Provinces of Sweden
In the mid-1800's, Jon Jonsson and his wife, Gunild Olsdotter, had two daughters born to them in Falkenberg, Halland Province, Sweden: Beate Eleonore Jonsson (b:1827) and Olena Jonsson (b:1831.)
Swedish Province of Halland
But, like an ever-increasing number of families, this man and his family went to - or often dealt in - Copenhagen, the nearest big city, for various reasons.
Copenhagen: Crossroad of Sweden, Denmark and Germany
Two reasons may have been the weddings of their daughters; that of Beata Eleonora, in about 1852 to Niels Jensson, and that of Olena, in 1855 to Olaf Mansson (b:1827; also known later as Olaf John Mansson Lovendahl.) Commonly, even if marriages did not occur in the church, such life events were recorded in parish records, such as Sanct Paul's Kirke in Copenhagen.
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| Sanct Paul's Kirke, Copenhagen |
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| Extract for marriage of John Lovendahl and Olena Jonsson |
Eleonora and Niels Jensson had three daughters in Denmark:
..........Emelie Lovise Jensen (1853, Denmark - [passenger list evidence suggests this is "Josephine")
..........Emma Bernhardine Jensen (1855, Demark -1914, Utah) [passenger list as "Emma"]
..........Elvine Marie Jensen (1856, Denmark -1859, Denmark)
Olena and John Lovendahl had their first son (of seven) in Denmark (as seen on the ship passenger list):
..........Enoch Heber Julius Lovendahl (1856, Denmark - 1948, Utah)
Strong religious forces were at work in the mid-1800's, both in America and in European countries. One in particular was the converting and gathering of truth seekers from Europe to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS, or Mormons), founded in 1830 in the fledgling United States. The church was still in its infancy on the frontier lands of that new country, the first of its members having newly arrived in 1847 in the high deserts surrounding the Great Salt Lake in soon-to-be Utah Territory.
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Excerpt from the Scandinavian Mission records: (link) (membership records)
At the October 1849 general conference, Apostle Erastus Snow was assigned to establish the Church in Scandinavia, and Peter O. Hansen was called to serve as a missionary to Denmark. Hansen, a native of Copenhagen, was one of the first Danes to accept the gospel, having received baptism while temporarily living in Boston in 1844. Once converted, Hansen moved to Nauvoo, then migrated with the Saints to the Great Salt Lake Valley in 1847. There, he completed the Danish translation of the Book of Mormon he had begun at Nauvoo in 1845.
When it was announced that Elder Snow and Hansen would work in Scandinavia, John E. Forsgren, a Swedish convert, petitioned and was granted an opportunity to also be called to the work. The three men left Utah in October 1849, arriving in Copenhagen the following spring.
Within two months, the elders had established the headquarters of a mission in Copenhagen. The first baptisms took place on 12 August 1850 in the Oeresund near Copenhagen. The group of converts included eight men and seven women, with Ole C. U. Moenster being the first. The first branch was organized in Copenhagen on 15 September 1850. George P. Dykes established a second branch in Aalborg on 25 November 1850. By April 1851, the Aalborg branch contained 91 members.
The Book of Mormon translation prepared by Peter O. Hansen was published in January 1851, the first non-English language into which the book was published.
Although the Danish Parliament passed laws guaranteeing religious freedoms as part of the new constitution in 1849, early missionaries and members faced significant threats, opposition, and harassment from civil authorities and citizens. In Aalborg in 1851, a mob vandalized the hall where the Saints were meeting, and persecutions against Mormon children at school became so severe that in April of that year a Mormon-sponsored school, the first established in continental Europe, began in Aalborg.
Despite opposition, conferences (districts) were established in November 1851 in Copenhagen, Aalborg, and Fredericia to accommodate the rapidly-multiplying branches. The first converts to emigrate to Utah left Denmark on 31 January 1852. Of about 26,000 Danes converted during this early period, 13,984 of them emigrated to the United States by 1930.
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Olaf John Mansson Lovendahl and his younger brother, Sven Mansson Lovendahl (b: 1833), heeded the call of proselyting missionaries sent out by Brigham Young and joined the church in the Copenhagen Conference in 1856. Also in 1856, Eleonore Jensen gave birth to her third daughter, Elvine Marie. That same year her sister, Olena Lovendahl, had her first child, Enoch Heber Julius. Late the following year, John's and Sven's mother died.
The next Spring, in April 1857, John and Olena and baby Julius took passage across the Atlantic on the ship Westmoreland with 540 other Mormon emigrants, taking 36 days to make the crossing from Liverpool to Philadelphia. After traveling to the gathering and staging area in Nebraska Territory, the young family stopped there for a few years, as evidenced by the three sons born to them in 1858, 1860, and 1862. Then in 1864, the family continued overland with the John Smith Company to Salt Lake valley.
[Note: Three years after John and family left, and relieved of his filial duty to his widowed mother, and desiring to gather with the Saints in Utah, Sven and Jensine Signe Lauritzen (b: 1830, Denmark) and their approx. 4-year-old son, Christian Richard Lovendahl (b: 1855, Denmark) took passage in May 1860 with 730 other Mormon emigrants on the ship William Tapscott, taking 35 days to cross from Liverpool to New York. After traveling to Florence (Omaha) Nebraska, they must have had a very short reunion with John and Olena before continuing overland to Salt Lake with the William Budge Company, completing their trek in the single season.]
Olena's sister, Eleonore, experienced some wrenching changes of her own in Copenhagen. Her baby daughter, Elvine, died in Apr 1859, and her husband, Niels, also died sometime around then. Life must have been pretty tough for Eleonora - and with her sister so far away across an ocean.
The widowed Eleonora, at 32, remarried.
Twelve years her junior, a young German lad named Christian Heinrick Braase (b: 23 Aug 1840, Prussia) joined the church in November 1860, as recorded by the Copenhagen Conference. They married, and on 17 Sep 1862, C.H. and Eleonora Braase had a baby girl, christened in Copenhagen as Brighamine Eleonora Henriette Braase.
"What is there for us here? What to do? Where to go? I miss my sister!" Thoughts such as these likely generated the next action, which was to pack up and ship themselves to America.
In 1863, in company of 767 other Mormon emigrants, Christian H., Eleonora, and their girls took passage on the ship John J Boyd, leaving Liverpool and arriving 29 days later, 29 May 1863, in New York. What fun it must have been, traveling with three young girls, Josephine (9), Emma (7), and Brighamine (8½ months). Baby Brighamine survived the sea voyage, but died 4 Jun 1863, on the westward-bound railroad train, enroute between Detroit and Chicago (source.) Again is the strong likelihood of a short reunion, again in Nebraska, between Eleonora and her sister, Olena, before pushing on. It is not known what emigrant company they joined to make the overland portion of the trip, but evidence from the Perpetual Emigrating Fund shows the family continued their journey all the way to Utah Territory during that travel season in 1863.
That brings up an item of interest on the timeline: the when and where of the birth of Eleonora's next baby, Christian Hiram Braase.
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Name index to Emigration from the LDS Scandinavian Mission 1854-1868
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