Johanna Okelberry

Biography

Johanna Okelberry, also called Joan, was born on November 11, 1852 in Genarp, Malmöhus, Sweden. She was the eighth of nine children. At some point around 1860, Johanna's family joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 1863, Johanna, her parents, and the three other younger siblings immigrated to Utah to join the other Saints. They sailed on the John J. Boyd from Liverpool to New York, arriving in the States on May 29, 1863. Then they crossed the plains with the John Riggs Murdock company, arriving in Salt Lake in September.
Once in Utah, Johanna settled with her family in Grantsville. When she got a little older, she and her younger sister Kerstina went to Salt Lake City to work. Johanna worked for a woman named Phoebe Kimball, who thought very well of her. Johanna and her sister were well known as being beautiful, witty, and fun-loving. They were very popular in their community. Johanna in particular was said to love a good joke and to be very quick. Once she memorized twenty pages of a play the day before to play a man's part when an acquaintance took sick and couldn't play the part.
While working for Phoebe Kimball, Johanna met Daniel Heber Kimball, Phoebe's husband's younger brother. They courted for a while and exchanged letters when Daniel was gone working. Eventually, they married on September 25, 1875, when Johanna was twenty-two and Daniel was nineteen.
Johanna and Daniel settled in Salt Lake and had seven children together, five boys and two girls. Daniel struggled to find a stable career and the family often had financial difficulties, even though he was well-connected in the Church. In 1892, Johanna's only daughter at the time, Pearl, took ill with appendicitis and died. Johanna took her death very hard, and, combined with a case of pneumonia, was weakened for the rest of her life. However, she had another daughter about a year and a half later.
In 1898, while Johanna's health was still poor, her children young, and with little money in the house, Daniel was called on a mission to the southern states. Johanna took his leaving very hard, and despite her efforts and the support of her still-young children, became even more ill. He was released early because of Johanna's ill health, but her condition continued to worsen. On June 21, 1899, she passed away in Salt Lake City. She was only forty-six years old.