Augusta Rasimena Dorius

Biography

Augusta Rasimena Dorius was born on October 29, 1837 in Copenhagen, Denmark. She was christened in Trinitatis Kirke. Her parents were Nicolai Dorius and Ane Sophie Christofferson as their fifth of ten children. She attended school until she was about thirteen, when, in 1850, she, her father, and her brother joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Persecution against her new religion was so intense that she had to stop attending school. In 1852, the first group of Saints emigrated from Scandinavia to join other members in Utah. Augusta was invited to go with the Ravens family, whom she was working for. Accordingly, at the age of fourteen Augusta left her native country of Denmark and her family and left for the United States.
The first leg of her journey was on a steamship to England. Once in Liverpool, they transferred to the sail ship Italy, which departed from Liverpool on March 11, 1852. They reach New Orleans almost exactly two months later, on May 10, 1852. Once in the States, Augusta and her fellow travelers joined the Eli B. Kelsey wagon company. After a long and difficult journey across the plains, they arrived in Salt Lake City between October 14 and 16, 1852.
In Salt Lake, Augusta worked for the Warner family for a year and started to learn English. In the fall of 1853, she joined a group of recently arrived Scandinavian Saints who were sent to Sanpete county to help build up the settlement there. The Euro-American Saints in the area were fighting the so-called Walker War against Native Americans in the area. Chief Wakara, a prominent Shoshone leader in Utah, was leading raiding parties against the settlers who had settled their lands. Augusta described danger in her journey to Sanpete in her autobiographical account.
Upon arrival in Sanpete, Augusta settled with other immigrants in Spring Town, which was later renamed Spring City. Due to her experience with English, Augusta often served as a translator between the Scandinavian immigrants and English-speaking settlers in the town. During the winter of 1853, Augusta and the group of settlers she was with relocated to Manti for protection against Native American raids. After the winter, many of her group settled closer to Ephraim. In 1854, at the age of sixteen, Augusta decided to marry Henry Stevens Jr., a Canadian immigrant. They were married on July 25 in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City. She was his second wife. She later expressed great fondness for Henry and Mary Ann Howe, his first wife, who died ten years into Augusta's marriage.
Augusta settled with Henry and his family first in Ephraim and then in Spring Town. Her husband got sick and contracted lung problems which he suffered with for the rest of his life. Due to his health, they moved in 1862 to southern Utah, where they lived in Washington City and Shunesburg. They had many difficulties and worked hard to make a life for themselves in the area. However, nine years later, they decided to move back to Sanpete for Henry's health. They stopped a year in Konosh, where Augusta had her sixth child. In 1875, they made it back to Sanpete county, where they settled first in Wales, then in Ephraim. For the last fifteen years of his life, Henry was unable to do much work on account of his health, and Augusta had to work, including doing spinning and weaving, to support her family. In 1899, at the age of 84, Henry died, leaving Augusta a widow. They had had eight children, moved many times, and faced many hardships in their marriage.
After her husband's death, Augusta settled in a cottage in Ephraim. During her time in Ephraim, she became a very successful midwife. She served in this career for thirty years and helped to deliver more than twelve hundred babies. In 1909, she moved to Salt Lake City to be closer to her married daughters. Augusta lived seventeen years in Salt Lake City, where she wrote an autobiographical account of her life, which she finished in 1922. Augusta died in Salt Lake City on July 28, 1926, at the age of eighty-eight. She was buried in Ephraim Park Cemetery.