The following story is about my great-great grandfather, Peder Christian Nielsen. It was written by May Nielsen Anderson in May 1968, with edits made by Frank Merrill Nielsen in 2019.
 
Peder Christian Nielsen was born April 21st, 1823 in Sadinge Parish, Maribo, Denmark. This is on the island of Lolland. The town of Maribo where Peder came from is right between the two “l’s” in “Lolland” in the map seen below of Denmark.

Peder was the youngest son of Niels and Anne Hansen Nielsen. He was a medium-sized man with jet black hair and hazel blue eyes. He had an alternating disposition, it’s said, sometimes morose and sometimes jovial. He was given the nickname of his birthplace Sadinge, and in his youth worked in the flax business, preparing it for the spinning wheel. He also worked with butchers and did some carpentry. Later he took up the trade of basket-making.
 
On December 28th, 1844, he married Magdalene Rasmussen in Skjoringe Parish, in Maribo, Denmark. In this place he took up farming on a small scale and later moved to Bukkehaye in Nebbelune Parish, Maribo, where he was a small farmer, but stayed with his basket-making, which proved to be a pleasant and profitable vocation. They were members of the Lutheran Church, which was the popular church in Denmark.

Joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
 
In 1855 he and his wife and family joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After they embraced the Gospel, life became very hard for them. They were the only family in that vicinity to accept the Gospel, and their friends and neighbors turned against them for the most part. It became almost impossible for him to sell the baskets that he had previously found ready buyers for. He and his family were persecuted in many ways, but they held fast to their convictions and longed and prayed for the day when they could begin their journey to Zion (the company of the Latter-day Saints in Utah).
 
Their last two children were born during these years of hardships and suffering. Three sons and four daughters were born to this couple, but two of the girls died in childhood while they were still living in Denmark.
 
It was eleven long years from the time that they joined the Church until they were able to leave Denmark. The brightest spots in their lives during this time were the visits, and words of comfort and courage, which they received from the missionaries. And though these visits made them happy and fed them with spiritual food, they proved to be physical hardships on their children, who were often sent to bed hungry because they had given the missionaries the last food that they had in the house.
 
From Denmark to Utah

To their great joy, in the spring of 1866 two missionaries came to their home and told them that it was possible they would have an opportunity to emigrate to Zion that year. This announcement was met with mingled emotions of deep gratitude and loud exclamations of joy. Four of the children were booked to go, and it was understood that the eldest son, who was twenty years of age, should remain behind. But before the time of departure arrived, they were notified that their second son, who was just fourteen years of age, must remain also. Plans were made for the time of leaving, and in May 1866, they began their long-looked-for journey.
 
They took a boat from their island Lolland to Copenhagen, the capital city of Denmark, and stayed there for a few days. From there, they sailed to England via Hamburg, Germany, landing in Hull, and went from there by rail to Liverpool, where they boarded a sailboat bound for America.
 
It was a tedious journey. Niels Nielsen, a missionary returning to Brigham City, Utah, was Presiding Elder. After ten long weeks of sailing, they reached New York City. From there they went by rail and boat to Florence, Nebraska. There they were met by oxen teams sent by the Church. These teams and wagons hauled the provisions and the very small children, but all who were able to walk did so.
 
Shortly after they left the Missouri River, the dreaded disease cholera attacked the company to an alarming extent. For a time there was never a day that went by without someone having to leave a loved one in a lonely grave on the Great Plains. Terrible was the suffering and sorrow that the Saints had to endure. The deaths totaled more than one hundred, and in history it has gone down as the “Cholera Train.”
 
As they neared the Rocky Mountains, the disease abated, but it left practically every family broken up. Magdalene took two families of children into her care, whose parents had been taken from them. They arrived in Salt Lake City on October 19th, 1866, and were happy to know that at last they were in Zion.

Life in Utah
 
The day that they arrived in Salt Lake City, an old time friend met the Nielsen family and took them out to Big Cottonwood, now Holladay, in Salt Lake County, Utah. There he was able to take up his old trade of basket-making, and always found a ready market for them. In the spring of 1867 he was able to buy ten acres of virgin land and began to build a home. In the fall of 1867 he bought a cow, which was the first that he had ever owned.
 
In the spring of 1868, he moved to Brigham City. Soon after he arrived there, he joined up with some other men, and went to Weber Canyon to work on the railroad, leaving his family behind in Brigham City. He didn’t get any pay for a long time, and his family had to subsist on very meager rations until fall, when circumstances at last improved for them.
 
In the early fall of 1868 he came home from the railroad and found out about a new settlement called Bear River City, in Utah not far from Brigham City. He went there and built a log cabin, and in the late fall of 1868 moved his family there. In the spring of 1869 they lost their eldest daughter, and she was one of the first to be buried in the Bear River Cemetery.
 
During the early summer of 1869 there were excellent indications of a bounteous harvest, when suddenly a cloud of grasshoppers descended, and in spite of the heroic efforts of the citizens, the insects managed to almost completely eat or destroy the crops and gardens. So once again, the living was tough. It could have been worse had it not been for the little railroad town of Corinne, located a few miles south of Bear River City, which was built that summer. The people sold lots of wood there, also butter, eggs, and wild hay, which the grasshoppers had not molested, and which was plentiful near the river bottoms.
 
A medium-large log house was built, which was used for meetings, school, dances, and other entertainments. During winter evenings the people often met and revived their spirits with dances, parties, and even spelling contests. The warmth, and much of the time the light, was produced by burning sage in the fireplace.
 
During the summer of 1869 Peder and Magdalene’s younger son who had remained behind in Denmark arrived in Utah, the first they had seen him in three years, but their eldest son never had that privilege as he died in the spring of 1871.
 
In the spring of 1870 the people again put in their crops and planted their gardens, wondering what the outcome would be, as they knew that the ground in the field was full of grasshopper eggs. And surely enough, as soon as the ground warmed up sufficiently to hatch them, myriads of grasshoppers were again destroying the crops. But the people united, and by persistent efforts they managed to kill enough of them that their crops soon began to look green and encouraging. Then one Sunday morning the men were all ordered to repair the dam on the river. To this call they promptly and heroically responded, but in spite of all their efforts, they could not save it, and out it went. It was too late to put in another dam that year, on the Malad River, which had alkaline water that was fast filling the land with alkali, rendering the land where the water flowed useless. After all these drawbacks however, there was some grain raised, and some corn and molasses cane. Peder’s grain was considered the best in the locality, and after threshing was done, it had yielded him six bushels to the acre. He was farming on shares, so he didn’t have much left for his summer work.
 
Some people began to move away from Bear River City, with many going to Cache Valley, where Logan, Utah is located. In the spring of 1871, he decided to move back to Big Cottonwood, much worse off than when he left there three years earlier. He rented a small farm and raised a fair crop, and made adobe for another home. He got his land cleared of oak brush, and set out currant bushes, fruit trees, and also shade trees around his new home.
 
Being permanently established again in the ward where he first lived when he came to Utah made him feel more contented, and it was not long until he and his family were fairly comfortable and in a small way independent. In the year of 1877 he remodeled his house, making it more comfortable.
 
He was in a war with Germany for three years as a younger man, and had contracted a lung disease in that war, which gradually worsened through the years until he became bedfast and suffered greatly. His son later related that he was a skeleton of skin and bones when he finally passed away in the early morning of August 6th, 1879, and he was buried in the Big Cottonwood Cemetery.
 
Notes by Frank M. Nielsen:

Although May Nielsen Anderson's father, John Nielsen, died at the age of 90 in 1948, twenty years before this biography about his father Peder Christian Nielsen was written, I think John provided much of what May wrote from years of family story telling. Also, since John's little sister Tora lived until 1961, and since Tora and May were very close, Tora was probably a great source of information as well. My Grandpa Frank (John Franklin Nielsen, son of Rasmus Nielsen and nephew of John Nielsen) was known as quite the genealogist and family historian too, so no doubt he added to May's stories. I owe cousin Mary May (May) Nielsen Anderson (1891-1983) a debt of gratitude for her effort to remember our Nielsen pioneer ancestors. It is also of note that many more historical records and stories of the Nielsens from Denmark may be found posted on FamilySearch.org.    
 
As an additional note about my Nielsen Mormon pioneers, I've looked at the roster of their "Down-and-Back Oxcart Company" at the Church Pioneer History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. May Nielsen Anderson wrote that they crossed the Great Plains with the Abner Lowry Company. I counted 300 members on that company’s roster, and found that 54 died along the emigration route, mostly of the dreaded cholera, and mostly close to the outset of the journey. This was a disaster that infamously gave this company the terrible name "Cholera Train." Although it is not the 100 plus deaths as remembered by both John and Tora, who were children at the time, the 54 deaths out of 300 pioneers (18%) may have been the highest mortality rate of any emigrant company other than the Willie or Martin Handcart Companies of 1856.  

​The following story is about my great-great grandmother, Magdalene Nielsen. It was written by May Nielsen Anderson in May 1968, with edits made by Frank Merrill Nielsen in 2018.
 
Magdalene Rasmussen Nielsen was born April 17th, 1822 in Tirsted Parish, Maribo, Denmark. This is on the island of Lolland. On the map of Denmark just below, Lolland is in the southeast corner. The town where Magdalene came from is right between the two “l’s” in “Lolland.”
 
She was the eldest daughter of Rasmus and Ane Catrine Johansen Nielsen. She was fairly tall, with blonde hair and blue eyes, and was very slim for almost all of her life.
 
As a young woman, she worked in a large dairy, as was common with many of the poorer class in those days in Denmark. She learned all about the making of butter and cheese.
 
She seems to also have learned the art of making beer in her own home as a girl, because she was an expert at making malt beer. She would sprout the barley to make the malt. They didn’t drink water in Denmark, they drank beer or coffee.

On December 28th, 1844 she was married to Peder Christian Nielsen in Skjørringe Parish, Maribo, Denmark
 
All seven of her children were born in Maribo, on the island of Lolland. Her children were (in the order they were born):
 
Niels, Anne, Petra Susanne Christiane (she went by “Sanne”), Rasmus, Joanne Katrina, John, and Tora.
 
Joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (a.k.a. the Mormon Church)
 
In June of 1855, Magdalene and her husband joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They had previously belonged to the Lutheran Church, which was the popular religion in Denmark. When they left that church and joined the Mormons, they were persecuted on every side. Their friends all turned against them, and it was very hard for her husband to make a living.
 
One bright spot in their lives was when the missionaries came to visit them. Even then, things must have been very hard, as she always had to put her children to bed hungry so the missionaries could have supper at her house.
 
This went on for eleven years, but at least in the spring of 1866 they received the glad news that they were booked to come to Zion (Utah). Great was their rejoicing, and in May of that year, they left their native land.
 
At this time she had five living children. Joanne Katrina had passed away in August 1855, at the age of just 16 months, and Anne had passed away in June 1857 at the age of ten.
 
Magdalene’s heart was saddened when she found out that two of her sons, Niels (age 21), and Rasmus (age 14), would have to remain behind. Therefore she left for Utah with three children, Sanne (age 15), John (age 7), and Tora (age 3).
 
Imagine how she must have felt, to have to leave a 14-year-old boy behind, not knowing when or if they would ever meet again in this life. Rasmus did arrive in Utah three years later, in 1869, after the railroad was completed.
 
Niels, who was a sailor, died on his ship and was buried at sea in the spring of 1871. She never saw Niels again in this life after leaving Denmark.
 
The trip from Denmark to Utah
 
Ten weeks were spent on the ocean, and eleven weeks were spent crossing the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains. Sad and weary were those weeks. Cholera broke out in the company just after they had left the Missouri River, and every day several people were left in lonely graves along the way. She was fortunate in keeping her three children, who all survived, and she also mothered and cared for two families of children whose parents were victims of cholera and were buried on the plains.
 
Magdalene herself become ill, and had to ride in the sick wagon quite a while, since she was too weak to walk. She had a bottle of brandy in her provisions box, and each morning she gave each in her family some water with a little brandy. She felt sure that it was that little dose of brandy that saved them.
 
Also some people had cows, and her husband and young son drove them and took milk for pay, so they could each have a little milk each day, which likely also helped save them.
 
Magdalene and her husband were the only parents who arrived in Utah in that pioneer company with the same number in their family as when they had left Denmark.
 
They came with ox teams, but everyone who was old enough to walk had to walk. That included young John and little Tora, who each had a birthday along the way. When they arrived in Utah, John was eight and Tora was four years old. Sanne was sixteen years old when they arrived, having also had a birthday along the way.
 
At the time of their arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, Peder Christian was 43 years old, and Magdalene was 44.
 
They reached Salt Lake City on October 19th, 1866, and an old friend from Denmark met them and took them to Big Cottonwood, where she lived most of the next few years.
 
Life in Utah
 
In the spring of 1868, she and her husband and family moved from Big Cottonwood to Brigham City, and stayed until fall, when they moved to Bear River City and lived in the fort there. Her husband had gone there and built a log cabin, within the fort, before he moved the family over there.
 
In Bear River City, most everyone was Danish or at least Scandinavian, so that made things very fine for her, as she never would try to learn to speak the English language.
 
Magdalene used to help care for the sick quite a bit in the fort, and even sent food to the sick and aged Indians who were camped nearby along the river.
 
Her eldest Daughter, Sanne, married William Casto in the fall the year after they arrived in Utah. That was in 1867. William was called to go and help settle what’s known as the Muddy Mission in Nevada, so immediately after their marriage, they left for Nevada.
 
In the spring of 1869, Sanne’s husband brought her back to Salt Lake City. Her father Peder Christian met her there, and took her to Bear River City, but she hadn’t been there long when she became ill with “black canker” (i.e. severe diphtheria), and in a few days she passed away and was buried in the Bear River City cemetery. She was one of the first persons to be buried there. She was 18 years old when she passed away.
 
Magdalene must have felt very lonely with only two of her children with her, and having buried her daughter Sanne, and not knowing at that time how her two sons in Denmark, Rasmus and Niels, were doing.
 
Her son Rasmus arrived in Utah in 1869 after his sister Sanne had passed away. At that time he was 17 years old. He joined the family in Bear River City.
 
In the spring of 1871, they moved back to the Salt Lake Valley, to either Big Cottonwood or Holladay. That same spring, after arriving back in Salt Lake Valley, they received a letter from Denmark, with a lock of black hair and the sad news that Niels had died. Great was the sorrow of her husband, herself, and their family.
 
Now Magdalene had three living children remaining, and they were her youngest – Rasmus, John, and Tora. Also, her husband was not doing well. He had contracted tuberculosis of the lungs while in a war with Germany before they had come to Utah. Despite this however, he worked as hard as he could for his wife and family for as long as he could. He built Magdalene a comfortable house on the ten-acre tract of land that he owned.
 
In 1879, her husband Peder Christian Nielsen became bedfast, and on August 6th of that year he passed away and was buried in the Big Cottonwood cemetery.
 
Magdalene Nielsen’s last years, in the words of May Nielsen Anderson
 
“As I understand it her son Rasmus, and his wife Mary, agreed to care for her and have her home for theirs. But John moved to Ashley Valley in 1885 and Tora Starkie came in 1887. I believe Rasmus filed on a place east of John's place so on July 26, 1888 Rasmus and family came to the Ashley Valley bringing his mother with him. She lived with them till 1894 when Rasmus died. She lived there some of the time even after that. In 1896 Mary--Rasmus' widow remarried, so I don't know how much she lived there after that. She lived with her daughter Tora most of the time from 1896 and was there when she passed away Feb. 12, 1903 and was buried Feb. 14. There had been a big snow storm and a blizzard, but the storm had cleared and the cold was so intense that everyone who went to the Cemetery really suffered. To me it seems sad that old people who have a long hard life should have to be buried under such unpleasant conditions.”
 
Some more info about the Nielsen pioneer family, added by me, Frank Nielsen
 
Great-Great Grandma Magdalene died at the age of 81 in 1903 near Vernal, Utah. Ashley Valley, mentioned above, is where the city of Vernal lies.
 
Great Aunt Tora passed away in 1961, when I was eight years old, at the age of 99, also in Vernal. She was one of the last two surviving original, pre-1869 Mormon pioneers! 
 
Great Uncle John, who walked the Great Plains as a young boy, died 82 years later in 1948, at the age of 90, also in Vernal. 
 
Cousin May Nielsen Anderson, who wrote these histories, was John's daughter. John's brother Rasmus is my Grandpa Frank's father, so that makes my Grandpa Frank, who I’m named after, and May, first cousins.  
 
Some future blog posts on this website will share additional stories that come from the writings of Cousin May.

​- Published by Frank Merrill Nielsen, June 2018

The following story is about my two-times great grandparents, Peder and Magdalene Nielsen 
 
Peder and Magdalene were born in Denmark in 1823 and 1822 respectively.  They married in 1844, converted to the LDS Church in 1855, and after a long wait, emigrated to Utah in 1866.  
 
When you read, "Magdalene", pronounce it as "Magdalena", because in Danish that is approximately how it is said.  She spoke Danish, even in Utah, where she found herself among many fellow Danes. 
 
The following account is written by my Grandpa Frank's first cousin, May Nielsen Anderson, with minor corrections and additions by yours truly.  Cousin May was a wonderful historian, writing in depth about her Nielsen ancestors in collaboration with Grandpa Frank and other relatives.  Thank goodness!  Thank-you cousin May!
 
 The following was written by May Nielsen Anderson in 1958, with some edits made by Frank Merrill Nielsen in 2018
 
Peder worked in the flax business, with butchers, did carpentry, and made clogs and baskets. In 1844 he married Magdalene.  From 1848 to 1851 he served his country in a war with Germany, but contracted a lung disease, tuberculosis, which eventually caused his early death. 
 
In 1855 Peder and Magdalene learned about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, accepted the Gospel, and were baptized.  However, this brought on persecution by the Lutheran majority, since Lutheran was the official religion of Denmark.  Magdalene wasn’t allowed to draw water from the well, and no one would employ Peder. 
 
In early 1866 they received word that they could emigrate to “Zion”, although they could only bring three of five surviving children (seven children were born to them, but two died in infancy), leaving behind Great Grandpa Rasmus (14) and Niels (21).  The family, including Thora (4), John (8) and Petrasanne (15), departed Denmark in May, 1866, thanks to the Church's Perpetual Emigration Fund, which they would pay back, once they got settled.
 
It took ten weeks to get to Nebraska, sailing six weeks to New York, then up the Hudson River and Erie Canal to Buffalo, steam-shipping across Lake Erie to Cleveland, then riding the rails west to St. Joseph, Missouri, and then taking a 94-mile riverboat ride up the Missouri River to little-known Wyoming, Nebraska.  From there, they hooked up with Abner Lowry's “down-and-back” oxen wagon train and headed west.  
 
They trekked via the “Wyoming Cutoff,” which went northwest at a diagonal, to catch up with the Mormon Overland Trail at about Fremont, Nebraska, some 50 miles west of present-day Omaha.  It took eleven weeks to walk the plains to Salt Lake City, although four-year-old "Tora" was allowed to ride in a wagon most of the time. 
 
Shortly after they left the Missouri River, the company was severely stricken by cholera.  Magdalene nursed the sick, until she too became ill. Fortunately she survived, and none of the other Nielsens contracted the disease.  Unfortunately though, 54 out of 300 souls in the company lost their lives.  
 
Great-Great Grandma Magdalene took in two families of children orphaned by the disease, and mothered them all the way to Salt Lake City, where good families adopted them.  They arrived in Salt Lake City on October 19th, 1866, where Peder was met by an old friend from Denmark who took the Nielsens into his home in Cottonwood.
 
In 1868 they moved to Brigham City, and then to Bear River City in 1869.  Later in 1869, then-17-year-old Great Grandpa Rasmus Nielsen managed to emigrate to Salt Lake City to join his family, traveling on the new Trans-Continental Railroad all the way to Utah.  
 
Great Uncle Niels unfortunately stayed in Denmark, where he was a sailor.  He died the next year, in 1870, at sea at the age of 25, never to reunite with his family in this life again.  
 
Great Aunt "Sanne" died at age 18 in Brigham City.  
 
The Nielsens moved back to Cottonwood in 1871, with Peder’s health worsening.  By careful management and hard work, despite his illness, he secured a small tract of land, built another home, and became reestablished in the same ward where they had first lived in Utah.  
 
On August 6th, 1879 Great-Great Grandpa Peder passed away at the age of 56. 
 
 Some more info about the Nielsen pioneer family, added by yours truly
    
Great Grandpa Rasmus Nielsen eventually moved on to Vernal, Utah, where he died at the age of 42, perhaps from a bee sting in his apple orchard in 1894, or from diphtheria, as there was an epidemic at the time. 
 
In 1880, Rasmus and his wife Karen Marie ("Mary") had a son named John Franklin (Frank) Nielsen, who is my Grandpa Frank.  Grandpa Frank rather unexpectedly died on October 9th, 1953, the 35th birthday of my dad, Merrill Rasmus Nielsen, when I was just seven days old.  Dad and Mom named me "Frank" after him.  He was in the St. Marks Hospital in Salt Lake City at the same time I was, but I don’t know if he ever saw me. 
 
Great-Great Grandma Magdalene died at the age of 81 in 1903 near Vernal, Utah. 
 
Great Aunt Tora passed away in 1961, when I was eight, at the age of 99, also in Vernal.  She was one of the last two surviving original, pre-1869 Mormon pioneers! 
 
Great Uncle John, who walked the Great Plains at the age of eight, died 82 years later in 1948, at the age of 90, also in Vernal.  
 
Cousin May Nielsen Anderson, who wrote these histories, was John's daughter.  John's brother Rasmus is Grandpa Frank's father, so that makes Frank and May first cousins. 
 
Some future blog posts on this website will share additional stories that come from the writings of Cousin May.

- Published by Frank M. Nielsen, February 2018

The Nielsen pioneers
​
As I finally awoke to what I believe to be the call of my ancestors in 2014, I found a lot of information about my Nielsen lineage as well. The Nielsen pioneers are also amongst those honored by the 1899 Route of the Mormon Pioneers wall map.

The story of my Great-Great Grandfather Peder Christian Nielsen is that he and his family became members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Denmark, in 1855, and the family immigrated to Salt Lake City, Utah in 1866.

After having been baptized into the LDS Church, the Nielsens were persecuted in Denmark. They waited eleven years to receive funds to immigrate to Salt Lake City, but when the Church's Perpetual Emigration Fund bought them their fare, only five out of seven in the family could go. My Great Grandfather Rasmus Nielsen, age 14, was left behind but came to Utah three years later on the newly completed train line. Rasmus’ brother Niels, a sailor at age 22, was also left behind and died at sea four years later. Sadly, my two-times-great grandparents never saw their first born son Niels again.

To get to Zion, five members of the Nielsen family sailed across the Atlantic Ocean by ship, then up the Hudson River and across the Erie Canal to Buffalo, New York, and then on another boat across Lake Erie to what is now Cleveland, Ohio. Then they took a train to St. Joseph, Missouri, took a riverboat to Wyoming, Nebraska, and finally walked 1,100 miles on the Mormon Trail to Salt Lake City with an oxen wagon train.

A disaster struck their company the day they started, and 54 out of 300 pioneers in their company died of cholera. That company of pioneers infamously became known as "The Cholera Train". The Nielsens were the only family in the company that did not lose someone to the illness.

My Great-Great Grandmother Magdalena Nielsen was smitten by cholera too, although she recovered and then took in and mothered two families of children, who were orphaned by the disease, for the rest of the journey. She asserted that the reason she recovered, and the rest of the family was not smitten, was that she had brought a bottle of brandy from Denmark, which was sipped nightly by all in the family as medicine.
​
When they arrived in Salt Lake City, Utah on October 19th, 1866, it was 21 weeks after they had left Denmark, and although they had community and Church assistance, they had to start from scratch and build a new life and home in a new world. I understand that my Great-Great Grandmother made friends with other Danes, but never really learned English very well by the time she passed away in 1903. ​

The Route of the Mormon Pioneers wall map honors all pioneers
​
The lovely 1899 wall map truly honors my great-great grandparents and their families, as well as all other families of Mormon pioneers between 1846 and 1869, whatever their difficult story. For more about this remarkable wall map and my efforts to restore and enhance it digitally, and make it available to all, see the link at the top of this page.

​- Frank M. Nielsen, great-great grandson of Mormon pioneers