Caroline Christina Hansen

Biography

Caroline Christina Hansen was born on February 27, 1853 in Aaker Sogn, Bornholm, Denmark. She was the second of eleven children. A month before she was born, her parents had been baptized members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and, at the end of 1853, when Caroline was only ten months old, they left Denmark forever to join the other Saints in Utah. The sailed on the Jesse Munn and crossed the plains with the Hans Peter Olsen company, arriving in the Salt Lake Valley on October 5, 1854.
Caroline and her family settled in the Brigham City area. Growing up, Caroline loved the outdoors and would help her father with much of the farm work. Some of her tasks included harvesting, picking potatoes, sewing, milking, crocheting, and needlework. Sometimes she would go climbing in the mountains for berries. Caroline was only able to attend school when farm work was done for the season.
On her eighteenth birthday, Caroline married her sweetheart, Joseph Hewlett, a Welshman and the son of a shoemaker. They settled in Brigham City and had one daughter and four sons. One of their sons died when he was only two years old. For unknown reasons, the couple divorced about a decade after their marriage. Caroline was left with her daughter and two younger living sons to care for. Her father helped her find a house and she made a living by sewing to sustain her and her family.
In 1882, she went to Salt Lake City to study medicine for two years, becoming a certified midwife. However, her health took a turn for the worse and she was forced to return to sewing and dressmaking to support herself. Caroline was active in her community and church service. According to some records, in 1885, she remarried to Hans Nielson and moved to Ogden. Not long after, her health worsened and she developed tuberculosis. She died in Sandy on August 18, 1887, at the age of thirty-four. She was buried in the Brigham City Cemetery.