where it all began...

To be true to the title I should begin with Adam and Eve but I won't. I am starting with my grandfather, mothers side, Jens Nielsen Hansen. I am sure you all can see the family resemblance. Grandpa was born in Gaerup, Denmark, April 11, 1865.

From what I have been told he joined the crew of ship at around the age of 14 years.

Whether he jumped ship when it arrived in Australia is information I do not have. By 1936 he had met and married my grandmother Florence Beale Turner.

My mother, Alta Stella Hansen, was born in 1907 in Australia.

Shortly thereafter he met LDS missionaries and being the stubborn Dane that he must have been decided to pack up his small family, my mother, an older brother, and his wife and travel to America by boat to learn more about the church.

They landed in San Francisco and traveled to Utah. The winter was very cold for grandma and she became ill with pneumonia. Grandpa was busy building a house and grocery store on 11th East in Salt Lake City and coping with an ill wife and two small children.

Grandma died in February 1910.

In a letter that I have a copy of grandpa writes to the relatives in Australia and tells in broken English this experience.

As grandma lay dying she told him that she had seen Jesus and that the church was true and he needed to be baptized. This was done in the baptistry in the Tabernacle.

He then buried his wife in the SLC cemetery and returned by boat with the two children to Australia to raise them there. He never married again and he remained faithful to his beliefs all his days.