Regetta Marie Nielsen Thurston-Autobiography

Regetta Marie Nielsen Thurston-Autobiography

Regetta Marie Nielsen Thurston

Copied by Audrey Fuller Robertson, g g daughter, from Regetta's autobiography dictated to Mary A.G. Felt, Huntsville, Utah, October 24, 1914.

I was the oldest of five children born to Frederick Nielsen and Catherina Nielsen. I was born February 18, 1845, in Aalborg, Denmark. My brothers and sister were Frederick Zyrrillins, Catherine Daniella, Joseph Marinus Gorgonins and Daniel Alcotherius.

There was no religious freedom at that time according to the laws and customs of the country. Everyone had to belong to a church. My parents were Baptists. In order to have me christened in the church of their choice, they had to send a petition to the king or his cabinet asking for that privilege. The answer came back that they could do as they chose. Shortly after this religious freedom came to that country. My brother Zyrrillins, went to public schools until fourteen years of age when he chose to be confirmed in the Lutheran Church. In order to have that ceremony performed he went to three priests to read the Bible twice a week for six months and had to learn it by heart. He then was confirmed a member of the Lutheran Church. Because of his choosing to be a member of that church, he was given a great entertainment by the priests and a long piece was published in the newspapers.

In the year 1850, my father had read in the newspapers of Apostle Erastus Snow, Elders John E. Forsgren and George P. Dykes arriving in Copenhagen, (Elder Peter O. Hansen arrived there a few weeks before) with a new religion and he was favorably impressed with it. He wrote them asking them to come to Aalborg. Elder Dykes came and made his home at my father’s home for six months. During this time my father was converted and was baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints May 6, 1851, by Elder Dykes. My mother was very much opposed to the truth but was afterwards converted and baptized six months later. My father remained a member of the Church for one and a half years and for some slight difference of opinion between those presiding over that branch of the Church and himself, he was excommunicated. He never denied the principles but held fast to them as he understood them until his death. My mother remained a member until some time in the 80’s and was then excommunicated because she did not attend to her meetings often enough.

During their membership in the Church they went through many trials and persecutions for the Gospel’s sake. An incident that happened shortly after my mother joined the Church I well remember. Word came to us that grandmother was sick and wanted father and mother to come over as they only lived a short distance from our home. My mother had a weakness and was subject to fits [convulsions]. She came home from grandmother’s and when father came home she was in a fit. Father sent for the elders to come and administer to her, which they did. She was instantly healed and never had another fit as long as she lived. One of the elders who administered to her was Elder Christian Larsen and used to live in Weber, Utah. This was one of my first testimonies to the healing power of God.

My mother was a great friend of the wife of the Branch President, Frederick Klingbeck. So when I was 13 years old, she sent me to care for Sister Klingbeck’s baby. While I was there I heard a missionary by the name of Niels Willhelmsen explain the first principles of the Gospel. I was interested and began to study and was converted. I requested baptism. I had been sick in bed five days and got right up and went and got baptized and confirmed by Elder Lars Larsen, March 6, 1859, in a canal about one and a half miles from our home at 10 o’clock at night. They had to chop the ice to perform that sacred ordinance and I had to walk home in my wet clothes, and I was not sick one minute which was a testimony to me. The next day my brother found out that I had been baptized. He spit on me and made all manner of fun of me and would not eat at the same table with me and called me names. But I did not care, I was not sorry for what I had done.

In May I went with a lady to take care of her children. She lived eight miles from where there were any Mormons, and I was only privileged to go home once in six weeks. I then had to walk eight miles to the river and cross on a ferry boat, then walk about three and a half blocks to my home and returned the same way. I stayed with that lady six months. In the latter part of November I went home and learned dressmaking that winter and went back to work for her. Shortly after, I took sick with chills and fever and had them for eighteen weeks. I knew we would soon have our church conference so I had a desire to go and if I could only get there and have the elders administer to me I would get well. The lady said I could go but she was afraid I could not get there. So I went out of doors in a peculiar place and asked the Lord to help me. I was very weak but next morning I started out on my journey.

I had not gone but about one and a half blocks when a man came along with two horses and a wagon with two empty seats and I asked him for a ride. He kindly took me to the ferry boat. I crossed the river and walked to my home. I got to the conference just as they were singing to open the meeting. I went in and sat quietly until the forenoon meeting was ended. Then I walked up to the stand and asked to be administered to. My request was granted and Elders Vancott and Wirrenborg and three other elders all from Utah administered to me and from that time until this day I have never felt a shake. I stayed until Monday morning and then walked back to my place of work. I knew it was the Lord that had healed me and gave me strength to get back again. My mistress thought it a miracle but still rejected the truth of the Gospel.

From there I went to work for the Branch President Edlefsen. He left for Copenhagen and I stayed and kept house for the next President, Soren Jensen and the missionaries. I was kept busy. Among the missionaries was an elder who was going to Utah and wanted me to go with him. I had no money so he asked all the Saints to help with their surplus means to help me to Utah. At 11:30 next day enough money had been raised to buy my ticket to New York. That day I had thirteen missionaries to cook dinner for and be ready to take the steamer at 4 o'clock. I got ready and left with the other Saints April 12, 1863, under Anders Christensen, the leader of that part of the emigration for Hamburg. We left there for Grimsby, England. After staying there a few days we left for Liverpool by rail.

To go back on my story a little, I will have to say, while working for the President before leaving Denmark, I got acquainted with my future husband, James Thurston. I was not very favorably impressed with him the first time I saw him. I told the President's wife he was the ugliest, most ill mannered fellow I had ever seen. But afterwards I fell in love with him and was promised to him before leaving our native land, Denmark. We joined the saints and emigrated together as far as Liverpool, England. I'll here say I had more than one offer of marriage but refused them to stay true to the one of my choice. Because of this fact I was separated from my lover and put on another ship to sail with strangers to New York.

I left Liverpool Friday, May 8, 1863, on the Ship B.S. Kimball with 654 or 657 saints under the direction of Hans Peter Lund. My lover left the same day with 38 saints under the direction of Anders Christensen on the Ship Consignment. The Ship B.S. Kimball landed in New York June 15th. The Consignment landed at New York June 20, 1863. When I landed at New York I had no clothes; only what I stood up in and no money. My baggage went with the other company's baggage and I could go no farther. I was placed in a hard position, in a strange land among strangers and could not speak the language. At six o'clock that evening the company was to leave for Florence, Nebraska by rail. I asked H.P. Lund for help to go with the saints and he answered that I did not belong to that company so he could do nothing for me. The company went on and I was left alone in Castle Garden not knowing where to go or lay my head that night.

While standing there an apostate came up and asked me to go home with him and keep house for his wife until the other ship came in. I accepted, therefore. Every day after my work was done I would walk down to Castle Garden to see if the rest of the company had arrived. Five days passed before they arrived. When they came the first one I met was my lover. I need not say how happy we were when we met. I lived in hopes that he could help me to Florence as I knew he had money, but unfortunately for me had given all he had to a poor man and his family just a half hour before. So I asked the president for help and he had no help for me. I was left once more to go back to that place where I had stayed until I could go farther.

I stayed there two weeks longer and will say it was the hardest time I have ever spent in my whole life. My virtue was sought in every way by that rascal. But the Lord kept me from temptation and harm. There was a Dutch immigrant that had concluded to stay in New York with his daughter who was living there, so I got his ticket and came to Omaha with the man and his wife I was working for and stayed with them until I could get away. As a last resort to accomplish his vile purpose he got his wife to go see some of her friends. She finally consented to go. When we were alone he wanted to buy some wine. I did not know what to say so thought a minute and said yes. As he went out the front hall to buy some wine I went the back way out into the pouring rain and ran as hard as I could. I finally came to a blacksmith shop where I inquired my way and how far it was to Florence. They told me to keep right on the way I was going for a few miles and I would get there all right.

I went a short distance when I caught up with two men with covered wagons and ox teams They offered me a ride and asked me where I was going. I told them in my broken language my circumstances and where I wanted to go. They told me they were there to meet the immigrants and help them to Utah. I got up into the wagon but had not gone far when I looked out and saw a man coming on foot as hard as he could run calling to the brethren to stop. I knew him and asked the brethren to help me and not let him take me back again. They assured me they would and for me not to be afraid. They had quite a time with the man but succeeded in keeping me out of his clutches and I came on in safety.

I reached Florence and went to Elder William Cluff of Provo who I knew would see to my welfare. He was at the Church Store. He sent me to live with a family named Thompson, his acquaintances, until the Church teams were to leave. After staying there two day I was walking along the street when a man spoke to me, as he could see I was an immigrant, and asked me to go with him and his wife across the plains to take care of her as she was in a delicate condition and told me to speak to Elder Cluff about it which I did. Elder Cluff said it would be alright so gave me a feather bed, bolster, and a pair of blankets. I went with Cederstrom and wife leaving Florence July 25, 1863, for our long journey to Utah. Arrived at Salt Lake City, September 25, 1863.

After we had traveled about one week Cederstrom put me to driving the oxen. He had two yoke of oxen and one yoke of cows. I had nothing on my head, a low neck dress with short sleeves and my shoes were almost gone, to walk across the plains in the hot sun. He was a lazy man but good hearted and good enough to have me drive for three weeks through streams and all kinds of roads and gather fuel as I drove along to cook our meal, until Captain Peter Nebeker told him that if he did not get out of his wagon and drive his own team he would expel him from the company for he would not have his company disgraced by having him sit in his wagon and have a young girl drive his team. So Cederstrom drove his own team but I had to gather fuel (buffalo chips) and get the water just the same.

The only communications we had of other companies that were ahead of us was on buffalo skulls on which they had written and left by the roadside. We read on one of a stampede of the cattle dated July 28, 1863, where nine were killed and thirteen wounded. A few days later we came across a woman and four or five children whose husband been wounded in the stampede and was unable to go on. He had died and she had buried him alone by the roadside and was waiting for the next company to come along. She was a Danish lady and told me of some that were in the company that I knew. I described my lover and asked if he was there. She told me one young man got killed that answered his description. From then I was almost beside myself with grief believing him dead.

I had my duties to attend to so next day as I had been gathering fuel I had my lap full of chips and went up to the back of the wagon to put them in and fell unconscious on the ground. The wagons drove on and left me lying there. How long I lay there I do not know. Nor I knew nothing for three days. When I became conscious again I found myself in another man's wagon. He was brother Elias Edwards from Goshen, Utah. I was so weak I stayed in his wagon for a few days. He did all that he could for me and gave me the best he had to eat and nursed me back to health again. From that time on he payed me marked attention and helped me every way he could. When I was able to walk again I went back to Cederstrom's wagon again and stayed with them until we reached Salt Lake City.

During our journey my clothes were all in rags, my feet were blistered to the ankles, my hair had all fallen out from the effects of my sickness and walking all the way bareheaded in sun. I took my bolster and emptied the feathers out and made me a dress sack out of the ticking. This with what remained of my dress constituted my wearing apparel or costume. We were now nearing Salt Lake City and I was feeling bad because I looked so bad. I prayed to the Lord to open the way for me to get something to wear. I knew not how it would come but I trusted in the Lord and had full confidence in Him and knew it would be given me.

When we arrived at Ft. Bridger where Johnson's Army had been some time previous, I went out by myself at noon in the sagebrush where no one could see me. I stopped and right in front of me lay a five dollar green back. I picked it up. It was folded together eight times. I know the Lord led me to that place in answer to my prayer. With it I bought me a dress and a pair of slippers of a girl my size that fit me very nicely. I was now prepared to enter Salt Lake City. I cannot describe my gratitude and thanks at that time to my Heavenly Father for His kindness to me.

On the evening before reaching Salt Lake City, Brother Elias Edwards asked me to be his wife. Thinking my lover dead I consented the next evening as I wanted a little time to think about it. That morning the elder that separated me from him in Liverpool and would give me no help in New York, came to me and still insisted that I should go home with him and be his wife. I answered him flatly, "No", for after his cruel treatment to me and also telling me my lover was dead, I could not many him under any consideration. My second choice then wanted me to go with him to his home in Goshen, Utah. I told him all my circumstances, that my heart was still with my first love and as yet loved no one else, but as he had been so kind to me and I had promised him to be his wife, I would go home with him on those condition. We were married September 28, 1863. Our home was an adobe room 12 feet by 14 feet with dirt roof, lumber floor and a fireplace, one door and a small window with no window panes. My husband made a bedstead, table, bench and two stools. He brought from the states a step stove, six plates, six cups and saucers and two flatirons. My dishes and flatirons were the luxuries of the town. My husband was a good, kind husband but shortly after our marriage he took sick with quick consumption [tuberculosis] so we moved to Salt Lake City where he could get medical aid. We took our step stove with us and sold it for $150 to get money to buy medicine and pay doctor bills. We left our stock and furniture expecting to return and get them.

A few days after our arrival in Salt Lake City while walking along the street, I met Sister Hendrickson, a lady that crossed the ocean when I did. We were very glad to meet each other. In our conversation she told me my lover was alive and staying with them. I could hardly believe her at first. She insisted on bringing him to Salt Lake City to see me and the next Sunday my husband asked me if I was going to leave him and marry my first lover. I answered him, "No, I had promised to stay with him until death parted us and I was going to do so".

We were very poor now and I had to make the living and care for my sick husband. I rented a room from a Swedish lady and she took care of my husband of daytimes while I would go out to wash for whoever could afford to hire me for a day. Among those I worked for was Phineas Young, who was very kind to me and always filled my apron with some kind of garden stuff and other things to take home. I got a little sewing to do which I did of evening. In this way I managed to get along. We were wondering how our stock were that we had left in Goshen, so I started one morning bright and early and walked to Lehi bridge by evening. I walked all night and reached our home next morning very tired, the distance being 65 miles After spending the day there and finding our stock had been driven off, I took what little flour and other things I could carry and started back to Salt Lake City that evening, covering the distance in the same amount of time. I made that same journey twice that summer. My husband died August 9 or 11, 1864, and Phineas Young showed his kindness to me and took charge of everything and never charged me one cent for it. He was buried in Salt Lake City. After his death I went out to work every day. Before his death he always said it would be right for me to marry my first lover after his death.

September 2, 1864, I was married to James Thurston. He was born February 18, 1845 in Logstor, Denmark. He was the son of Evan Christensen Thorstensen of Logstor and Madgalena Christendatter. He was a blacksmith and died when James was nine years of age, leaving a [large] family. He was a wealthy man but the children all worked and went to school. When fourteen years of age James worked four years for C.F. Schade, his brother-in-law, to learn the blacksmith trade. In the Fall of 1862, he joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. [When he arrived] in Florence he was hired as a teamster and went up the river to work for Godbe to drive freight teams across the plains. That is how we became separated again and he escaped being in the company where so many had been killed, as that was the company he was to have traveled with. He arrived in Salt Lake City in October, 1863, and went to work at West Jordan for a man named Camp, until the next spring when we met again.

After our marriage he went with C.F. Schade to locate a place to settle. They finally located a home in Ogden Valley at Huntsville. He got a yoke of oxen and a wagon of Captain Hunt and came back to Salt Lake City to get me and his sister, Abalona Schade. We left Salt Lake October 8, 1864, and started for Huntsville, our future home. On our journey while we were camped for dinner at Riverdale. We turned our oxen out to feed also. When we were ready to start again our oxen were gone and could not be found. We came back to camp and knelt down and prayed to the Lord to direct my husband to the oxen. We got up and he started out and was not gone long until he found them in a willow bush. He got them and came back and we were soon on our journey again. We arrived at Huntsville that same evening in safety. We stayed with the C.F. Schades until he could build us a dugout where we lived that winter.

In the last days of February, 1865, I went to Salt Lake City with Ralph, Thomas and James Slater and Harvey Brown on a load of grain for the purpose of trading a sack of wool which I had earned to buy some clothes for our coming baby, as I was expecting soon. I got what few things I could and returned home. We were as comfortable as our means could make us. On May 24, 1865, our home was brightened by a fine baby boy [James Evan]. This was our first of fifteen children. Next morning our house was full of water, almost up to my bed on which I lay. My husband had to dip the water out and fixed me as comfortable as possible.

That spring everybody was out of flour. We did not know how we were going to get any. Brother Jorgensen came down to our place and asked my husband if he wanted some flour. My husband worked for him in his blacksmith shop and earned 600 pounds so we had enough flour for all summer. During that summer we built a log room with dirt roof and lumber floor with one door and one window and that fall we got our first cow. From then on we got along well for eight years. Then my husband began to drink. We buried one of our children in that time [Anna Regetta Marie]. I buried a baby girl one month old in 1876 [Sena Arbella]. In the month of January, 1878, we buried two of our children, Amelia, five years of age and Hannah, three years old. In December, 1883, we again had to part with another of our children, Joseph, age twelve years old. On the 31st day of March, 1879, I was returning home from Ogden with some sewing I had taken to do, when I was run over by a team driven by some reckless boys and almost killed, the scars of which I bear today. The next September, 19, 1879, a baby girl [Mary Magdalena] was born to me.

My trials seemed more than I could bear, [including a plural marriage which later ended] but I plodded on until the year 1892. My husband heard of a cure for drink habit and decided to try it. So he went to Ogden in company with four others and took the cure known as the Ensor Cure. From that time until the present he has done all that he can to make up to me and everyone with good deeds, kind acts and affection and love for the past negligences and hard treatment to us. I could not ask for more than he has tried to do. He has overcome all his bad habits and had done all he can to redeem himself from his downward course. We have been happy ever since he turned from those evil habits, and our hearts are as in the early days. We have had born to us fifteen children, ten of whom are married and have children. Our posterity includes fifty-one grandchildren and six great grandchildren. In the summer of 1904, we built us a nice little brick home where we lived for seven years and then moved to Ogden City on our forty-seventh wedding day. We have now celebrated our fiftieth or Golden Wedding Day. All of our posterity were there excepting five grandchildren and one great grandchild.

While we are happy we are trying to make others happy and at the same time we have not forgotten our beloved ones who are gone behind the veil. We have done work in the Temple for about three hundred souls and as long as we are able hope to do more for our relatives and friends in those holy places. I have always tried to do my duty to my husband as a wife and to my children as a mother, and to my Father in Heaven as his humble daughter and live near to Him and not forget Him in the hour of trials, and after my trials, which have been many. The Lord has rewarded me abundantly. I have tried to do my duty as a member of the Church and my desires are to keep on and to live upright before the Lord the remainder of my life. I want my children to live upright and honest and, in every way become men and women as the Lord would have them be. I hope that they may gain a testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel and this great work in these the last days, so when we meet beyond the veil we may be together to enjoy the Glory of our Lord.

Amen

M.T.