Ane Katrine Madsdatter

Biography

Ane Katrine Madsdatter was born on November 23, 1825 in Aaker, Bornholm, Denmark. She was the fifth of seven children. At the age of fifteen, she started working weaving cloth at the loom. As she worked in this position, she met Jens Hansen Jensen, another Bornholm resident and a hired man on the estate. Ane Katrine married Jens after five years of courtship on April 6, 1851, when she was twenty-five years old. The couple had a son and a daughter in Aaker. In January of 1853, Ane and Jens were baptized members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Ane gave birth to her second child, Caroline Christina, just four weeks later.
On January 3, 1854, Ane and her family boarded a ship in Liverpool, leaving behind their home in Denmark forever. They took their two young children with them. Ane contracted cholera on their journey across the Atlantic on the ship "Jesse Munn". However, all four of them safely made the journey to Utah. They crossed the plains with the Hans Peter Olsen wagon company, with Ane walking most of the way to Utah.
Once in Utah, Ane Katrine and her family settled in Brigham City, Box Elder county. There, Ane had nine more children, five sons and four daughters. Two of her sons died as infants. In 1867, she had a pair of twins, a boy and a girl, who were born prematurely and both died on the day they were born. She worked hard on the family farm and braided straw hats to sell to supplement their income.
Ane worked constantly to support her family. Her husband married four other women, and when one of them, Karen Margrethe, died, she also raised her children as her own. She had to bury her husband and many of her children during her long life. In her later years, she lived with her children and kept busy sewing and knitting. Ane passed away on April 28, 1920 in Brigham City, at the home of her daughter. She was ninety-four years old. Ane was buried in the Brigham City Cemetery.