Sunday, August 12, 2012

CHRISTENA HANSEN (SCHOW) 1843-1927

[Ancestral Link: Ira Michael Schow, son of Christena Hansen (Schow).]

From Biography of Ira Michael Schow

Christena Hansen "was born 9 April 1843 at Hensinge, Denmark. She was a good housekeeper and as my mother tells me, had everything to keep house with. She was a great hand at having her shelves well stocked. They were blessed with nine children."

Written by Edna Schow Jones

Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel, 1847-1868
Hansen, Christina
Birth Date: 9 April 1843
Death Date: 15 July 1927
Gender: Female
Age: 19
Company: 1847-1868 (Unknown Year of Travel)

Pioneer Information:
The Hansen family came to Utah in either 1862 or 1863.  They likely came in 1862, the year they sailed to America.  Further research is needed to narrow the year of their travel.

Sources:
Family Search
Utah State Death Certificate, Utah State Archives
Found on lds.org/churchhistory
Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel (1847-1868)






CHRISTINA HANSEN
Skilled seamstress.
Cross the plains in 1862.
Her mother and two elder sisters died en route.
Made the first U.S. flag for Mantua town, Utah, entirely hand sewn.
Died at 84 of cerebral hemorrhage, according to the Ward Membership Records.
Found on FamilyTree.org

CHRISTINA HANSEN, MORMON PIONEER OVERLAND TRAVEL, 1862
Christina Hansen
Birth Date: 9 April 1843
Death Date: 15 July 1927
Olan N. Liljenquist Company (1862) Age: 19
Found on FamilyTree.org

CHRISTENA SCHOW

Christena Rasmine Schow - born 19 January 1844 in Vor Frue Aalborg, D, A, Denmark to Niels Christian schow and Marie Pedersen.

Christena Schow, second wife of James Henrie, first heard the Gospel in her native land of Denmark when Apostle Erastus Snow and Elder George P. Dykes, two of the first Latter-day Saint missionaries, were in that country. By 12 April 1851, she and her brothers were baptized by Elder Hans Peter Jensen.
In 1853, they left their home and native land for Utah. They sailed to Liverpool, England, and then, on the good ship “Jessie Munn,” to New Orleans, arriving there 10 February 1854. The voyage was continued up the Mississippi River to Kansas City, Missouri, where they remained for a time preparing for the journey across the plains. They made the trek in Captain Hans Peter Olsen’s Company. Christena walked the entire distance except for two afternoons when she was privileged to ride. They arrived in Salt Lake City 5 October 1854.
Their first home was made at Bountiful, where they underwent all the hardships incident to the settlement of that country, among them the grasshopper wars. Before they had a home of their own, they lived in Chris Hyrise’s stable. While there, her father and two older brothers pulled the sunflowers and weeds from his large field of wheat for ten pints of flour a week. During this time, Christena, her mother, and two brothers gathered pigweeds. They stripped the leaves and tender stems from the weeds and cooked them. Part of them were thickened with flour and baked into bread. They used sour milk, and for leavening they used the saleratus which they gathered from off the ground. (They walked a mile twice a week for skimmed milk.) The rest of the weeds were stewed and eaten with the bread. For six weeks this was the food supply for a family of seven. After the field of wheat was ripe they pulled and bound it into bundles. They were allowed to glean the heads of wheat from the edges of the field for their own use, which they thrashed with sticks and carried to the mill to be ground into flour. From that time on they were never without flour.
  One day when Christena went for milk at the neighbors, there was no one home. The door stood open and she could see a hoe-cake propped up in front of the fire in a fireplace. She was very hungry and was sorely tempted to take it, but she had power to overcome the temptation and went home without it, for which, through the years to come, she was very thankful. 
Christena went to William and Myra Henrie’s home for milk and became acquainted with the family. She went there to work and on 6 December 1861, she married their son James, as his second wife. His first wife, Rhoana (Hatch) Henrie, loved her very much and encouraged romance between them. She lived with James and Rhoana in their home while at Bountiful and it was here her first baby, Joseph Niels, was born. He died at the age of 10 months and was buried at Bountiful.  

They were called to help settle Panaca, Nevada, and lived there until 3 May 1871, when they moved to Panguitch. James came a little before the family with cattle, horses, etc. They moved into a log room in the fort on the public square. She moved from the fort into a home of her own in the south-central part of Panguitch, where she lived until her death.
Christena spun flax and wove it into table linen and towels. She washed and scoured the wool from sheep, corded it for bats for quilts, and spun and colored it for yarn, which she would knit into stockings, socks, gloves and mittens for her family. Christena also spun it into warp and wove it into flannel, linsey, waterproof jeans, etc. She cut and sewed the cloth into shirts, pants, and underwear. She gathered and prepared wheat straw and made it into hats for both men and women, with flowers to trim them. She also made buckskin gloves and all those she did not need for her family, she sold to the first co-op store. She cut, sewed, and wove rags into carpet for herself and others. She made her own starch from potatoes, she made her own soap from animal fat, using wood ashes for lye. She was a good cook and made delicious salt rising bread. 
When Christena was a very young girl, her eyes were very sore and her parents took her to a patriarch. He gave her a blessing in which he told her she would get well, grow up and eventually marry a man like the Prophet Nathan of old. He gave her many wonderful promises and said she would stand on Mount Zion with palms of victory in her hand. She named her second son for her husband and the Prophet Nathan, James Nathan.
She was the mother of ten children; all but one grew up and reared families of their own. Her husband married her half-sister Gedske Schow on 18 June 1879 and the three wives and their children loved and respected each other very much.
James Henrie and his three wives were noble, worthy, full of faith and devotion, and died as they had lived in full faith of the Gospel. Their bodies are lying side by side in the Panguitch Cemetery. When Rhoana died she loved, kissed, and pressed Christena’s hand and said, “Don’t cry, we will soon be together again.” 

Found on FamilySearch.org (contributed by kathyhm 4 August 2013)

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