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Show Mrs. Louisa Beckstrom Takes Train for S.L City To Spend 92nd Birthday Varying her procedure of the past few years when she has prepared pre-pared dinner for her children and other descendants and friends on her birtrhday anniversary, Mrs. Louisa Beckstrom, who will Sunday be 92 years of age and who is Mt Pleasants second oldest resident, left this Friday afternoon by rail to spend her birthday in Salt Lake City with descendants there. Mrs. Beckstrom was born in Vets-jasfla., Vets-jasfla., Sweden, cn August 19th, in 1842, the eldest daughter of Ellen Jensen and Martin Olsen Rosen-gren'. Rosen-gren'. When she wal; eleven her mother died, leaving her to assume at 12 the managership of the home, caring for the children and preparing prepar-ing meals for four men. After supper she would spend the evening spinning and knitting. She made the stockings for the. family. Her father was a carpenter and she assisted in braiding seats. She also learned the sewing and dressmaking art, which she later resorted to for a livlihood. Her father fa-ther would not accept the L. D. S. Gospel, but did once house a "Mormon" "Mor-mon" family without expense tJ them for three years. Louisa joined the L. D. S. church and when nineteen yea-s of age, left for America. Her party went by water and rail from Sweden to a port in Germany, where they set sail on the Antenia. Aboard his sailing vessel she spent thirteen thir-teen weeks in crossing the Atlantic. Forty-eight cf the pas'engers died on the voyage. One man, who hatf started with his wife and five children, chil-dren, left the boat alone when they arrived at New York, the sole survivor sur-vivor of his family. She sfnt ten days going by rail from New York to Omaha, where .he lingered for four weeks. As 18 people were assigned to each wagon wag-on for the trek across the Plains, there was little room for luggage. Louisa did, however, retain a feather fea-ther mattress, bringing it to Zion and using it for years thereafter, a definite memento of the Old Country. She walked 1300 miles in three months after leaving Omaha, in the company of Captain Home, arriving arriv-ing in Utah in the summer of 1862. So arduous was the trek that blis ters would form cn her feet until each step was a torture. Then she would take needle and thread and sew through the skin, leaving the thread in until she could keep up with hep- companions. Arrived in Utah she came immediately im-mediately cn to Mt. Pleasant, where she joined a step-sister, Mary Ros-erlof. Ros-erlof. mother of the late Olof Frscnlof. This was seven months after leaving her home in Sweden. Since that time she has seen Mt. P'.ea-nnt grow to its present pro-p-r'iors. She can tell of the days when Pleasant CTek ran down Main Street and there w-ere no lights to guide the way at nigh'.. P.h" lived through the grasshopper nlagne of 1867 and 1868 when "the sun was blackened by great, hordes of 'hoppers, and no gren thing wa.S left, in their path." She has weathered wea-thered many hardships. last of which was a para'ytic stroke suffer-! ed this summer. fhr was married a year afte. arriving here, to Andrew Beck-j strnm, one of the earliest black-, smiths cf this vicinitv. Shf is the mother r-f twelve children, of whom Me six following are now living:, Mrs Nettie Morris, Huntington Park. Ca!if : Mrs. Se-lma Peart and Miss Leda Beckstrom. Mount Pleasant; Arthur and Edward P-r-ks'rom and Mrs. Errily Smith of Salt Lake City; also 17 grandchildren grand-children and 2f) freat-rrandehil-dren. |
