Lars Petersen

This happened right at the time when snow was the deepest, there being lots of it that year, so she could not go anywhere for snow at the time, so she sat down to cry. When he saw that, after a little while he came over to her and told her that she did not need to cry over it, for he was not going to drive her out, she could stay until spring if she wanted to, but he would not pay her any more than her board for her work. In the beginning, when she first came there, they had promised to pay her two dollars a week during the winter. They had plenty of work for her to do, carding, spinning, and coloring yarn and sewing, and many times he went away and stayed all day, but then she had to tend the stock, too. The old woman was weaving. Anne said that she was a good woman, but she had nothing to say as she was a regular slave.

Anne said that when she first came there, they set her to work sewing endowment clothes, which she understood were intended for her to use herself, but Anne thought otherwise.

She told me also that as long as it was fine weather in the fall she could attend to her own mail business, but after the snow came she had trusted her mail to him. The result was that he had destroyed it, hoping that if she could not hear from me that he would succeed in getting her for himself.

In the early spring Mr. Benson moved to Brigham City, and Anne came with them to Ogden; that is, she had the privilege to walk behind the wagon in the mud, for the wagon was heavily loaded and the road bad, but she got what little she had hauled to Ogden, and of course she stopped in the night where they stopped. At Ogden I met her and brought her to Huntsville. We learned afterward that Mr. Benson had committed suicide in Brigham City, after going crazy.

On April 7, 1866, we were married by Bishop F. A. Hammond. We settled in Huntsville and have resided there ever since. We had six children of which three are still living.

On April 7, 1866, we launched our craft on the waters of the matrimonial ocean which, by some writers, has been described as the largest and stormiest ocean in the world, and that more shipwrecks have occurred on that ocean than on all other oceans combined. We sailed on that ocean for nearly fifty years, but never reached the end of it. In fact, we believed there was no end of it if we steered in the right direction. Of course, we had our storms and calms, our ups and downs, our sunshine and shadows, like other voyagers, but by the help of Providence, we avoided shipwreck. Our ship came suddenly to a standstill on the tenth day of January 1916, but we hope by the help of Providence that we may sometime in the future be enabled to start sailing again, and keep it going through the endless Eternity.

In the latter part of November 1871, we were sealed as husband and wife, for time and all Eternity, in the old Endowment House in Salt Lake City, by Daniel H. Wells. On this occasion Anne got her name changed to Anne Jensen, at the advice of John Smith, who had been Denmark on a mission, and had learned the way that the Scandinavians named their children. He advised all of them that were there to use the family name; so when Anne gave her maiden name as Anne Larsen, and her father’s name as Lars Jensen, John Smith said to her, “Why don’t you take the name of Jensen instead of Larsen?” Anne asked me what I thought of it, and I thought it would be all right, so her name in the Temple record is Anne Jensen.

In the Lutheran Church in Denmark, her name is Anne Larsdatter. In the Mormon Church record in Denmark, her name is Anne Larsen, so in order to avoid misunderstanding we have used both names together, Anne Larsen Jensen.

The Apostle Paul said that death is a gain, Philippians 1: 21. I hope that it also has been a gain to Mother, so that my loss is her gain. I hope she is freed from the sickness that troubled her here in this life for so many years. She suffered for many years with stomach trouble and headaches and other afflictions that caused her much pain and suffering. Now last fall, 1915, when she got so very sick, she said, “I cannot see why I shall suffer so much, it seems to me I had not deserved that.” Another time she said, “Oh, if you could realize what I suffer, you would surely pity me.” Of course, I could not understand and feel it like she did.

The last four months she lived she vomited up everything she took in except water and olive oil, and sometimes that also. She could not take any more medicine so we employed a nurse who gave her some relief with hot applications, but at last injections of morphine was the only thing that could ease her pain, and if there is anything that I have to regret, it is that we did not use more of that to relieve her suffering than we did. She suffered so that she finally lost her mind. Her trouble was cancer of the stomach and which was the cause of her death on January 10, 1916, at the age of seventh-seven years and five months.

After living an industrious and peaceable life, is that the reward? Is life worth living? The answer is found in the Life and Labors of Wilford Woodruff, Appendix A, page 655, “The object of living and laboring in the cause of God is to secure a part in the First Resurrection, Eternal Life and Immortal Glory.” In looking over some of her old papers, I found a verse that she had written, I think copied from some paper or magazine, that she thought suited her case:

“Men ak! paa Livete Straande,
Langs Verdens Vilde Strom,
Er Smerden kun det Sande,
Og Gleden blot on Drom”

Rendered into English the thoughts expressed in the above stanza would run something like this:

But alas! Upon life’s journey,
Along the world’s turbulent stream,
Is sorrow the only reality,
And joy merely a dream?

When she first took sick and while she was in her right mind, she said to Emma Wood, the president of the Relief Society, when she had come to visit her, that she would like to live another year, if possible, as she had sent to Denmark for her genealogy. We had expected to have it in the fall, but it had not come yet at that time. She hoped to live to see the names of her forefathers and foremothers; also to see to it that the work for them in the Temple was being performed, as she seemed to think that if she first was gone, that it was likely to be neglected or put off. The Temple work for her relatives worried her more than any other thing as long as she was in condition to think and talk.

The genealogy, written in Denmark by Jens Jensen, did not come until about a month after her death. It contained more than five hundred names, still is not complete, for her mother had eleven children, and there are only seven in the record. Two of the missing ones, two sisters, we have the photographs of, the one being older and the one being younger than Anne. Both were alive when we left Denmark.

Have I any reason to mourn over the departed? Perhaps not, but I cannot help it, especially when I think of how she suffered; but at the same time I do not mourn like those that have no hope, because I surely hope to meet her again some time. She died in full faith and in hope of an everlasting salvation. I am glad anyway that it was not I that departed from her, for I believe that I can better get along alone than she would have been able to do.

“Farewell, dear Mother, sweet thy rest,
Weary with years and worn with pain,
Farewell, til in some happy place
We shall behold thy face again.”