister and brother-in-law Mary and Ove Oveson. When he died, his son could not give the name of Marinus's parents for the death certificate.

Now, we have easy access to Danish records. The records show the birth of a child named Marinus Marcusen, just a few days after the family remembered, but in the correct rural community.

The official recorded as parents, "The unmarried Kirsten Marie Johansen, 21 years, from Kjæret, and the assumed father, bachelor Anton Marcusen from Smedegaard." Anton Marcusen appears to be Anton Marqvordsen. It's not the same surname, but he appears to be the only Anton from their rural area. In the 1860s Anton appears to have had two illegitimate sons with Kirsten (Christian and Marinus), one illegitimate daughter with Ane Kathrine Jensdatter (Petrine Marie), and then a legal family in the 1870s with Hanne Laurine Christensen.

There is still some conjecture involved in these conclusions, but here's an additional bit of evidence. Marinus was adopted by a family and taken to the US. He eventually lived most of his life in Arizona. His probable half-sister and her husband and children moved to the US in 1898 and settled in North Dakota. Her descendants who have done DNA testing show up as relatives. Here is a picture shared by her family. Note her resemblance to Marinus!

Identified as "Back row George Jensen, John, Ed, Arthur, Henry. Front row Chris, father Chris Jensen, Dagmar, Maida (mother), Alma." From Ancestry, courtesy of jazzslider, Jens and Helen Christensen, and Steve Page. 

Here are a couple of pictures of Marinus to compare.

And the probable half-brother and half-sister a little larger. They have a lot of shared facial features!

Notable Relatives: General Authorities and General Officers of the Church [updated]

Since General Conference is coming up, here's a list of the general authorities and officers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who are descended from the ancestors featured on this blog. If you know of others, please leave a note in the comments so I can add them to the list.

The first nine mentioned are relatives of Wallace Tanner (Francis Marion Lyman through Delbert Stapley). The next three are relatives of Maxine Morgan Tanner (her grandfather John Morgan, as well as Frank Gibbons and Timothy Dyches). The last four are relatives of Beverly Glade Wessman (Marion G. Romney, Royden G. Derrick, LeGrand Curtis Jr., and May Green Hinckley).

A Family History Mystery: Who is the Man in This Tintype?

My father sent a picture of this image, which was in the Eva Overson Tanner collection:

This appears to be a tintype. My father notes that it is about 2 inches by 1.5 inches. Here is an image of another tintype from the 1860s in a similar frame:

 From www.flickr.com/photos/john-pa/325317259/.

Tintypes were an interesting technology. They were not made with tin, but were created by making a positive image on a sheet of blackened iron. Another name for a tintype is ferrotype.

There is a tintype in the following link that is presented in the same sort of case as our family tintype, and there is also some good information about identifying and caring for a tintype:

Ohio Historical Society: What Do You Know About Tintypes?

If I had to guess the subject of this family tintype, which I do, since there was no identification included with it,  I would say it is probably Jens Christensen, an ancestor in both the Tanner and Morgan lines. His style of dress looks more Danish than English or American.

Here is a picture of Jens' wife, Karen Johannesen. This image also appears to be a tintype, though it could also be a daguerreotype or ambrotype. This is scanned from Margaret Overson's book:

Here is a picture of Jens and Karen's daughter, Mary Christensen Oveson:

The next picture is of a younger Mary and her sister, Christine, and their adopted brother, Marinus, who, according to family legend, was the son of one of the two girls. The style of this picture is similar to the first tintype, and isn't it lovely, with both girls in their native Danish costumes?

Here is a picture of Marinus Christensen as an adult, the blacksmith of St. Johns, Arizona:

And the tintype again:

And Mary Oveson again:

I think there's a pretty clear family resemblance, especially between the tintype and the picture of Mary Christensen Oveson as an adult. Look at the broad forehead, the droopy eyelids, the wide nose, the wide mouth, the deep lines running down from the nose. (Is there an actual term for those lines?)

Here is a picture of Mary's son, Henry Overson:

There are those droopy eyelids again. (For lack of a better way to describe it.)

There are probably just two more options for a memento that was kept in the family for so many years. The first is not really an option: Jens' father, Christen C. Jensen, died in 1862, but during the time that the technology was available, he would have been older than the man in the image. And a tintype of him would have been kept by his wife, who died in 1896 in Brigham City, Utah.

The second alternate option is Mary Oveson's father-in-law Jens Ovesen. Here's his picture:

Although there may be a superficial resemblance between Jens Ovesen and the man in the tintype since the two were from the same rural corner of Denmark, I think they're clearly two different people. ("The noses are different," said my daughter.) (Apart from the droopy Christensen eyes and the nose, there is more of a resemblance between Henry Overson and his grandfather Jens Ovesen than to the Christensen family.)

So here, once again, is the mysterious tintype:

I think we can clearly label this picture "Probably Jens Christensen (1819 Denmark - 1866 Nebraska)." What do you think?

* * *

If this is a tintype of Jens Christensen, it would have been taken in Denmark, Hamburg, or America, slightly after the Christensens arrived there in 1866. It would have been a good thing that these family pictures were taken, because Jens and daughter Christine both died and were buried on the plains.

If this is a picture of Jens, it would have been kept by his wife, Karen, and then passed down to daughter Mary Oveson, and then to her son and daughter-in-law, Henry and Margaret Jarvis Overson (our family historian), and then to their daughter, Eva Overson Tanner, and then it remained, unlabeled, with her photos and family memorabilia.

Morgan 12 & 13: Jens Christensen and Karen Marie Johannesen Christensen

Some of the next ancestors in the Morgan line are Jens and Karen Marie Johannesen Christensen. However, I will not be posting biographies here for the simple reason that they are also ancestors on the Tanner line and I have already posted a short biography of them and a note about their emigration to the United States.

Their daughter Mary Kjerstine Christensen married Ove Oveson and shared many of his adventures in Ephraim, Utah, and St. Johns, Arizona. They were my grandfather's great-grandparents.

Their adopted son Marinus Christensen married Fanny Thomas. They were my grandmother's grandparents.


Picture of Lonely Dell Ranch at Lee's Ferry from www.flickr.com/photos/7202153@N03/2477559604/. Lee's Ferry is where these pioneers would have crossed the Colorado River into the region of Arizona that would be their home and eventually, their final resting place.

Morgan 6 & 7: Marinus Christensen and Frances Ann Thomas Christensen

Marinus Christensen

b. 6 June 1863 Torslev, Hjørring, Denmark
m. 6 June 1883 St. Johns, Apache, Arizona
d. 23 July 1927 St. Johns, Apache, Arizona
b. 24 July 1927 St. Johns, Apache, Arizona
Wife: Frances Ann Thomas
Father: Jens Christensen; Mother: Karen Marie Johannesen

Frances Ann Thomas Christensen
b. 4 May 1864 Nephi, Juab, Utah
d. 17 August 1950 Flagstaff, Coconino, Arizona
b. 19 August 1950 St. Johns, Apache, Arizona
Husband: Marinus Christensen
Father: David Nathan Thomas; Mother: Adeline Springthorpe

For information on the early life of Marinus Christensen, read the entry in the Tanner section on Mary Kjersten Christensen and family. Mary married Ove C. Oveson. Her mother and adopted brother Marinus lived with her family.

Marinus continued to live with the family, moving with them to St. Johns, Arizona, in the summer of 1880, and was considered by neighbors as the oldest child, being generally called Oveson, until his marriage, when he took his proper name of Christensen.

Marinus and Frances Christensen.

Marinus Christensen was married to Frances Ann Thomas, daughter of David Nathan Thomas and Adeline Springthorpe, June 6th 1883, at St. Johns, Arizona. She was born May 4th, 1864, at Nephi, Utah.

A page from the 1900 census of St. Johns, Apache, Arizona, showing the Christensen family. (Marinus was not born in Utah.)

David N. Thomas was a blacksmith by trade and owned a shop in St. Johns, where he died August 14th, 1888. His son, brother of Frances (Fanny) died there, too, and not long between the two deaths. Marinus Christensen took over the blacksmith shop and was caring for the mother (Adeline S. Thomas), but she decided to go to Utah, to do work in the Manti Temple. Not long after leaving St. Johns she was taken suddenly ill, and died, and was buried at Manti, April 6th, 1891.

(L to R) David, Marinus, Addie, Jessie, Frank, Fanny, Elmer.

Marinus Christensen and Frances Ann Thomas Christensen had the following children:

• Adeline, born July 1, 1884, St. Johns, Apache County, Arizona. Married Andrew Smith Gibbons. Died 1975, age 91.
• Anne, born July 26, 1886, St. Johns. Died 1887, age 1.
• David Thomas, born August 2, 1888, St. Johns. Married Iness Jolley. Died 1949, age 61.
• Marinus Elmer, born November 26, 1890, St. Johns. Married Hildegarde Garnatz. Died 1959, age 68.
• Jessie, born June 13, 1893, St. Johns. Married Harold Morgan. Died 1980, age 86.
• Francis Lee, born April 18, 1898, St. Johns. Married Nellie Vanetta. Died 1962, age 64.
• Paul Anthon, born November 26, 1901, St. Johns, died May 9th, 1908, St. Johns. Cause: Children built a bonfire. Paul’s clothes caught fire. Burns and shock.
• Joseph Laurence, born September 8, 1903, St. Johns. Married Susan Ellis. Died 1984, age 80.

The blacksmith shop. Marinus is standing on the right.

Marinus Christensen was a blacksmith all his life, and his shop was a place where the men of the town loved to gather and spend an idle hour. The blacksmith was always jolly and entertaining and his happy laughter was good to hear. He was a law enforcement officer many years, and was noted for his ability to deal with offenders, and his kindly yet firm stand for right. He was a leader in the Band, and also in the Sunday School Choir. He was Sunday School Superintendent in both Ward and Stake for many years, and dearly loved that work, and also the children. But the thing that he will be remembered by among the townspeople more than any other, was the Comic Recitations he used to give, and the Character parts he played in home theatricals. He was a splendid Comedian, and a great hit with his audiences.

Frances Christensen and children at Marinus' funeral.

He died at St. Johns, Arizona, July 23rd, 1927, and was buried there.

Frances Christensen, Jessie Morgan, Addie Gibbons.

His wife, Fanny, lived for many years after her husband’s death. She was in the Relief Society presidency for many years, and was one who was always on hand to help in sickness, take charge of making clothing and dressing and preparing the dead for burial. In those days we had no undertaker, and neighbors and friends attended to this work. The last few years of her life she visited among her children a part of the time, though she did not give up her home, and enjoyed to be alone there sometimes. She was visiting her children in Flagstaff when she had a paralytic stroke, from which she died August 17th, 1950 and was buried at St. Johns, Arizona.

[Note: the middle article seems to be from a Flagstaff paper rather than the Tribune, and why do two articles call her mother "Caroline"?]

Marinus Christensen and Frances Ann Thomas have a posterity of progressive and intelligent citizens, good neighbors and trustworthy friends.

From Margaret Godfrey Jarvis Overson. George Jarvis And Joseph George De Friez Genealogy. Mesa, Ariz: M.J. Overson, 1957.

[Note, February 15, 2014: changed the spelling of Inez Jolley to Iness, at the request of her granddaughter Laurel Christensen.]

Picture of the horseshoes from www.flickr.com/photos/tombothetominator/2792049406/.

Morgan 3: Jessie Christensen Morgan, Part B

On Childhood and Marriage

I got married the 28th of March and I wanted to be different. But I was just a woman and I got married and left immediately for Holbrook to go through the temple and we went back and went through the temple and it took us all day at that time to go through the temple. It took us all day long and we never had anything to eat—we didn’t eat anything and when we got out Harold was so sick. Got in a taxi and it was kind of hot in there. The Salt Lake Temple.

I remember one big snowstorm we had in St. Johns. Boy it was cold. And mother had gone to Phoenix to visit Addie and left we children with Dad and Dad had run out and the cellar was built on top of the ground with the double wall and little windows and he would go out there and cut off a piece of meat, it was frozen stiff, put it in the kettle and make some soup. We sure had lots of soup and the potatoes were frozen—just frozen and we’d have to peel the potatoes and put them in some water to take the frost out and put them in the soup and my little brother Paul had some boots and he had a boot jack to pull off his boots and he sat there and pulled off his boots and put them on until it froze his heels. We were in a mess when mother got home. All of the fields frozen. Then we had a big fire. Everybody in town was in it trying to…haystacks burnt up, trying to get the horses out—you know you can’t hardly get a horse out of a fire. They’d pull on the horse and pull on it and finally they would get them out, but they won’t go out of a fire, they want to stay there. This fire started on the Conrad Overson side. I think he was smoking and threw a cigarette down and started the straw and that started the hay and there was no water in town, they turned the city ditch water down and ran buckets of water down but it didn’t do much good. They didn’t have a fire department or anything. Someone said St. Johns had grown clear out to the Mexican graveyard. … I’d hate to live out there—if the reservoir broke, boy, would they ever go down.

Did the reservoir ever break when you were little?

Yes, it did. I remember all the houses floating off and one house cracked right in two, furniture going down.

Sister Greer had her home just above us and they opened her house for a mortuary and it was full of dead people. One woman I remember, mother told me, this woman had this long hair and it was just full of cockleburrs and they had to just comb it the best they could and then cut it off so they could fix her hair. Yes, that was a terrible sight. Never will forget that.

Where did you live after you were married?

In the Aircastle. It was just an old house. It was just a slim house with an upstairs and they called it the Aircastle and they had a little room built on the back and we lived in the little room on the back—in St. Johns. They had an apple tree out just by my door, I lived…so I would take those apples that fell on the ground and peeled them and dried them and I had a flour sack half full of dried apples and then I took some of the crabapples and made jelly and bottled them whole, and I didn’t pick any, I just took what had come from the ground, and when they come over and saw what I had, they charged me for it and then we moved. We were paying them rent and they were so mad to think I had got some of their apples, they charged me for them. The rest of the year they just lay there and rotted.

Dad was a blacksmith and Brother Udall asked him if he would take some apples on part of his pay and Dad said he would do that, so he said for me to go up and get the apples, and Brother Udall said there they are on the ground, you go and pick your wagon full. So I took the apples home and mother said, well these are all bruised. I said, well she had me pick them up off the ground. So mother said well, you stay here, I’ll be back in a minute, so mother took the wagon, spitting fire when she left, and she went and dumped them in Udall’s lot and she went to the door and said I brought your apples back, there they are, she said, I’ll take money for what you owe my husband. The Udalls were just beside themselves. Nobody could get the best of mother. She said you better get it, I’ll take the money. I’m not taking rotten apples. Mother was a regular businesswoman.

If Dad had let her do the charging and collecting he’d have been rich, but he was so good to people. I don’t know whether that is good or not. I guess they didn’t have any money—if they needed something from the market, I guess they’d charge it. He did keep books, but he never collected much, until after he’d call. Mother sure collected.

Where was your first baby born?

In St. Johns. Mother’s home. Helen, oh she was cute, oh she was pretty. Everybody in town came to see her. She was the prettiest thing—well, I thought so, I was her mother. She laughed. I used to take her to choir practice with me. I used to keep my babies clean. Sister Brown would come down and say what’s the matter with Jessie. And mother would say, why. And she would say well all the other girls take the babies out but I never see Jessie take any of them out. Mother asked why I didn’t take the babies out and tend them for the mothers and I said because they stink. The babies did stink. They didn’t keep them clean. Mother said well that is excuse enough, I don’t blame you.


To be continued...

Morgan 3: Jessie Christensen Morgan, Part A

Excerpts from an interview of Jessie Christensen Morgan, April 1, 1977, Salt Lake City, Utah. By James Tanner.


On her childhood

I remember going to school and I remember my geography class more than anything because Lyle Greer was my teacher and see the top of the map was North and he’d say right up at the top and I thought he meant right up in the stars, and I would say how far up, how far up in the stars, and he’s say come here. Come here to me and I’d go up to him and he’d put a chunk of ice down my back and every noon when I’d go home for lunch, mother would have to change my clothes cause I’d be so wet clear through with ice down my back and she told him if he did that again, she would have him barred from teaching and so then he would have me hold my hand out and he’d strike it with a ruler and I’d shut my hand like this so mother couldn’t see. It was just bleeding where he had hit my hand with the ruler and I’d go this way so mother couldn’t see. Oh, he was mean. I would have liked to have choked him.

And I remember they used to pay their tithing with eggs, fruit and all this stuff, grain, and over at the tithing office they had a cellar with a door that opened out and some boys pushed me down on the grain and threw a mouse down there, and I screamed and screamed and finally had a regular convulsion I was so afraid and that made me afraid of mice. That was mean. I was just scared to death. They used to have lots of mice in the homes. I’d go home from Mutual or something and see a mouse and I’d jump from one chair to another.

I had a little Shetland pony that was mine. I used to go out to the sheds once in a while. Dad would let me ride it with an Indian blanket and a loop on his nose—just a rope and a loop on his nose. And I’d go out with the calves and there were a lot of prairie dog holes and whenever he’d see a prairie dog hole he’d stop and I’d go over his head and sit on the ground and then I’d get up and pick up my blanket and get back on and then we’d go on. I guess I’d go over his head about four or five times every time I rode. Dad said he would give me a dollar if I would milk the cows and oh, that dollar was big, he pulled it out of his pocket—silver dollar it was. So I went down to the corral and he sat on the granary steps and I started to say, so, just as I started to climb through the rail fence to get in to milk the cow, and I got up to her and I said so, so, so and she turned her head to look at me and I ran for the fence. And then any time I did anything that was big or important, he’d give me a fat calf. When I was married I had seven head of cows. I had one old jersey cow that was so tame, and when I had got her she was so mean I had to tie her legs together to milk her. I was scared to death of animals.


To be continued...

Morgan 3: Jessie Christensen Morgan, Part VI

Just before Helen was born we heard the Lyman Dam had broken and we went up to see the water. It took all the houses over in Mexican town and we could see them floating down the water. Several people were killed.

I was married about 15–16 months and I had Helen. She was born in St. Johns. I thought Helen was so cute. I came home one day from meeting carrying Helen and Charlie Wright’s wife was walking in front of me. Her baby was talking and she put her baby down and it walked. Helen wouldn’t do anything. She’d just sit like a dummy. I put Helen down. Mother and Daddy were sitting on the porch, and said, “Here’s this dumb kid. Anybody can have her. I don’t want her.” My Dad said, “Shame on you. What’s the matter?” I said, “She’s so dumb she can’t do anything. I don’t want her.” He said, “The problem is—you never teach her anything.” He said, “Let me take her.” He took Helen and stood her out and said, “Come to Grandpa.” She ran up to him and he said, “Say Daddy, Mommy…” He kept asking her words to say and she’d repeat them. Then she started to sing “Catch The Sunshine.” Daddy said, “See, all you have to do is teach her.” Oh dear, I thought she was precious then. She was smart as a whip.

Helen, Maxine, and Alta.

Grandpa came back to St. Johns when school was out and taught school in St. Johns. They had a big banquet up to Patterson’s Hotel and all the teachers had to go. I didn’t have any shoes. I didn’t have anything to wear. We had to put all of our money into Harold so he could go to the banquet.

Helen and Alta.

Alta had the thickest hair. I used to curl Helen’s hair, it wasn’t as thick, for Sunday school. I’d just cut Alta’s hair off in a dutch cut. Mother would say, “Shame on you. You always curl Helen’s hair and fix her up and that little darling Alta you never do anything for her.” I said, “Do you want to curl it?” So she started in and until she got to the first ear she’d say, “Turn your head, darling.” After she got past there she’d say, “Turn your head.” And then as she got near the back she’d say sternly, “TURN your head.” I’d say to Mother, “What’s wrong with the precious little darling?” She’d say, “Hush up.” Alta’s hair was so thick and when she’d curl it, it would stick right straight out. She looked like the devil.

Alta, Maxine, Helen, Joan, Paul, and Calvin.

When Alta was a baby we moved up on the hill to H. Udall’s house. His wife had just died and he wanted me to move up there. She had five rooms and we just took the three and I was afraid to stay up there because Ruth had just died. He rented the other side to George Brown and Amy.

I stopped working at the phone company when my children came. I had to nurse them and stay in bed for a long time. They didn’t even let me dangle my feet for two weeks. I sat up on the side of the bed one day after I had Helen and mother caught me. She thought I was going to die. It was just the law that you stayed in bed. I stayed in bed for two weeks and Mother took care of my baby.

Calvin, Paul, and Maxine.

To be continued...

Morgan 3: Jessie Christensen Morgan, Part IV

I’ll tell you my mother was a dressmaker. She used to sew for all of the Mexicans in town and half the white people. She sure made me some pretty dresses. She had one pattern and she made everybody’s pattern from that. They were all different dresses. She had a pasteboard and everybody’s size was punched in holes on it and she just put her pencil in and drew all the holes and then cut the pattern out. She was sewing on her machine all the time. She even made wedding dresses. I had the prettiest dresses in the school.

Marinus Christensen on the right in front of his blacksmith shop.

My Dad was a blacksmith and he was also Superintendent of the Stake Sunday School. My brother Elmer was his secretary. One day Elmer told Dad that if this certain brother came in and slapped him on the back that morning and said, “Good morning, Brother Christensen,” he was going to leave. He didn’t like anyone paying attention to him. He sure was a good secretary. So pop just busted to get over there before the meeting so he could warn the Brother but just as they walked through the door, he slapped Elmer on the back and said “How are ya Brother Christensen?” Elmer got up and left. That irked Elmer because people would call him Brother Christensen. Then they put me in as Stake Secretary. But Elmer did all the work. He was excellent in figures. I knew my figures but I wasn’t as smart as Elmer.

In St. Johns during the dances we couldn’t hear the orchestra for the feet a scraping on the floor. The orchestra was just Brother Mineer playing his fiddle and somebody else played the guitar. We had wonderful dances. One night Joe Jarvis came in a cart with two horses hooked on it. He stopped and got me first and then he went up and he stopped and went in and got Ethyl Greer. It just tickled me so much and I thought it was funny. Ethyl just sat there with a solemn face. So we got to the dance and he said, “Well, I’ll tell you, Ethyl. I picked Jessie up for the dance first so I’ll dance with Jessie first and then I’ll come and dance with you.” Ethyl was not too happy. As we were going down to dance Joe said, “I’m dancing with you first because I’ll never get another chance.” He didn’t.

Jessie is second from the right, next to Albert Anderson, her boyfriend at the time.

The desperados used to ride through the town in St. Johns when I was a young girl. One time they came up through town shooting up the town. I crawled under the steps of the old school-house as they passed and they just shot in the air and everyplace and rode back and forth through town shooting. They shot out over these pastures in St. Johns. They weren’t all wet and soggy like they are now. They rode out over there and then a posse of men went out after them and the desperados shot Willey Berry and killed him.

I had the worst time in my life trying to be educated in music. There was nothing I wanted to do more than play some instrument or take music lessons. So I went down to Uncle Andy’s sister Naomi Gibbons and I washed and scrubbed floors for two days to get a piano lesson. She was good. The problem was I never got a very good lesson. Her kids were always jumping up on the stool and screaming in and out and yelling and pounding on the upper part of the piano until I quit. I said I wasn’t going down there anymore and Mother agreed with me, I still enjoyed singing. I was always in a quartet or a double mixed quartet either in church or school. I was singing all the time.

One time my mother went to Phoenix to visit Addie and we were left alone with Dad. While she was gone we had one of the biggest snow storms that ever hit St. Johns. My brother Paul wore some boots and he had a boot jack that would help him pull his boots off. He’d just sit down and pull his boots on and off. He kept them off so much pulling them off and on that I let him freeze his heels. I didn’t know his heels were frozen. Mother came home and Paul had his heels frozen and I’d never made the bed because Elmer wouldn’t let me in the bedroom. He’d get up in the transom and take a broom and if I started in the bedroom to make the bed, he’d swing the broom and hit me. We’d have soup every day when Mother was gone. We had a cellar that was built on top of the ground with windows. It was just as cold as ice inside. Dad always had half of a beef hung in there and sheep and there was a rug for the pans of milk. Dad would go out and saw a piece of meat and put it on to boil and then he’d bring some potatoes in and I’d have to peel them and put them in the soup. It seemed to me like Mother was gone forever.

When she returned she brought a trunkful of oranges home from Phoenix. Just to tell you the kind of Mother I had, she sent a little bucket full of oranges to all of the neighbors and then we had a taste. She said we had enough and she didn’t want the neighbors to go without.


To be continued...

Picture of oranges from flickr.com/photos/thepma/443241604/.

Morgan 3: Jessie Christensen Morgan, Part III

St. Johns Academy Class of 1911 with Harold and Jessie marked.

We used to do some funny things. Mother would have fainted if she would have known them. One day some of my girlfriends and I went to Berry’s and borrowed some men’s suits and hats and put them on and went downtown past the ice cream parlor. These Berrys in the ice cream parlor saw us pass and they came out and they started to chase us. So we ran and I just heeled it up and started to crawl under Tenney’s fence and my pants came off. They were too big for me anyway and I just mopped the top of the fence on the pickets. I crawled out of my pants and hid back in the current bushes. The boys finally left and I went home.

I remember that I just hated school because of the teachers I had. I couldn’t understand a map and I thought north was straight up in the air. I didn’t know it was on the paper. I couldn’t get it in my head. I’d raise my hand up (I didn’t have sense enough not to raise my hand anymore) and I’d raise my hand and go up and ask the teacher if north was straight up in the air. My teacher would say to hold out my hand and he’d hit it with a ruler.

Some of my friends were Mary Ann Jones, Viola Thomas and Ethyl Greer. I had a lot of friends.

The first group of "Beehives" in St. Johns with Jessie Christensen on the left.

I used to walk in my sleep. Mother and Dad used to lock the door at the top and the bottom. But I’d get up (I was asleep when I did it) and unlock the screen door at the top and the bottom and walk out, I woke up one night and the moon was just going down and I looked down and I was on top of the tithing office barn. I was scared to death. You had to go up these high steps just to get up to this little platform to sit down. I went down as fast as I could and sent home and mother said, “Where have you been?” I said I was up on the tithing office steps. She asked me what I was doing up there. I said I didn’t know but I had woken up and saw the tithing office barn so I came home. She sent up in the morning and there was my quilt, I had taken it with me. If I hadn’t left it on the tithing office steps they wouldn’t have believed me.

Main Street, St. Johns.

On the 4th of July they’d have quite a celebration. They’d have a program in the morning and a little dance in the afternoon. At the dance they’d have a great big tub full of candy. They’d get up on the stage (there was a stage in the old schoolhouse) and throw the candy on the floor. Then the kids would have to get down on their hands and knees and scramble on the floor for the candy. I never would scramble but I wouldn’t have to because all the boys would bring me some. I wasn’t going to be humiliated by getting down on the floor.

We never had a Christmas tree in our house and all we had to do was go up on the hill and cut one. Not until Joe was left home alone did they put up a tree. We would hang up our stockings and my brothers would hang up their pants. They would tie the legs at the bottom. They got a .22 Rifle once. The card said that it was to both boys. We owned a half of a block in town and down below was just the alfalfa and over to the side was the coral and then the wood pile and then the house. One day Dad said he was going to go out and show the boys how to shoot by the poplar trees. So he told them to do just as Daddy did. They went out in the poplar trees and he was going to show them the gun and how to handle it. Just as he shot, the old milk cow, Bossy, walked out. She fell down and all her legs went up in the air and she was dead. The neighbor across the street came over and they skinned the cow and brought into the house a big chunk of meat and my mother said they could just take it out because she wasn’t going to cook old Bossy.

My Dad was the constable and he was called up if there were big fights in town. One time they had a big row up in Mexican town and one fellow was shot. Well—Dad was gone a long time, Pretty soon he came back and threw a big chunk of meat down on the table. He had gone to a butcher shop and bought the meat but when he threw it down on the table my mother thought it was the Mexican and she fainted.


To be continued...

Morgan 3: Jessie Christensen Morgan, Part II

When my brother Joe was born he sure was a big baby. When he was older my Dad built him a pole vaulting area up on the part of the lot where they didn’t raise a garden any longer. Joe would run and jump with his long pole. I remember Mother and Daddy looking out the window and saying, “Isn’t he cute. Isn’t he cute! Look at him. Can’t he jump high?”

Jessie, Joe, and Addie.

One day Joe wanted some candy and Mother told him to go down to the chicken coop and get a couple of eggs. A while later Mother said to me that Joe was slow in coming home and to go see where he was. I told Mother that he was sitting out behind the house. She said, “Is he eating all that candy?” I told her I didn’t know. She then told me to tell him to come in the house. She asked him if he had eaten all the candy. Joe said, “What candy?” Mother said that she told him to take two eggs out of the chicken coop to get some candy. He said, “They told me they were rotten, damn um.” He would always say “damn um.”

Joe Christensen

I was five years old when Frank was born, I went out to Aunt Mandy’s all day and when I came home Mother had this baby. They were all looking at him and admiring him and calling him sweet little guy. I had my bed right up between the fireplace and the wall so I crawled back under my bed clear in the corner so they couldn’t see me. Finally mother missed me and she said, “Where’s Jessie?” They all said they didn’t know so they all went out and they were calling me and calling me and of course I wouldn’t answer because I was under the bed. Mother started to cry and I couldn’t stand to see her cry so I crawled out and said, “Here I am.”

Marinus and Fannie Christensen family. Jessie is between her parents.

My brother Paul and I had to take the calves out up along this field and somebody else would drive the cows out over the graveyard hill. Paul and I had to go out to this field. My gosh, I thought we’d never get home. We got up there and the ground was so hot. Paul was barefooted and he’d limp along. I’d go a ways and sit on a rock and say come on. He’d say the ground was hot and I’d tell him to put on his shoes. I waited and waited and it took us I don’t know how long to get home because he had to walk in the hot sun. When we got home he cried because my Dad had gone to the field with the boys and he didn’t get to go with them. So mother told him not to cry and to get a couple of eggs (everything was eggs) and go get some candy and then come home. Paul took some eggs and met Jack Tenney. Jack helped him eat up the candy and then Jack asked him to go up on the hill. Some boys in town had a big bonfire going. The wind was blowing and a tumble weed went on Paul and his shirt caught fire. Paul came running down the street with his shirt and everything blazing. Someone ran out and put a quilt around him and put the fire out. Brother Jarvis was passing just at that time. He could do anything. He was Doctor, watchfixer, anything. So he came in and bound him all up. I just started out to run over the hill, I don’t know why. There was some man on a horse and he asked me where I was going. I said I was running to get the Doctor because my little brother was burned all over his back. He said he was a Doctor and put me on the horse and whipped the horse back and forth. We got there and he put me down. He hadn’t asked how old my brother was. He just went in and gave him something to numb him. Mother always wondered if he gave him too much medicine or if it was just the burns, but Paul died.


To be continued...

Morgan 3: Jessie Christensen Morgan, Part I

Jessie Christensen Morgan

b. 13 June 1893 St. Johns, Apache, Arizona
m. 28 March 1914 St. Johns, Apache, Arizona
d. 9 January 1980 Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah
b. 12 January 1980 Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah
Husband: Harold Morgan
Father: Marinus Christensen; Mother: Frances Ann Thomas

MEMORIES OF JESSIE CHRISTENSEN MORGAN as dictated to her granddaughter, Jessie Tanner Smith, December 1975.

My Dad was quite a churchgoer and Mother was sick all day just before I was born. She was kind of spunky and she wouldn’t ask Dad to stay home. Dad would come home from one meeting and ask her if she was all right and go back to the next one. She’d say she was all right. Then he came and she told him that he’d better go get Sister Moore quickly. Sister Moore was the midwife. They didn’t have doctors. They never heard of one at that time in St. Johns, Arizona. So he went down to get Sister Moore. Just after he left there came up a big wind storm and it rained while he was gone. The front door and the back door blew open and the wind blew right through the house and it was raining hard. Mother got up to shut the doors and fell on the floor and I was born. When my Dad came I was trying to get my breath from the rain blowing in my face. So I was born on the floor in my Mother and Dad’s home.

Marinus and Frances Christensen.

I can remember my sister, Addie. She was the oldest and she’d comb my hair. I would have it in ringlets all the time and to put it up she’d wrap my hair around the rag and then the rag around the hair. On Sunday morning, why she’d take the rags off and curl them over around her finger and make the curls big. Sometimes she would pull my hair. She would say, “turn your head.” Mother would tell her not to pull my hair. But she still pulled it because she hated to do it, you know.

Adeline Christensen Gibbons.

Elmer was a terrible tease. He was terrible. One day he got a dump cart. A dump cart had two big wheels and was drawn by a horse and they would fill it with manure and dump manure all over the lot. One day Elmer told me to come on and take a ride with him. I told him I didn’t want to but he said I could get down when he got down to fill the cart so I got in. Then he told me to put my arms around his waist and hold tight. I told him I didn’t need to hold so tight but he said I needed to, so I did. He held my hands and drove with the other hand and said, “get-up” to the horses. Those horses were locoed. They would fall down and raise up and fall down again. I’d scream and tell them to get up and they would raise up and fall down. I was scared stiff and Elmer held my hands and wouldn’t let me get down.

Elmer Christensen. (And chickens.)

One day we had to irrigate our lot in St. Johns. Mother had made me some rag dolls. I thought they were so pretty. I had 8 or 10 of them. We had to fill the barrels as we irrigated the lot to wash. Then the water would settle and Mother would have 4 or 5 barrels full of water to wash. I had my dolls sitting along the ground and the irrigation came down and as one barrel got full, Elmer would dunk a doll in it. I’d scream and mother would ask me what on earth I was screaming about and I’d say Elmer was baptizing my dolls. He was so funny. He was the biggest tease on the earth. I don’t remember much about him only that he was the best ball player.

They would always get in the street and play baseball on Sunday after meeting. He was kind of a handsome fellow and he used to run from base to base and his necktie would blow out over his shoulder and I used to think he was so cute.

The Christensen children with their mother, Frances Thomas Christensen. Jessie is standing on the right.

To be continued...

Morgan 2: Harold Morgan, Part V

On March 28 of the following year Jessie and I were married at her home, the ceremony being performed by President David K. Udall. The same afternoon we left on our honeymoon to Salt Lake City. We spent our first night in Hunt at the insistence of my mother. This incident we both have many times regretted. At Holbrook we took the train. What a wonderful trip.

In Denver we boarded a ‘rubber-neck’ bus for a tour of the city. Enroute we had our picture taken. We bought a print, but much to our regret in later years it became lost or misplaced. When we left St. Johns we thought we were dressed in the best of fashion. The picture certainly deluded us of any thoughts along this line. My hat came up to a peak and Jessie’s hat, the best in Whiting’s store [in St. Johns] was hardly the latest Paris fashion. The whole affair has given us many a good laugh.

When we boarded the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad that evening, the porter recreased my hat and shined my shoes. While traveling over Tennessee Pass of the Continental Divide, our Pullman and two coaches ran off the track but did not overturn. It gave us quite a fright but in two or three hours we were again on our way.

On arrival in Provo we went to the home of Jessie’s sister and brother-in-law, Andy and Addie Gibbons. They had three lovely children. [Eventually five, including Francis Gibbons, author and former member of the Council of the Seventy.] We were there a few days and then went on to Salt Lake City. We took rooms in the old Morgan hotel, which had greatly deteriorated since my father built it.

The Salt Lake Temple in 1912.

Our marriage was solemnized in the Salt Lake Temple April 8. Officiating was Alvin Smith, a son of Church President Joseph F. Smith. It was an all day session. The following day we returned to Provo, spent two days there. Then short of funds but long on love we started our return to Arizona. Andy Gibbons tried to persuade us to stay in Provo and go to the Brigham Young University, but for some reason which we still haven’t figured out, we rejected the offer.

Never will I forget the long two day and night ride. We had nothing to eat the last day but peanut butter sandwiches. It was a long time after this before I could stomach peanut butter. On arrival in Holbrook I cashed a check. However, we had a lousy breakfast and we were glad to get out of there. On arrival in St. Johns we rented what had been the family home of the Udalls for many years. I went back to work on The Observer. While there may have been many disappointments and frustrations, I recall few of them. All I remember is that we had much fun raising a small garden, consisting largely of summer squash. For this I still have a hankering.

Marinus and Francis Christensen

The next year on May 2 our beautiful baby Helen was born in the home of Father Christensen. [“Father Christensen” was Jessie’s father Marinus Christensen, the town blacksmith.] Harking to the advice of some of the Udalls we secured the services of Dr. Garland Pace, their osteopath son-in-law. It turned out he knew little about obstetrics. Jessie after being in labor about 16 hours was delivered with instruments by Dr. T.J. Bouldin. Except for a few head abrasions, the baby was fine but Jessie hovered between life and death for more than two weeks. After about two months she was finally well enough to return home. During Jessie’s confinement John H. Udall’s wife Ruth, died during an operation in Los Angeles. [John Hunt Udall was a son of David King Udall. He married Ruth Woolley Kimball on 5 June 1912. She was President Spencer W. Kimball’s sister.] Shortly after we accepted his invitation to live in his newly built home on the hill overlooking the town.

That same year I purchased The Observer from Montross. Jessie often came to the office with the baby. On publication day she would feed the papers into the press while I set type by hand for the next issue.

One day while attempting to show her something about the operation, my left hand in which I held some type was caught in the press. The type saved my hand from being crushed, but it was badly lacerated. The impact crushed the knuckle.

To be continued...


Photo of the Pullman Coach from wikipedia.
Photo of the Salt Lake Temple from: Frederick Converse Beach and George Edwin Rines. The Americana; A Universal Reference Library, Comprising the Arts and Sciences, Literature, History, Biography, Geography, Commerce, Etc., of the World. New York: Scientific American compiling department, 1912.
Photo of zucchini from flickr.com/photos/yashima/2545504317/.