Anne Larsen (Jensen)

Now Marie was out of Hopner’s reach and, of course, Anne got the credit the second time of having led Hopner’s daughter astray. That same Jonassen apostatized after they had lived in Salt Lake City a few years, but Marie stayed with the Church. Jonassen died young and a son of theirs has since been on a mission to Denmark.

The last evening we were to stay there, I found Anne out in the hallway of the hotel crying. I asked her what was the matter, but she was crying so hard she could not tell me. After a little while she told me that Hans Hansen had told her she had better stay here in Copenhagen, for she would get no further than to Hamburg anyway, and she did not know what in the world to do now. She would by no means like to stay in Hamburg, and she would not like to stay in Copenhagen either. Then she would rather go back to Falster, but she did not like that either, besides she had no money to go back with, and the people would laugh at her when she came back again saying that the Mormons had fooled her. She really felt awfully bad over it. I told her that Hans Hansen could not get that money back again, neither could he stop her in Hamburg, because when I sent the money in I sent it in her name and it was out of his reach. If Peter had sent the money in at the time he sent their own, then they could have got it, but not the way it was fixed now. But she was still afraid to go to Hamburg for fear they would find some tricky way to do it, and she could by no means think of staying in that German city. I then said, “You shall not stay in Hamburg, for if such should happen, you shall go for my money. I can better get along in Hamburg than you can.” This, of course, comforted her, but she did not like to stop me from going either. I guess she did not sleep much that night.

Hans Hansen had some relatives in Copenhagen, two of his sisters’ sons, who were restaurant and saloon keepers. They had treated him and made him drunk and crazy, and they had evidently set in him how he should stop both his wife and son from emigrating, and then make the Mormon president pay back all the money and, of course, stop the two girls from going. And I also think it was they that had engaged the police to help, as he was not smart enough to do that himself, but he did not succeed in stopping any of them, only himself.

Next day we had to leave Copenhagen and go by steamship to Kiel, and from there to Hamburg by railroad. In the early morning Hans Hansen seemed to be sober. He said nothing, but helped to haul the baggage down to the ship. We hired a cart to haul our baggage to save expense. A cart would hold a half dozen boxes or trunks. As soon as we came down with the first load and commenced to carry it out to the ship, there came a policeman and told us not to carry out anything that had Hans Hansen’s name on. Now we understood what was up. Peter and his girl had a box together with Hans Hansen’s name on. The police wanted to stop that too, but Peter and the girl claimed there was nothing in that box belonging to the old man, and I believe they opened it and showed the policeman what there was in it. So they were finally permitted to take it down to the ship. When his wife learned about it she did not know what to do, but she had not been down to the ship yet.

Their bedclothes had not been brought down to the ship yet. We all had our bedclothes put in a big sack, and they had written the names with pen and ink on one corner of each sack. Now we could roll the sacks up in such a way that the name did not show. This we did, and I took a stick and with ink I wrote with big letters H.H.H.C. on each sack of theirs containing clothes. That was his initials, but neither he nor the police understood them. Anne had also had the same written on her bedclothes sack, because they were to go in one company. On her sack I wrote “Anne Larsen Ornes Conference.” She had no box of her own, but she had some things of her own put in their boxes, which she lost. The names were not put on our baggage for shipping directions, but each one had to find their own again after it had been all mixed up in the ships and railroad cars, the whole way through.

Now Hans Hansen’s wife had come down and looked at the box that had been ordered stopped, and she looked very sad. Neither the police nor her husband were there at the moment. When I saw her, I went over and asked her what she was going to do. “Well, what in the world shall I do?” Then I said, “Do you wish to stay with him or do you wish to go?” “I will not stay if I possibly can go.” “Then come with me,” I said, and she was quick to step to me and off we went. I took her up to President Widerberg’s office and told him all that had happened, and asked if he could help her to get off. “Yes,” he said, “but you will have to send her on the railroad and you will have to go with her, we cannot let her go alone.” I then told him she had a son. “Well that is still better, then he will have to stay back and go with her.”

Then I asked if she and her son could draw the money that had been paid in his name. He said, “Yes, unless the police should order him not to pay it out to them.” He was not supposed to know that the man had stayed back unless he was notified. But the ship fare had already been paid, out of the money sent in, and he could not get it back anyway. I then told him about the two girls that he was going to take with him and that he had told them last night that they had better stay in Copenhagen, because they would not get any further than Hamburg anyway. “That is a worse case,” he said, “for if I pay his money to those girls I may get in trouble for it.” Then I told him that the girls had borrowed the money from him, and that the money had been sent in the girls names, and not in his name. “Then it is all right with the girls money. They will get them in Hamburg in American money, and it will be all right with the money for the woman and her son, too, if I do not get orders from the authorities to hold them back.”

Now I started back toward the ship, and on the way back I met O. H. Berg, our conference president. I told him what I had done, and that Peter would have to stay back and go with his mother. Berg went back with me to find Peter and to tell him, but we found that he was surrounded by a big mob that evidently intended to hold him back and prevent him from going out to the ship until it had gone, and thereby compel him to stay back with his father. It did not look like it would be possible to get to speak to Peter, but finally Berg elbowed his way through the crowd and called out, “Peter you will have to stay back, you cannot go with them.” “How can that be?” Peter asked. “You can learn that some other time,” Berg replied. When the mob heard that they separated and let him go and Berg took him up to his mother.

It was yet one half hour before the ship was to go, but I started again towards the ship and met a young girl of our company, and she said, “Where have you been so long? There has been someone hunting for you for a whole hour, and could not find you.” “Who is it that has been hunting for me?” I asked. She did not know, but said she would show me, and led me right under the nose of a policeman, and said that was him. I almost got scared, but walked right on. The policeman took no notice as there was a big crowd, but the girl came after me again, thinking I had misunderstood her, but I whispered to her to keep still and say nothing or she would get me into trouble. I thought someone must have seen me go away with the woman, but I never thought until then that it could be construed as a criminal act.  

Now I went on the side of the ship away from the land and tried to keep a little in hiding behind the objects. The deck of the ship was now full of people. By peeping out, I saw Hans Hansen standing there in the crowd and a policeman by his side, but I never noticed that they started to go out on the ship. But now while I was standing there and thinking of no danger, I heard Hans Hansen say, “I know him well enough if I can get my eyes on him. He has got a gray coat on.” He was almost close to me when he said it. I glanced at him and noticed well enough that his eyes were quite dim by this time, but the policeman was right on his heels and his eyes were bright. I could make no movement there, but had to stand still and just move far enough out of the way to give him and the policeman room enough to squeeze through past the gray coat, but there were so many gray coats and the policeman could not know me by that mark. After they had passed me, they met the girls and asked them if they knew where the woman and Peter were, but they knew nothing at all about it. Hans Hansen said again to the girls that they would get no further than Hamburg. After the policeman had got off the ship and it had started to go, and had got a little way out, I went around and found the girls, and they were in tears. Now they had started and were bound for Hamburg, whatever the consequences. They were greatly perplexed. They did not know what had become of the woman or Peter or me, as they had seen nothing of any of us for two or three hours. Now I told them all that had happened and also what President Widerberg had said about the money, so that they could consider themselves perfectly safe.