Jens Christian Sorensen Frost (2)
Jens Christian Sorensen Frost was born 2 November 1839 in Mariager, Randers, Denmark. He accepted the gospel and was baptized 20 November 1858. His father was Anders Sorensen Frost and his mother was Elsie Marie Christensen. He quit school when he was in the fourth grade but there was not anything he could not do.
Grandmother and Grandfather Frost were already in Ephraim and father was performing a mission in his native country. Mother, a beautiful young girl (Johanna Marie Andersen, born 30 January 1839 in Skjove, Hjorring, Denmark) met father at Brother and Sister Wheelmakers where he was preaching the gospel. Mother was the same age as father. She was not allowed to visit the meetings held by the Mormon missionaries so she waited until nightfall when all was quiet and went out he window to see and hear the missionaries and there met this fine young light-complexioned missionary she had heard so much about, and I guess by the events that followed, he must have smiled at her or she at him, for it did not take very long before she joined the church on 30 August 30, 1861, and the same year decided to go to America. She was afraid to tell her parents; her father was very much against it and one day happened to see them leaving in a buggy. He ran on foot after the vehicle with outstretched arms, pleading for her to come back. She was his only daughter. However, they were so happy they did not see or hear him, so off they went to the port of embarkation.
They sailed 6 April 1862 aboard the Franklin and sailed away from beautiful Denmark to the wastelands of America to endure the privations and hardships of pioneers in a new land. One week later on 14 April 1862 they were married by the ship’s captain (they were sealed later 14 October 1865). There were other couples married at the same time, one was the Brothersens, who settled in Mt. Pleasant, Utah. Their daughter, Laura, married Hyrum Sorensen of Ephraim, Utah, who was a son of one of father’s converts to the church.
In attendance at their wedding on that bright and sunny day were the Elders in the presence of the Captain and officers of the ship. Mother and father were both weak and sick but they spent their honeymoon as best they could under the circumstances. They were on ship for nine weeks crossing the Atlantic. An epidemic of measles broke out on ship and over fifty percent of the people were stricken and many died. The water in barrels turned thick. Mother helped sew clothes and prepare those that died for burial at sea. Some were children of her very dear friends, the Jensen’s, affectionately known as the Wheelmakers.
They landed at Florence and went from there to father’s sister in Blair, Nebraska, for a much needed rest. While in Blair one evening there was a dance and mother wanted so much to join in the fun. She said she was so tired of the company of the ship and the dreary weeks on the ocean and so she danced with some of the other young men. Father said that was the first time she disobeyed him, for he did not want her to dance with some of the dark men at the dance.
Their destination was Utah so they crossed the plains from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to Salt Lake City in a handcart company and walked every step of the way. Mother was befriended by an old Indian, and he would always put her on his horse when they came to a stream that had to be crossed. Sometimes father did not like it so well because they were newlyweds.
On arrival in Salt Lake City, mother and father left and joined others from Denmark in Ephraim, Utah, first living in Pleasant Grove and later moved to Ephraim in 1862. It was here they built a little dug-out about one block east of grandfather’s home. It was while here that their first child was born (myself, Marie Elizabeth Frost) 20 September 1863. While I was being born they had to hold pans to catch the water that came through the roof. One day, my mother was rocking me (little Lizzie) when a huge Indian in feathered headdress appeared in the doorway, scaring her with his grunting and grinning. A neighbor woman, Tom Beal’s mother came running over shouting, “Will you get out,” and ordered him off the place.
Father was a cabinet maker, expert carpenter and did all the detailed work on many difficult cabinet jobs. He made the doors for the Tabernacle in Ephraim. He made burial caskets from white birch and lined them with white bleach. He raised fancy horses and stock cows, sheep, etc., so we always had plenty of milk and grain. He was a Minute Man in the Black Hawk War and was on duty and did go out to fight Indians with others and got lost once and had to live on service berries for many days. He was called up at night to take messages to Spring City and other places. He was very scared for the Indians were on the lookout for them. One night, he was in a place where the road went through the cedars and he heard a horse and was sure he was in for it and was so frightened, but it proved to be some horses running loose and he got to Spring City and delivered his message. He had many scares and losses.
Father, Brother Green, Brother Thompson, and another man went to Salt Lake and cut stone for months and they then made wooden pegs of hemlock to put the Tabernacle together. He worked on the St. George and Manti Temples. He did a great lot of work for the church and he was really good in every way. He used to have a mean bull with a hump that the boys would halter and chain. The bull was mean and would go up and down the street and bellow. Father’s barn was kept up just right was a neat and clean as the house. He would go out and put the cows in the stables to milk and then about a certain time of night he would up and turn them out into the corral and the yard. When the cows had to be milked he would make sure that we stripped them good and get the cream that was the last part of the milk and the good part. He sat on a little wooden stool to milk and many times milked two cows at once. Father was also a watermaster for years and used to have one of the children deliver the water notices to the old Danish people and they would tell them in Danish when to take the water.
We never had to take our shoes to the shoemaker. He always fixed our shoes. We had a looking glass in the kitchen and he would stand there and cut and primp every Sunday. One of the children had the chore of cleaning his celluloid collar every Saturday so it was clean and ready for Sunday. The children blacked his shoes with soot and grease from the stove and they had to be shined and put down by the side of his bed. He was so fussy and meticulous. Everything had to be laid out so prim.
They wore homemade garments made from the linsey cloth they wove themselves which they made into garments and every seam had to be placed so the seams would not rub his body. Oh, it was awful. They had long sleeves and double collars. Poor father. He would just sweat when he would work in the field in the summer. They were very difficult garments to put on.
He took up farming to help support his family and had forty acres just south of Ephraim city limits. He was extremely neat about the yard, barns, chicken coops and grainary and workshop back of the house (which had been living quarters before the big rock house was built). The workshop had only a dirt floor, which we swept with willows. It was built of adobe.
The second house we lived in was where Rasmus Clawson lived. The next home was where Faithful Andrew lived, across from Peter Greaves, and it was there that he left from to marry Mette and our family began to grow.
The next house we had was an adobe three-room with hard floor. The other was mud floor. We would sprinkle the floor with water and it was so nice and fresh. Father was faithful and always taught us to be good. We helped in the field, raking, binding, gleaning wheat which father cut with a cradle, and a thrash. One year we thrashed twenty bushels. The children fed pigs, chickens, horses, and worked hard every day.
The walks leading to the gardens, yard, etc., had just enough room for one person. Children understood they were not to get off the walks or to gather anything. Children loved to walk on those beaten paths and go through the block to Aunt Mette’s little house. The pretty clipped lilac hedges all around were fun to play in, but no picking a branch, no messing up, and not too much noise. He was stern. When grandchildren stayed for a meal there was no funny stuff. It was a serious affair and sometimes uncomfortable. The doorsteps were always scrubbed clean and he never stepped on them, always up and over, even when he called at our home which was not often and he was always busy.
When we were living across from Peter Greaves in Faithful Andrew’s house, father left to marry his second wife, Mette Marie Mortensen, from Denmark. It was the custom at that time for families who could support another woman to take them into their homes. After Mette had been in the house for about a year, she and father went to Salt Lake to the endowment house to be married. They traveled in a good wagon and a team of father’s fine horses. When they returned, my mother met them and said, “Well, are you married?” This was a hard day for my mother in many ways, but she remained cheerful, encouraged by other sisters in the Relief Society who were living the same way.
Father married a third wife, Sine Petersen, also from Denmark. She lived with us in the three-room house (1872) where twenty children were born. After father married Sine he built a new twelve-room rock house beside the adobe. He had it fine. We used to cook in a fireplace until father brought home a little four-hole stove and we were so happy. Our home was always nice. Cabinets in the kitchen had small drawers with little square knobs to pull out. The front door, which was seldom opened, was rather large with a great big lock and key of brass. There was a perfectly clipped hedge surrounding the backyard; strawberries, orchard and hops on the side fences and a picket fence in front.
They all said father had an exemplary family, and he was very proud of his three wives, dressed just alike in homemade clothes. We all had lovely homemade dresses, shawls, sashes, coats, caps, and we looked fine until things began to come in and we got some store clothes. Mother was an accomplished dressmaker and did needlework of all kinds. Mother made father’s and our brother’s clothes. Father never showed any affection in front of the other wives. Father was always courteous and kind.
Because father had a lot of fruit trees, fruit was put in the cellar and was our treat when we visited and one at a time, “others have to have some too.” Winter pearmaines, red striped and cooking apples and dried prunes.
The charming walks leading to the gardens and yard had just enough room for one person. Children understood not to get off the walks or both anything. My daughter, Norman, and her cousin, Cassie, would walk behind him and “help” feed chickens or gather eggs. When they would giggle and step off the path just a little, he would look back and caution them and again proceed with them following.
Father had blond hair and a long beard and very large blue eyes. He always wore a derby hat and stood very straight and walked lightly on his feet. Josie, my sister, and I remarked about him and a next door neighbor going to church together. Brother Lund had mud all over his shoes and splashed on his Sunday pants, but father had only a little on the soles of his shoes.
When my husband to be, Charlie, and I were strolling about one evening, Charlie had his arm around my waist when we ran into father and mother. Of course, we were surprised and father said, “Nay, Nay,” and Charlie said in embarrassment, “Ya, Ya,” which cleared the air and they could laugh about it.
When we were living in the big rock house, father was called on another mission to Denmark and we all did what we could to help him go. He did perform a good mission. Now the law was that they could not have so many wives, so father had to get homes for his wives. Mette moved down to Grandfather’s house, Sine lived in a little house where mother lived. We all loved Sine. She died at 42 and left four little children which mother took in. Father was arrested 3 June 1888 for polygamy.