Ellen Swenson Pearson

Elna Swenson taken in Sweden before the age of 19

     This history is an excerpt from a history written by Ellen's daughter Stella.  Ellen, her American name, was born Elna in Sweden in the little town of Evarod on 8 April 1853.  She was the first of nine children in the family of Peter Trulson Swenson and Kjersti Nilson.  When Ellen was six years old the family moved to Widtskofle, Sweden, and here she went to school until age 14.  Then she went to a school that taught the girls to knit, crochet, and sew as well as the regular studies.
     The farm they lived on was owned by a man named Sjarnsvard and this is how the Swenson's paid him:
     A woman worked three days a week all year for the landlord and must spin two pounds of wool or flax and pick two bushels of pine nuts.
     A man worked 15 days a year and must plant a field of potatoes and harvest them for the landlord and pay him 40 crowns a year.  He must keep their thatched roof in repair. In return they had the use of 15 acres of land and were to keep 3 cows, 1 calf, 2 horses and 6 sheep in the landlord's pasture. 
     Ellen and all the children had to help with this work.  She bound grain by hand after it had been cut with a scythe or cradle.  She helped with the hay and also dug peat which they used for fuel.  It was dug and cut into bricks and stacked and dried then put into sheds to be used in the long cold winter. Flax was an important crop and Ellen wove many yards of linen.  Wool was also spun and made into cloth.
     Ellen and the other children were all christened and sprinkled into the Lutheran Church when they were 8 days old.  When Ellen was 14 years old the Lutheran priest wanted her confirmed into the Lutheran Church but her parents had joined the Mormon Church and did not want her confirmed.  The Priest threatened to have them put off the farm but it didn't happen.
Ellen was baptized into the Mormon church at about age 16.
     At the age of 19, in 1872, Ellen left Sweden for America.  She took her brother Andrew age 11 and sister Johanna age 9 with her.  They sailed on the steamship "Nevada" and went by train to Salt lake City arriving July 17, 1872.  They were met by Peter Jensen, an old family friend, and they stayed with his family until Ellen married Lorentz Pearson 3 months later.  Ellen had met Lorentz Pearson while he was a local missionary in Sweden and he had stayed with her family.

                              
   Lorentz and Ellen were married in the old Endowment House, which stood on the northwest corner of the Temple block.  Ellen stayed with the Jensen's until Lorentz could get a house for them to live in at Alta where he was employed in the "Prince of Wales' mine.  It was here that their first baby was born, our grandfather Lennart Edwin in December 1873.
     The rest of Ellen's family immigrated to America in 1874.  Ellen took her baby and went to Salt Lake to meet them.  Ellen had a new little sister, Martha, who celebrated her first birthday on the North Sea. 
     Lorentz and Ellen moved to West Jordan and started farming and her parents lived in Murray and she could visit with them.  Stella remembers her mother telling of taking a bucket of milk and dropping a lump of butter in it and taking the bucket in one hand and her baby on the other arm and walking to her parents home to visit as they did not have a cow at that time. 

Ellen with Esther about 1881

                                  

     Ellen was one of the first in this vicinity to raise turkeys and each year she would have about 200 to sell.  They had a regular farm with chickens, milk cows, a orchard of apples, peaches, pears, plums and cherries and always a large garden.  She also spun yarn from the wool of her own sheep and knit underwear, stockings, mufflers, mittens, etc.
     Ellen was one of the first to raise flowers and had many hundred kinds of them.  One year she had 32 kinds of carnations.  They were one of the first of have a lawn of any size.
     "Ellen and Lorentz raised nine children to respected manhood and womanhood.  None of them did anything to become famous, but lived quietly and honestly.  

                               
     Ellen's out-lived her husband by twelve years and spent her decling years among her flowers in the summer and making quilts in the winter, which she gave to her children and friends.
     On Sunday September 13, 1936, at the age of 83, Ellen suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and passed away three days later.  She is buried in the West Jordan cemetery by the side of  her husband Lorentz.

Rosalind Glover Pearson and Lennart Edwin Pearson are my grandparents and I have met most of these people.  Cheryl

                                     

My favorite story about Lorentz Pearson or "To Error is Human"

Back row:  Esther, LILLIAN, Clarence, Roy,  Clara and LENNART EDWIN  Front row:  Kenneth, Father Lorentz, Milo, Mother Ellen and Stella

This story is about Lillian, the second child in the Lorentz and Ellen family.  Incidentally, our grandfather Lennart Edwin was the oldest.  When Lillian was a young lady she was dating a man, who was a neighbor, named Neil Livingston Gardner Jr. He went by the nickname Liv.  He was seven years older than Lilly and for some reason Lorentz, her father, didn't want her dating him.  He asked her to break it off and being an obedient and dutiful daughter she unhappily did as her father asked. In 1905 at age 29, when her sister Stella had a baby in Eureka, Utah, she went to help and the midwife taught her how to take care of newborn babies and their mothers.  Lilly then started to go out nursing and became very popular as a nurse.  She even came to Idaho Falls to help when Grandmother Rose, Lennart's wife, had an operation and the children had diphtheria. 
    One day she came to dinner with her parents and in the words of Aunt Goldie her father teased her mildly for never having married. Lilly said, indignantly that he remember well why she had not married since he had withheld his consent to her accepting the proposal of a young man who had asked him for her hand in marriage.  She then rose from the table and left the room.  Her mother said, "You shouldn't have done that, Pa."
     Liv, in the meantime had gotten married and had 5 children and life went on.  Then when Liv was 52 years old his wife died and he came and courted Lillian.  They were married in December 1921 and Lillian was 45 years old.  So in her older age she married the love of her life and mothered his children and grandchildren.  She was married for 23 years when Liv passed away.  A sad-sweet tale.

Lorentz Pearson's life in Utah

     When Lorentz arrived in Salt lake City in 1870, at the age of 24 years, he walked to Moroni, Sandpete, Utah, where his sister Elna and her husband Nils Eliason lived.  He needed to find work and his first job was at the Provo Woolen Mills.  Later with a friend from Mount Pleasant they worked on the railroad.  They then tried washing for gold at Colorado Springs.  He then came back to Utah and went to Alta and worked in the mines.
     In 1872 Elna (Ellen) Swenson immigrated to Utah and they were married in October.  See Ellen's story about their marriage and family.
     Lorentz took Ellen to Alta to live.  Two years later they moved back to Salt Lake City and lived on State Street. He bought 25 acres of land in West Jordan for $225 and built a house on it.  He made his own adobes for it.  It was ready to move into that same year in December 1874.  It had two rooms and a shingled roof, real doors and windows, much better than many of the houses in the valley.  He then built a little "leanto" on the north side of the house to shelter the cows through the winter.  In the spring he started to make more adobes for a stable for the cows and horses.  It was large enough for four cows and two horses with a grain bin in the south end.
     The 25 acres he owned was covered with sage brush and had to be cleared.  Canals and ditches had to be dug.  Lorentz, at this time, didn't own a team of horses so he hired a man who had an ox-team and Lorentz did the work for him and thus became the owner of 25 shares of water stock in the South Jordan canal.
     They lived in those two rooms until there were seven children in the family.  Lorentz then built two large rooms onto the house hauling granite from the mouth of the Little Cottonwood Canyon for the foundation and he got brick from the Steadman brick yard.  They now had three bedrooms, kitchen, dining room, parlor, pantry, closet, summer kitchen and it was all very nice.  It was still standing and in good repair in 1957 when his daughter, Esther wrote this history.
     Lorentz used his skills, learned as a young man, to build his house but he became a farmer.  He was progressive and liked to learn things.  He subscribed to as many papers and magazines as he could afford and read and studied constantly.  He was very patient and a quiet man.  He never scolded or "bawled out" his children.  His children never heard him profane in their lives and one child remembers hearing him call a cow an old "bitch" and she expected the sky to fall, but it didn't.  When he took a load of produce to Salt Lake he would let one or two of the children ride with him and they felt they were the lucky ones.
     Lorentz was active in church and politics.  He was a Democrat.  He was a delegate to the convention in Provo.  He was a trustee in school district #21 many years when having school at all was really a job.  At that time the trustees would hold dances to get money to pay the teachers. 
     Around 1902 at the age of 56 He was called on a mission to Sweden.  He visited his brother, sisters and half-sister, Hanna.  His mother was dead but the step-father was still living.  (From Cheryl: There is no missionary journal that I know about.)

Lorentz and oldest sister  Elna in 1919

Kathrine, fourth sister and Hanna half-sister to Lorentz

Maria, Lorentz third sister

Maria again at the age of  18

Lorentz died 23 June 1924 at the age of 78.                                

Lorentz Pearson-A hard thing that turned out really good

                                                           Lorentz Pearson before 1870
                                      His history was written by his daughter Esther Pearson Leak

 Lorentz Pearson, also shown as Lars, was born in Soderhviddinge, Malmohus, Sweden in 1846.  His parents were Pehr Martenson and Pernilla Manson.  He was the second child and first son. Elna was the first born.   His parents were land owners and were hard working and prosperous people.  When Lorentz was 12 years of age his father and two hired men were getting stones out of the soil and hauling them away.  Pehr lifted a load which was too heavy for him and he became sick and died a few days later.  It was a bad situation as the hired man took charge and apparently didn't treat Lorentz well.  Esther says he ran away from home and then says Pernilla, his mother, had her mother, Hanna, take him to her home.  Hanna hired a private teacher for him.  When Lorentz was 13 or 14 years old he was confirmed into the Lutheran Church and then the priest gave him a recommend so he could go to work.  His mother had him apprenticed to a builder where he lived and learned to be a stone and brick mason, plasterer and carpenter.

Pernilla married the hired man soon after the boy left home.  Here is a picture of Lars Jonsson, the hired man. that is a braid of his hair down the left side of his head.

Pernilla Manson Pearson- Lorentz Pearson's Mother

Esther didn't say how Lorentz heard about the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but he was baptized when 21 years old.  His sister Elna was already a member.  About this time his father's estate was settled and he received a sum of money.  He used some of it in going on a local mission and paying the emigration fee for some of his friends.  His mission took him to Widtskofle, Sweden, and there he became a friend to Peter Trulson Swenson who was a convert to the church.  A daughter Ellen (Elna) later became his wife.
     Two years later in 1870 Lorentz immigrated to America.  His sister Elna had already immigrated with her husband, Nils Eliason and two daughters who both died of measles crossing the plains, and was living in Moroni, Sandpete, Utah.
     Thus we see that as the oldest son he would have inherited the farm and stayed in Sweden but because he was discomforted he ended up coming to America which was a great blessing for all his descendents. 

       Pehr Pehrsson, the younger brother who stayed on the farm in Sweden

Mary Rowswell

     Although Melissa Bateman Glover wrote a history on her Grandfather, James Glover, she did not write one on her Grandmother, Mary Rowswell Glover.  In the history of James she mentioned a couple of things about Mary.  When James met her in Barrington, Somersetshire, England, she made her living by making gloves.  Melissa says about Mary in her older years, “Mary was light complexioned with blue eyes and rather inclined to be heavy set and was a quiet, demure person.  Though a faithful wife and a good mother she never quite conquered a longing for her loved ones and friends in England.”

     Her life was not easy, after she and James Glover were married she and her husband lived in her birth town of Barrington, very close to Shepton Beaucham, and she had two children. Then they must have moved to Langport, Somerset, because her third son Joseph was born there. Then her husband moved her to Wales where she had five more children.  Her husband having preceded her to Wales had met the missionaries and joined the Mormon Church before she got there.  That was a life-changing experience.  She did embrace the gospel but none of her family ever joined but the children did and all remained faithful. She sent her oldest daughter to America without family and it was several years before she saw her again when they reunited in Utah.  Mary then came to America in 1866 with her husband and eight children, the youngest not yet three months old.  She had another baby in Pennsylvania where they lived long enough to make money to continue their journey to Utah.  It was a little over three years before they left Pennsylvania.

     Mary also had her sorrows. Her youngest son, Hyrum, (she had four girls after him) after several weeks of illness died.  He lacked five months of being fifteen years of age.  Melissa writes that he was a good looking, very intelligent boy.  Sometime before his demise, his school teacher had said to him, “Hyrum, there is no need of your attending school any longer.  I have taught you all I know.”  Mary’s daughter Emma, age 17, who was married to James Brown died in childbirth that same year, 1881, the baby passing away a few weeks later.

     Mary’s permanent home in Midvale was located a short distance south of James’ blacksmith shop.  It was an adobe building and consisted of three rooms, a living room in the center with a bedroom on the north and one on the south.  Later a summer kitchen made of lumber and a screened in porch were added.  South of the house was an orchard consisting of several kinds of good fruit trees, gooseberries, and black and English currant bushes.  Along the entire length of the orchard was a thicket of wild Pottawattamie plum trees.  They bore profusely.  Melissa says she remembers the bushels that were picked some seasons by relatives and friends and the good preserves the plums made.

     Mary died before her husband on 10 June 1896 in Midvale at the age of 72 and was buried in the West Jordan cemetery.

     Just a comment from Cheryl Graham about Mary’s ancestry as I think it is amazing.  Mary was the second child and had 8 siblings, 1 child Betsy died at 4 months of age and they named the next child Betsy as was common in those days. She had 3 sisters and 3 brothers that lived to a fairly old age.  Her father, William, died at age 67 and her mother, Ann, at age 81.  William was born in Shepton Beaucham, Somersetshire, England as were his ancestors for SEVEN generations before him!

       William’s father was John, John’s father was William, and then there were 3 Henry’s.  The first Henry’s father was Edward and Edward’s father was Patrick.  Patrick was born about 1535 and it is not certain but he may have come from an Isabella “Rowsell” born about 1511.  The name Rowsell changed with the first Henry to Rowswell and has been used since.  So, for all those generations the name was passed down through sons until Mary and she married a Glover, otherwise Grandma Rosalind Glover Pearson would have been a Rowswell.

Also, the family stayed put all those years. They lived in Shepton Beaucham (pronounced Beecham) for hundreds of years AND RELATIVES STILL LIVE THERE.  No wonder Mary had a hard time moving away from home.  Thank goodness for St. Michael’s church that kept great records all those years.  It was a small community with only one church.

                              Shepton Beaucham's St. Michael's Church

                                 St. Michael's Church showing cemetery

History of James Glover

Back Row:  Joseph 1854-1937; Mary Jane 1857-1937; George 1846-1917; Albert 1852-1925
Front Row:  Elizabeth 1861-1928 Sarah Ann 1849-1921; Eliza Ann 1866-1937; Frances Alice 1868-1960

James and Mary Rowswell Glover

    

      Melissa Bateman (Glover) was a child of Frances Alice Glover (Bateman).  Frances was the youngest daughter of James Glover, the one born in Pennsylvania where the family worked in the mines to earn enough money to finish their trip to Utah when they emigrated from England.  She wrote a history of her Grandfather James from information given to her by her mother, and here are some excerpts from it:

     James Glover was born at Kingsbury Episcopi, Somerset, England in 1823.  His mother was Joan Glover, daughter of William Glover and Jane Mead.  His mother told him that his father was Richard Mounter but that he went away to sea and left her.  He had two older brothers, George and Job and all were given and used their mother’s surname, Glover.  Joan eventually married George Knight and they had 5 children.  James did his own temple work and was sealed to his mother and his step-father, George Knight, in the Salt Lake Temple.

     James said he taught himself to read and write by studying and memorizing the signs in the shop windows.  In July 1833 at the age of ten, he was apprenticed to John Trott of Barrington, Somerset, to learn the blacksmith and wheelwright trade.  He remained in this service until age twenty-one or 1844.  In speaking of John Trott, James said, “He was a very hard master and I received much bad treatment from him.”  Yet many years later he had the temple work done for John and his wife, Elizabeth Gibbs Trott.

     As soon as his apprenticeship was done he married Mary Rowswell.  Mary had made her living as a young woman making gloves.  As a side note, when her son George was on his mission to England he located the machine that his mother had used to make gloves.  He wanted to bring it home but the high duty made it impossible.

     While James had been christened in the Church of England, not agreeing with the beliefs of that religious faith, he later joined the Methodist Church although his study of the Bible led him to believe that their teachings left much to be desired. 

     Hearing that he could make better wages in Wales being a blacksmith for the equipment used in the mines he left his family in England for a short time and sought employment there.  One evening while walking along the street in Victoria, he stopped to listen to a street meeting.  He had never come in contact while in England with any missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Not only was he interested in the message these young Elders delivered but he was convinced that they spoke the truth and that their teachings agreed with the Bible and that they had just what he had been looking for so he immediately applied for baptism.

     Although he had taken this step before his family reached Wales, he was fortunate in that his wife and all of his children later became faithful members of the Church.  However, as far as we have been able to learn, James Glover was the only one of his family and his wife, Mary, the only one of her kin to join the Church.   He later was made President of the Victoria Branch of the Church in Monmouthshire, Wales. 

     James had a gift of great faith and he was blessed with inspiration as is shown in the following incidents.  A man named Dan Meredith who was employed by the same company as James was severely injured in a cave-in in the mine.  A number of bones in his body were broken.  Some of the elders united their faith and James administered to him.  “Believe it or not,” James insisted, “that while that ordinance was being performed we heard those bones slip back into place.  Mr. Meredith was completely healed.”  From Melissa:  “He later came to Utah and worked in the Bingham Canyon (mine), but he left the Church which proved that one’s faith must be founded on something other than miracles.”

     “Grandfather’s responsibility was to keep the tools and machinery used in the mine in good condition.  James's oldest son, George worked in the mine.  One morning instead of just awakening his son, the father said, 'George, I don’t want you to go to work this morning.  Just stay in bed and I’ll tell your boss that you are ill.'  That very day such a bad accident occurred that if George had been in his usual place he would have been killed.

     …The Glover family had not been in the Church long before they experienced the spirit of gathering so they began to save their money that they might immigrate to Utah…They sent their oldest child, Sarah Ann over first.  She went directly to Utah where she married Francis Cundick in the Endowment House.  When her parents reached Utah she not only had a husband, but a young son who was also name Francis.”

     On May 30, 1866, James, Mary and eight children, (the baby Eliza Ann was not quite three months of age), left Liverpool, England, on the ship Arkwright.  They arrived in New York five weeks later.  Arriving in New York with only a dollar and some odd cents in his pocket it became necessary to work before they could continue their journey.  George found work as a blacksmith in a large six forge shop in McKeesport, Allegheny, Pennsylvania.  The owner of the shop was especially bitter against the members of the Church but the majority of the men in his employ belonged to the Mormon Church.  When he was later informed of this fact he commented. “Well, I’ll have to admit they were all good workers.” 

     “One day a man came into the shop inquiring if anyone could weld a six inch shaft which had broken on their steamboat…the owner of the shop interrogated, ‘Glover, couldn’t you fix this for us?’  ‘Yes,’ was the reply, ‘If you’ll give me full run of the shop and all the needed help.’  Using two forges the shaft was soon repaired, the boss being so pleased that James Glover’s pay was raised fifty cents a day.

     …In 1869 upon reporting to his employer that he expected to leave for Utah the owner plead with James to remain, stating that he would lease the shop to him and he could there make an excellent living not only for himself, but for his growing boys.  However, all entreaties fell on deaf ears for this man had decided to cast his lot with the unpopular and misunderstood Saints in Utah, and the parents were anxious to reunite with their daughter and son George who had preceded them.”  They arrived in Utah in September 1869, just a few months after the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad.

     James continued to work as a blacksmith in West Jordan, Utah, for Bishop Archibald Gardner.  It was a cooperative affair as tools were few in those days; an anvil, forge, bellows and a vise being the principal ones.  Iron was hard to get.  Many of the horse shoes and nails were made by hand from any old piece of tires or iron that could be obtained.  The finding of a horse shoe meant 'Good Luck' in more than one way to the children of this household.  Every small piece of iron picked up was carefully carried home to be used in the process of making a living. 

       One day, one of the less God-fearing  and law abiding citizens, Gabriel Cotton, asked James to shoe his horses.  Imagine the blacksmith’s surprise when after working all day and late into the evening, Gabriel Cotton walked away without even mentioning pay.  In fact his attitude seemed to be that of conferring a favor on the person who had thus toiled for him.  Later when James on one of his trips to Bingham, upon meeting Cotton remarked, ‘I’d like to have what’s coming to me,’ the answer given with a curse was, ‘Come off in these bushes, and I’ll give you what’s coming to you all right.’  Some days later this same person appeared at James’s shop in West Jordan late in the evening demanding that his team be shod.  James refused, telling Cotton that he had already done a hard day’s work but that if he would return the next morning the horses would be given proper attention.  Gabriel Cotton left in an ugly mood, cursing and uttering threats of revenge.  The next morning when James went to work he discovered his shop burned to the ground and he felt confident that Cotton had carried out his threats.”

     James purchased several acres of land in what is now Midvale, paying forty dollars an acre and set up a shop on his own premises.

     An occurrence which children and neighbors always looked forward to as an event of every holiday was what was called “the firing of the anvil.”  James would take the anvil off of the block and turn it upside down.  A fuse made of black powder was placed in the hole and a plug driven in on top of it.  The report made by this explosion could be heard for a long distance.  On the Fourth of July, several such “fire crackers” were enjoyed.

     “All kinds of jobs were brought to the blacksmith in those days.  Often broken stove lids were repaired by putting a piece of iron under and running a rivet through the metal.  Anything that could in any way be mended had to be used again.  Plows were sharpened.  New points or lays were put on them.  These blacksmiths were able to make everything for the plow, even the framework.  Many tires were set in the summer, the charge being one dollar a wheel.  When not busy with other things, James made bob sleds and wagon boxes.  These were often ordered months before in order to give sufficient time for their preparations.  When the Oregon Short Line then called the Utah Southern Railroad passed through Midvale, blacksmiths were given work masking wooden switches and repairing cars.”

     James had the privilege of attending the School of the Prophets in Salt Lake City and later became a Patriarch.

     In 1872 James married Betsey Clark Williams as a polygamist wife.  She continued to live in her home in Salt Lake City.  There were no children born in this union. Betsey Clark Williams Fewens Tempest Glover, a handcart pioneer, was born November 5, 1821, in Devonshire, England, the daughter of William Williams and Sophia Sheen.  She was married to William Fewens in England, and being determined to gather with the Saints to Zion she left her husband and with her son, William W. Fewen, immigrated to America in 1857, crossing the Atlantic in the ship "George Washington."  After remaining in the East three years, she came to Utah in 1860, crossing the plains in Capt. Daniel Robinson's handcart company, which arrived in Salt Lake City, August 27, 1860.  While in the East she met Henry Tempest, a widower with two children, and married him.  They came to the valley together, but after living together for about ten years, they separated.  Sister Betsey married again after a lapse of five years, becoming the wife of James Glover.  Sister Betsey followed her husband, James Glover,  to the grave April 2, 1911, being ninety years of age at the time of her death.  Sister Glover was an ardent Relief Society worker, being a member of that organization ever since she came into the valley.  She was an agent for the "Woman's Exponent" for a number of years and also a member of the Ladies Handcart Club.

     James’s wife, Mary died in 1896 when James was 73 years of age.  By 1899 James had completely lost his eyesight.  He had cataracts removed in St. Mark’s hospital and at first the operation was declared successful, but infection set in and both eyes had to be taken out.  It is interesting to know that his half-brother, Benjamin Knight who lived in Martock, Somerset, England, underwent a similar operation about the same time.  However, Benjamin’s sight was restored.

     James had a great singing voice and several of his children inherited this gift.

     Melissa’s parents took care of James after he lost his sight.  Although he’d sleep in his own house he would eat with them and spend the evenings in their home.  Melissa said even though he was blind he was very helpful.  He would turn the wheel of her mother’s old fashioned washing machine for hours and he would split wood for them.  She said he was kind and had a “lovely” disposition.

     He died of a stroke on September 18, 1903 and was buried in the West Jordan Cemetery by the side of his wife.

George Glover and family when called on a mission

George Glover and wife Harriet Thomas Glover and our grandmother Rosalind and twins Joseph Henry and Winifred at the time George was called on a mission to England.  These are the only living children out of twelve that grew to adulthood and the only twins out of three sets that lived.