Mette Kirstine Gottfredson

Biography

Mette (Martha) was born on August 24, 1850 in Jetsmark, Hjørring, Denmark. She grew up with three brothers. When she was two years old, her family moved to Aalborg so her father could work as a cooper. Her mother had been very well off before she married her father, as her family had a large farm. Mette, her mother, and her brothers visited the farm often. Mette's family converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1850, the year she was born. They worked and saved so that they could immigrate to Utah. Toward the end of 1855, they left Denmark forever.
Mette and her family crossed the Atlantic on the John J. Boyd, arriving in New York on February 15, 1856. They made it to Illinois in March 1856, but lacked the means to travel any farther. There Mette's mother, weary and undernourished, contracted pneumonia and died on July 4th, 1856. However, Mette's family continued to try to get to Zion. They eventually made it to St. Louis, where her father met and married another Danish convert who had lost her husband.
In the spring of 1857, they started for Utah with a handcart but were forced to stop near Omaha where Mette's step-mother gave birth prematurely. The family then lived in a dugout on the side of a hill, subsisting off wild fruit. After that, they made it to Omaha, where they spent the rest of the winter. The next year, in 1858, they met a few more Danish immigrants and joined the Iver N. Iversen company. They were at last successful in reaching Utah on September 20, 1858.
Mette and her family were called to settle Richfield, Sevier County. They had considerable conflict with the Native Americans living in the area. Eventually, Mette moved to Mount Pleasant.
Mette married Phillip Borresen, a 45-year-old Danish immigrant, when she was only sixteen. He died the next year, leaving her a widow at just eighteen. Two and a half years later, when Mette was twenty, she married George Tuft. They had ten children together, seven daughters and three sons. Her husband was a farmer and they were poor, but had cattle and forty acres. George got appendicitis in 1897 and passed away, leaving Mette a widow yet again.
In order to support herself and her children, she rented out rooms in their house and had her children work for neighbors. She was a good cook and a talented seamstress. She later became the City Treasurer and was able to make a living from that. Mette also suffered from rheumatism in her hands, feet, and legs, which brought her much pain. In 1900, she remarried to Thomas Ivie, a widower. He helped with the farm for six years before dying from a liver condition. A few years later, Martha moved in with her daughter in Salt Lake and got some treatments to help with the rheumatism. She then returned to Mount Pleasant, where she died on November 18, 1923, at the age of seventy-three. She was buried in the Mount Pleasant City Cemetery.