Janet W. Sorensen and Ethel Cotterel Talk About Niels Jensen, Nicolena Rolfsen, Estella Jensen and Others

Darrin & Andrea Lythgoe's Genealogy Pages

Transcribed from audio tape by Darrin Lythgoe

JANET: Ethel Cotterel talking about Grandma and Grandpa Jensen. Well, they lived in Mt. Pleasant.

ETHEL: As the story was told to me by Sarah Jensen, my grandmother, was that Brigham Young came through those southern territories, and Grandpa Jensen and his wife Nicolena, he was working in the flour mill there with Grandpa Fechser, my great grandfather, and Brigham Young thought that Grandpa Jensen should marry again and take a wife so that he would have some children because at that time they didn’t have any children. I understand they had a baby that died at birth, but she couldn’t have any more children. And so he told Grandpa Jensen to get his wife’s permission, and if possible to take a second wife. And so Grandpa Jensen went back and talked with his wife Nicolena, and they decided that if that’s what Brigham Young wanted, that’s what they would do. He didn’t know who on earth to take for his second wife, and of course my grandmother, Sarah F. Fechser, was the oldest child of Grandma and Grandpa Fechser, and she was about 16 at the time. And so he thought, “Well, I guess she’d be all right.” That’s the way Grandpa Jensen told me, so he talked to Grandpa Fechser, and Grandpa Fechser said, “Sure, that’s fine,” because everybody did it at that time. So I asked Grandma Jensen, “Well, how did he court you, Grandma?” And she says, “Well, he came over one night and asked me to walk around the orchard with him, and we walked around the orchard and he told me that he wanted to marry me and I would be his second wife to him.

JANET: About how old was he at that time?

ETHEL: Well, this was in 1884, and so I don’t remember just when he was born.

JANET: So Nicolene and he had been married for 24 years.

ETHEL: Oh yes.

JANET: She was a lot younger than he was then.

ETHEL: Oh yes, a lot younger. And so anyway, she said well if it was all right with her folks it was all right with her. She didn’t know any different, so a group of that people at that time in Mt. Pleasant that had been asked to take second wives and marriages got together in a wagon, and she told me there was eight couples that drove from Mt. Pleasant into Salt Lake to the old Endowment House. And they had to stop along the way, and it took them, I think, I’m not sure about this, but it was about 3 or 4 days that it took to come from Salt Lake, from Mt. Pleasant into Salt Lake. And they just took shelter where they could get it. And they were all married then in the Endowment House, and then they went back to Mt. Pleasant. And I couldn’t help wondering how Aunty—we called her Aunty—how she must have felt of having her husband leave her and marry a much younger girl. Wouldn’t that be terrible?

JANET: That would be really hard.

ETHEL: I don’t know how, you know, and I told Grandma about it at the time. I said, “Just think how Aunty must have felt.” And she says, “Well, it was just the way people lived in those days.” Now my grandmother was the only one of her family that was a second wife. All of the others just had one husband. She was the oldest and that’s what happened, but anyway, she lived by herself and Aunt Nicolena lived by herself and they had two different homes.

JANET: Did they have two homes in Mt. Pleasant?

ETHEL: Yes.

JANET: Did they?

ETHEL: Yes, he had a little place for her to stay. And my mother was born on…I think they were marred in May of 1884. I could be wrong on that date. And my mother was born the 3^rd of March of 1885, and at that time it was quite hard with the federal officers coming in to arrest those men that had taken second wives or were living in polygamy. And so Grandpa Jensen was called on a mission, and he was sent to Denmark, without purse or scrip, and his family was left the best they could get along. I don’t remember just how long he was gone.

JANET: That was while they were still living in Mt. Pleasant then?

ETHEL: Yes, they were all living in Mt. Pleasant at the time. And see, I think your mother lived in Mt. Pleasant too with them.

JANET: Well, but they lived…see…Mother…they grew up…Mother was adopted in Murray.

ETHEL: That’s right, I forgot about that. It’s when she married your father that she moved back to Mt. Pleasant, wasn’t it. That’s right.

JANET: Yeah, well, no I think Nicolene and Stella moved back to Mt. Pleasant after Grandpa died.

ETHEL: Oh, that could have been. That could have been.

JANET: See, and Mother was 12 years old.

ETHEL: Because my mother was married. She’d had one baby but the baby died at birth, and I was the second child, and I was born February of 1907, because Grandpa Jensen died December the 25^th of 1906. But Grandma Jensen always spoke highly of Grandpa Jensen. She said that he was a very fair person and treated both of the wives, tried to treat them both equally, you know. She had her own cow, and she’d have to milk the cow, and feed the children. She had three children, Mother and the two boys, and your grandmother had your mother. So it was hard, and then I guess after Grandpa died, why, she got along the best she could, because there was no money coming in. At that time there was no Social Security or any benefits or any insurances or anything, so she had that little house in Murray, and then your mother and your grandma moved back to Mt. Pleasant then. Because I can remember Mother writing to your mother and getting letters from Mt. Pleasant, and I remember your mother sending me a dress one time that she had grown out of or didn’t want any more. It was such a pretty dress.

JANET: Let’s see, I thought of a question I was going to ask you and I can’t remember what it was. What did they do for a living in Mt. Pleasant?

ETHEL: That I couldn’t say.

JANET: Farmed, I guess.

ETHEL: Well, yes, that’s about all they could do, but your grandma couldn’t farm, and your mother didn’t…

JANET: Well, after they went back I think Nicolene made hats. She was a Milliner.

ETHEL: That I don’t know.

JANET: Apparently Grandma Rolfsen had done that, and she made hats. I don’t know what else. But she did have a small pension from Grandpa.

ETHEL: Well that was the pension that came from the…

JANET: Blackhawk War?

ETHEL: Blackhawk War, mm-hmm. She had that, but which was very, very small as I remember it. Uh huh. But that wouldn’t keep a person, I don’t think.

JANET: Do you know anything, did you ever hear anything about where my mother was adopted from?

ETHEL: No.

JANET: Or what nationality or anything?

ETHEL: No. I never did hear that.

JANET: None of us know anything about that.

ETHEL: I know that your mother was adopted. My mother said that she was adopted and she was such a pretty little girl, and that I think Grandma Jensen had an idea of who she was, ‘cause she told me one time. She thought she might have an idea, but she never did tell me.

JANET: Do you think that they would have been Scandinavians?

ETHEL: I couldn’t tell you that. I don’t know.

JANET: I would imagine so, don’t you think? I don’t know but…

ETHEL: No, I don’t think your mother resembles Scandinavians.

JANET: She doesn’t really.

ETHEL: No, I don’t think so.

JANET: We always had a…Merrill and I have always had a joke about it, and Merrill says, “Oh, I know she was Jewish,” because he’s such a businessman, you know, he’s a Jew, and I said, “No, I think she must have been Latin-American because I’m a fiery person.” [laughter] I’m sure she was neither, although she did have some Jewish features. She could have been Jewish even.

ETHEL: Well, I don’t know. It was somebody that lived around…

JANET: Close by?

ETHEL: Not really close by.

JANET: I think she said West Jordan.

ETHEL: Yeah, down in that area, and I don’t know of any Jews ever living down there at that time. I don’t know.

JANET: Probably not, well and they probably wouldn’t have mixed, you know.

ETHEL: Uh huh. I did hear Mother say at one time that Grandma Jensen had an idea, but she would never say. That was a closed chapter.

JANET: Well, it was kind of a shameful thing, and that had a terrible influence on Mother’s life. She never felt like she was as good as the next person.

ETHEL: Oh, she should never have.

JANET: She never did, Ethel. Her whole life, and I think it’s because of the way that she found out, you see, that her parents didn’t tell her. And Leo and Fred, one time when they were mad at her, playing, you know, just like kids would do.

ETHEL: Kids can be mean, cruel.

JANET: Cruel, yeah. And they told her that she didn’t, I don’t know, she didn’t count for something or other because she was adopted, and that’s the first she knew.

ETHEL: Oh, that would be hard.

JANET: Oh, it was hard. She never got over it. She never did, and it had a real influence on life I think.

ETHEL: Well, it would.

JANET: And do you know she didn’t ever tell us kids. I found out by accident.

ETHEL: Oh really?

JANET: And Grant didn’t know ‘till the day she died when we told him, when Merrill and I told him. Merrill didn’t know until 10 or 15 years after I knew.

ETHEL: My word. Well I’ve known ever since I can, well when I used to stay with Grandma, you know. I don’t know how it came about. I don’t know how it came about that she told me or anything, and I can’t remember whether my mother told me or my grandmother told me.

JANET: Well, I’m sure it was common knowledge, you know, after Mother found out at least, but she felt so strongly about it that she never told us.

ETHEL: That’s a shame.

JANET: And you see my brother Grant and his wife never had any children, and they were in a process of going to adopt, and trying to decide whether to adopt or not—Mother never mentioned to them that she was adopted. Can you believe that? That’s how hard it was for her.

ETHEL: Well, look what a good home she had, though.

JANET: Yes!

ETHEL: To have Grandpa Jensen and your grandmother adopt her. They just adored her.

JANET: Well of course, and it’s too bad that she couldn’t see that, but there was stigma in those days, you know. There was a real stigma, so it was kind of a sad thing.

ETHEL: I don’t know the circumstances of anything, but I just remember them saying that Grandma Jensen had an idea of who she was and where she came from, you know, but what it was I can’t see. She never did mention it.

JANET: I’m really curious as to know what the background is, I mean as far as nationality.

ETHEL: Well, somebody told me that she was illegitimate.

JANET: Well, of course she was. Of course she was.

ETHEL: But other than that, I don’t know. But maybe that isn’t true either.

JANET: Oh, it must be. You know. People didn’t give away babies in those days unless they were unmarried, you know.

ETHEL: A lot of times they could be so poor that they couldn’t take care of them.

JANET: Well, I don’t think so, but that doesn’t matter to me. What matters, what I am curious about at least, is the nationality. But that doesn’t matter either, really, because we’re all sealed to Grandma and Grandpa Jensen, so that’s our nationality.

ETHEL: You bet. It’s not going to matter. That’s our nationality and there’s no other way to look at it. I know my mother always felt so close to your mother.

JANET: Yes, I think it was mutual. They loved each other, and I loved Aunt Anna, too. I can remember going out there to visit, and what fun that was, and going out to the milk house, you know that was built down in and had the well by it.

ETHEL: Yes, the well box we called it [laughter].

JANET: The well box, and I thought…I was a city girl, you know, and so that was very interesting to me.

ETHEL: Well I have a picture. You’re grandmother’s on it, and I think Aunt Stella’s there.

JANET: I don’t have one of your mother. I’d like one of those.

ETHEL: And my mother and the twins were there. Oh, I’ve got a lovely picture of mother. I wish you could have it. I’ll have to get a copy of it and give it to you.

JANET: Well I was thinking, if you want to take and make a copy of this, that’s probably Franklin(???)

ETHEL: I have no idea. See, now he’s not the oldest one, is he?

JANET: I don’t know, let’s find out.

ETHEL: I didn’t think he was the oldest one, but I could be wrong. I could be so wrong, because Boyd’s son called me a while back and wanted to know.

JANET: Here’s some more pictures of Grandma.

ETHEL: Oh, yeah, I got that one too.

JANET: Funny.

ETHEL: Oh, that looked like Dorothy for a minute.

JANET: There’s Nicolene and my Grandma Weech. Let’s see, this gets into the Sorenens, so it’s back farther, and it’s in the book here.

ETHEL: My sister said she went to school with your husband. He went to school in Murray, didn’t he?

JANET: Yes, he did. Dorothy ???.

ETHEL: She says she went to school with him in Murray. I’ve got to get my book started, I’m telling you.

JANET: Well, this is not in real good shape, actually.

ETHEL: I’ve just got stuff scattered all over, and it’s just got to stop. I…what do you call it…procrastinate. I get so busy…

JANET: Listen, our daughter-in-law, our youngest son’s wife, her mother was Joyce Fechser, and I think it’s spelled the same way.

ETHEL: F-E-C-H-S-E-R?

JANET: I think so.

ETHEL: Joyce Fechser? Well who was her father?

JANET: I don’t know. I keep wanting to find out and I forget to ask her when I see her. But I know we’re related.

ETHEL: Oh, we’d have to be.

JANET: I’m sure of it. Because they’re from down that way too.

ETHEL: Now you see, Elaine Davis lives just below me down there, and her father was Clyde Fechser, and that was Uncle Fred’s son. Now I’ve got a picture of all the Fechser family. Grandpa Fechser and Grandma Fechser and all there children.

JANET: Well, I’ll bet they’re related.

ETHEL: They’d have to be with that name.

JANET: In fact, Grandma just died. Did you even know one of your relatives just died? Out from Orem or Provo, down that way?

ETHEL: No, and the last one that died was, oh dear, Ella, and she was almost 100 years old, and she died in Sparks, Nevada. She had a daughter, and then she had an adopted daughter, but they were both dead. And Aunt…Theodore Christensen’s sister…what was his mother’s name? Mary. [RING] There’s your phone.

JANET: Well, let’s see, I’ll stop there. [END]