Emily Gertrude Christensen

HISTORY OF EMILY GERTRUDE DROGUE CHRISTENSEN 1875 - 1975

All my girlhood days I wanted to marry a man who would go on a mission, and I did. My first baby, Wendell, was born on the 10th of November 1900, and my husband left on his mission on New Years Day, and strange to say he had only been gone a very short time when my baby became very ill and had pneumonia for a long time but finally recovered and then had another ailment, one after another. He took all of the children's ailments going on spite of my care. I would keep him home but he would get them just the same and always go so near death’s door before he recovered. The doctor said in all of his experience he had never had a patient who would go so near death’s door before recovering. Finally, when my husband had been gone two years he had a healthy spell for quite a while and Abram wrote home and said when he was released he would like to visit his friends and converts and I wrote and told him I thought that was a wonderful idea and for him to say and do that by all means. When he had been gone 27 months the scene changed. The baby was very, very ill. The doctor came and I was alone and he felt sorry for me and he used to come and stay an hour or more to keep me company and one day he said he surely hated to tell me my baby was in a very serious condition. He said: “Will you send for your husband?” I knew for a long time my baby was very bad but I said to him, “No, I didn’t call him in the mission field and I’m not calling him home. The authority that called him will call him home”. When the doctor left my room he went across the street to the constable, who took care of me while my husband was gone, and told him to send for my husband immediately. “That child is in very serious condition. I doubt that he will ever get well, in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he passed away before morning and the mother is in a very critical condition herself, and I don’t want her alone any longer. Send for her husband.” He said, “I can’t send for him without her consent.” So he said if he could send for my husband and I answered the same. Well, it is strange to say this was about 10 o’clock in the morning and at noon the mailman came and brought me a letter from my husband and it simply said, “I just received my release and I am taking the first train home.” Why had he changed his mind? H e was going to stay and visit for a while and now he was coming home immediately. I hadn’t told him one word about the illness of the baby because I thought if he knew there was trouble he wouldn’t be able to perform his mission work as he should. Why was he coming straight home? It was the Holy Ghost who made it known to him. The first night home the baby had reached a climax. He had scarlet fever. But I had the priesthood in the home with me and he anointed the baby and he grew better and continued to improve and became a healthy boy and became the father of a family, and I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father and for the Gospel and for its many blessings.

The following comments were in response to questions asked by those present about her childhood, dating period with Grandpa Christensen and what things were like as she grew up. I had a jolly time. One thing, I was my father’s pet, so they tell me and I didn’t care at all. Every place father went I went with him. His ancestors came from France and Germany and he was born in Copenhagen. There were a lot of French and Englishmen who immigrated in the fall of 1863 and father came (to Bear Lake) in the spring of 1864, but they all left Salt Lake about the same time. Only father and his group went to Hyde Park (North of Logan) and stayed for a while. Father was sent to Springville and lived in a dugout and soon President Young sent them to Hyde Park. My oldest sister and little brother were born in Hyde Park, David and Josephine. In 1864 he was sent to Bear Lake and my sister Mary and brothers James Peter, Nelson, and Louis were born and then I (Gertrude) came next, number seven in a family of ten.

While we were kids we lived just a block west from here and just across the street where Nick Wilson live. “Old man Nick”, so they called the little boy “Little Nick”. The amusement hall was over on the other corner. All of the kids from the families came out at night and played “Steal Sticks”. Here’s were Abram was born. He had two sisters and a brother, but his brother died when he was 7. We would all play pomp, blind man’s bluff, and hide and seek. My uncle Chris lived across the street. (just a month or so younger than I), and we used to dress alike. We were very good friends until he got married and moved to Idaho Falls. She died last summer and that left me alone. Grandfather brought four children with him when he came across the ocean: Niels Nelson, Chris Nelson, Charlotte and Tena Nelson. All of uncle Nelson’s children (First decedents) are gone. I am the only one left from C. N. Krogue.

Richard Bee was our first teacher. Along the wall was a slab with hinges and when we wanted to write he would pull down on the wall and then we would raise the prop and put it up. Then we had a slab with a flat side turned up and pegs in for legs and those were our seats and desks, and a large stove in the center of the room. The ones who sat next to the stove roasted and those in the far corners nearly froze. We would learn our lessons in school and then we would come up to the front desk in front of the teacher and recite. We had spelling matches once a week. Richard Bee’s daughter, Mary, was a good speller and she and I would challenge each other. Sometimes I would get to the head of the class when she was out and then sometimes she would get to the head of the class when I was out. Mr. Bee would give us a yellow ticket when we got to the head of the class; five yellows and we would get a red one: and then five reds and we would get a green one. When we got a green, of course, we were smart. That just pleased us. We didn’t get any prizes in those days.

My father was very fond of music and he had my sister, Mary, who was ten years older than I take music lessons and ten give lessons to me. She didn’t take to music at all. She cooked and sewed. I worked in the music department of the church until I was in my seventies, in about 1973. I taught the lower grades the New Testament; four courses in that. I taught in different classes until in my 73rd year. When Louis got old enough I game him music lessons and he took over on the music. I got some books and compliments for my work in Sunday School from many different Superintendents.

Abram said to me just two weeks before he died, we laid and talked all night, he told me a lot of things I didn’t know and when we were children he always saw Gertrude and she seemed different than the other girls and he didn’t know why. That respect just grew and we were like brother and sisters. He would come up to our place and visit and I would go down to his, so we were practically together all of our lives.

You know, he was always before the public. We didn’t have automobiles so we had to be our own entertainment. He belonged to a Dramatic Club in the Ward and to a Band Club. They kept putting plays on and he was always in them. He was always in band practice and I knew just about when he would be going home. I had an upstairs room and it was just next to the hallway and there was a door that opened on the front. When he would get out of practice he had a friend, Thomas Wilke, they would start singing and I would know it was time to go and stand in the door. He would cross the street and come down our sidewalk and he would look up and see me standing in the door, and sometimes I would go down and talk to him. Sometimes we would take a walk in the moonlight. I knew where every rehearsal was. Always, I wanted a man that would go on a mission and I got him.

We had dresses down to our shoe tops. Long, and mine was always home made “lindsey”. They had lots of sheep and we would pick the wool out and we would put it in a tub of cold water for 24 hours and pull it out and wash it. Then mother would card it in bats, then take a little and make rolls out of it and spun it into yarn. Then she would dye it the color she wanted. One color of it was pretty, and then when it was done she would make a dress for me. I never was more proud of a dress in my life that I was of that dress and it looked pretty. We used to have white and have it woven into wool sheets. Sometimes they would make woolen warp out of the yarn and make blankets and when it was just cotton wrap and wool gilling it was called lindsey. When my husband was on a mission I wove carpets and linens and made lindsey to help provide for me while he was gone.

Abram smoked a little bit and I said I didn’t like that and he said, well, he would quit. So I was on the guard one night while he and Tom Wilkes were going out from the theater and they went up the other side of the street and I could see the smoke from the cigar; so I told him I guessed we were through. And he said, “What’s the matter?”, and I said I had smelled and had seen him smoking. And he said that was just a cigar! And he told me: “If you ever see me smoking a cigarette or cigar I won’t come for you any more.” And he never had a cigar or cigarette to his lips since. He told me this the last night we slept together.

I was named after my father’s mother. I have often wondered if that was why he took so much interest in me. He was a good, true, faithful Latter-day Saint. I am very grateful to him for his reaching and the courage he had. In those days it was when the first missionaries were sent out when the Church was first organized. Later the Lord told then to send them to foreign missions. Erastus Snow was one of the first to be sent to a foreign country, into Denmark, and he was the one who found my ancestors in France and Germany. And, of course, father was in Denmark in those days the LDS Church wasn’t thought very much of. When they joined the church they were outcasts. All of their friends left them. If they were in business all of their customers left. Father was a shoemaker and a good done and when the gospel was brought to him he knew what it would mean but he had the courage to join the church regardless. Then it wasn’t long after that until there was a company - the missionaries would go and preach the gospel. Whey they got ready to go home the would take their converts to Zion and the people wanted to go and live with people of their own faith, which was very natural.

I was anxious for an education, My parents were poor. I didn’t have any clothes so I started sewing and just gotten over the measles and started sewing too soon and it hurt my eyes. I roomed with a couple of girls from Georgetown and Bennington. The one girl, all she had to do was hold a book in her hands and the information would go into her head, but the other girl was as dumb as I was but didn’t care if she had the information. But I wanted the information. I had been keeping company with Professor Patterson before I went to school and he always told me if I ever had a chance to come to school to come to him and he would introduce me to the professors and I wouldn’t have to take an examination. Well, I went and he was true to his word and took me to all of the teachers and said I didn’t have to take and examination. He told them how much I knew and they took his word for it and wanted to make his word good. These girls I was living with wanted the light out at 9 0"clock and I sat in the window and studied by moonlight and I got good marks. Professor Langton called me into the hall one night and said; “Miss Krogue,“ and I said, “What is it?” He said: “I never gave anybody a 100 in my life and I won’t give you 100 and I want you to go to bed when it is bedtime.” But I sat there in the moonlight and studied so I could make it good. And he gave me a 99 ½ . And on the top half of the paper wrote “very good”.

I went to school 2 years. I graduated from a 2 year course at Logan College. I didn’t have any clothes but I wanted to go to the dances and couldn’t go so I learned to make my own. Professor Langton told me how beautiful I looked and I felt worse because I knew how I must have looked. But I found out that clothes didn’t make a bit of difference.

My father was so very fond on music that he insisted that I practice on the organ and the piano in the auditorium. Oftentimes when I would get to playing I would sometimes play for hours and here would come Professor Widtsoe in the room and lean on the organ and start talking to me. He came from the same country as my father. We had many a conversation for an hour. Another day he came in again. I valued lots of things in my school very highly. Glad I went even if I did have to go in shabby clothes. I found that it didn’t make a bit of difference.

There were some Evans boys form Dingle at school and I got acquainted with them and some Mondays we would take our blankets and set under a tree on the campus and those boys would come along and ask what I had the book for and I would say, “What do you think?. And they would say: “You don’t need to study. Professor Norwood would send you through no matter what you did.” Question: Have you always had long hair? Answer: No, I had nice hair until I was a young lady about 20 years old and had a haircut in a boy cut and I found I had good hair since. I had a lot more hair before than I have had since.

When the Saints got to Springville, Johnston’s Army was going to come through and burn everything in Salt Lake City and my father’s folks went in hiding and he went on the defense line and defended his people along with a group of other pioneers.

Wendell, Louis, Lorraine and Earl were all born at home. I had a doctor for three of them and a midwife. They used to travel in deep snow on horseback to the different settlements.

Indians? Answer: Yes. We had Indians camp about a mile up the canyon and they would come down and ask for biscuits and they would ask for flour. Whenever I saw one coming I would hide. I was frightened of them, but if you treated them good they were alright.

Kelly asked, did you ever wear make-up? Answer: No, I never did.

I grew up in pioneer times. I would take cows up the canyon in the morning after milking about a mile and herd them.. Then about 6 o’clock I would bring them home. We would nearly always have what they called “lumpy dick” for super. They would put a pan of milk in the milk room and leave it until it had gone sour. They would put it on the table and we would eat it with a spoon with sugar on it. Lumpy Dick: Boil the milk then drop in flour in and it would form a little lump and when the lumps were cooked through it was ready. I made some recently to remind me of old days and I liked it. We put sugar and cream in it when we ate it.

What do you think of things now days? Answer: Maybe it wouldn’t be wise to tell! Some things are fine and some things are anything but nice.

Abram came up one day and we had planned on being married in the fall. He came on the 15th of August with a letter from Church headquarters asking him about how he was prepared for a mission, if he was ready to go. He handed me the letter. I read it and wouldn’t say anything. He said: “Well what do you think about it?”, and he said he had been homesteading a place for four years and he had one more year to the day to “prove up” on it and asked, “Do you think I should give up? I can’t get any more land. I will have lost my right.” And I said; “Write and tell them exactly how you are situated but if they say go now you are ready to go.” Always I wanted a man that would go on a mission. They wrote back immediately and said by all means don’t leave your land like that. You wait and “prove up” on your land and then write and tell us when you are ready to go. He “proved up” on it the next August and a few days after I said: “Look, sit down and write a letter to them and tell them that you are ready to go.” I was expecting Wendell, and I asked him to sit down and write to them and he said “no”. The doctor told me I needed to stay in bed 8 weeks. (See beginning paragraph for remainder regarding mission). As soon as I was out of bed I said again: “Will you sit down and write a letter now and tell them you are ready to go?” He said; “No, I want to wait until you are stronger, so just before Christmas I asked him again to write a letter and he wrote and they sent word right back for him to leave on New Year’s Day (1900). We were married in the Logan Temple on Nov 8, 1899. I was so happy. I was walking on air.

Question: Did you go with anyone else? Answer: I will say I did! Some here, Evanston, Paris, Ovid and Liberty. They were mostly dances. That’s all we had. That and theater. (Every summer there was company that would come through and put on plays in the show house.)

The most precious thing in the world is the Gospel and if they are obedient to Christ’s teachings they will be saved in the next world and be happy people and if not have to live with Satan and his imps. No half work about it. I know God lives. I know Jesus Christ is His son and I am so grateful to him for hanging on the cross and suffering until agony for my sins that I might be forgiven and I hope and pray that I may prove faithful to the end and go dwell with my Father in Heaven and his son, Jesus Christ, and all of my loved ones and friends.

CHILDREN:

Wendell Abraham Christensen Born: 10 November 1900

Louis Washington Christensen Born 22 February 1905

Loraine Christensen Born: 8 Sept 1907

Earl Royal Christensen Born: 28 April 1916

NOTE: This history was related to Wendell A. Christensen and Viola Patterson Christensen, Loraine Christensen, Cathy, Julie, Kelly, Bret, and Harold Christensen and taken and transcribed by Jeanine H. Long on the 29th day of June 1972, at Bloomington, in Bear Lake, Idaho, at which time she was 97 years old, having been born February 5, 1875.

SOURCE: Family Search.org

https://familysearch.org/photos/stories/10535859