Lennart and Rosalind Glover Pearson: 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.)