Danish heritage insights part 2: Hegsteds

Hegsted explorations, both in Copenhagen and further north!

My husband's paternal line goes back to a great-grandfather Victor Charles Hegsted, who was born in Copenhagen not far from where we currently live. Victor's parents Hans and Maren were from Jutland, quite a distance west and north, but they were living in Copenhagen after their marriage before they sailed to Utah as they helped organize the convert immigration effort and served as the Copenhagen Conference president. 

Here they had great joy and sorrow: their firstborn son, Victor August, was born and was a cherished toddler, who sadly died from a fall from a second-story window the month before his second birthday. His death was just five days before his younger brother, Victor Charles, was born.

We have now taken two special pilgrimages to see their world. From Hans' journal, I learned these addresses: 

• Prinsesse Charlottes Gade 3-4 is where Hans & Maren moved in 1863 to run the mission home
• St Johannes Churchyard No 422 Litra A in Norrebro C–Victor August Hegsted burial April 13, 1865

Danish heritage insights: part 1

Living in Copenhagen this year, and getting to know the land, history, culture, and people, has really opened my eyes to insights into our Scandinavian ancestry, more so than on prior visits detailed here and here. (I won't describe the Fjenneslev home and church again, but it was delightful to take my mother to see her ancestral homeland there this summer and say hello to Helen, the home's occupant, for the third time.) 

my Sorensen ancestral home

My husband and I each have a great-grandparent who was fully Danish. He also has a Norwegian great-grandfather, and I have a Swedish great-great-grandmother. These ancestors have always been beloved and of interest, but there is so much more we understand about them now. And we can joke about our family being a real Kalmar Union. (Honestly, did not expect to hear so much about the Hanseatic League on our mission...)

My name Anita is Scandinavian (which I have not known all my life), and so is my complexion and hair coloring, so I am often asked if I'm Danish. I feel like it's a bigger part of me every day! And we have loved looking at old paintings and buildings and seeing the faces and familiarities our ancestors would have known here. Here are a few preliminary observations on culture and traditions, food and health, names and language, history, and suggestions of local places to visit after our first five months in Denmark.

artist Anna Ancher apparently met my blond relatives

Heritage trails: Anna Gustava Engelbrektsson in Sweden

I’m named after my grandma Anna, and it is her grandma Anna we quested after on this trip. She was a Swedish herbalist and cook, and Mormon pioneer.  My husband and I traveled from Copenhagen to Gothenburg, Sweden's biggest city after Stockholm and three hours' train ride from Copenhagen. It is located on the west coast of Sweden, where islands are littered around the land's edges like crumbs of a cake. And part of the island archipelago holds our scenic heritage islands of Orust and Tjörn, and our ancestral village of Tegneby (an hour's drive north of Gothenburg).

Tegneby, Sweden church built 1891

This is where our Swedish family story currently begins and ends, since the Tegneby church burned down in 1871, and with it, our family records. The church there now, rebuilt in 1891, is charming. However, our Anna wouldn't have seen it in that current iteration, since she left Sweden as a pioneer for Utah in 1875. 

Calvin Cottam's 1974 report and our Google map

As far as I know, I'm the first relative to make a pilgrimage here in my lifetime. My grandma's cousin Calvin Cottam came in 1974, so the xerox of his typewritten notes from 52 years ago were part of my research guidelines. We had an extraordinary visit!

Happy Tartan Day!

 Here are our various ancestral tartan plaids all together. Hurray for our deep Scottish roots!

Eulalia and John Welch in New Zealand

My great-grandparents' missionary time in New Zealand (1917-1920) was formative for their family--and the fact that my cousins performed a haka dance at a family reunion talent show a century later speaks to that legacy. I've been eager to see that faraway land for myself, and grateful for a recent opportunity to travel that direction.

John and Eulalia Welch in New Zealand, 1918

In preparation, I read this book and some of John 3's missionary journals, and the write-ups done by John 4, John 5, Don, and Barb about the John's life, the Maori Agricultural College (MAC), and prior pilgrimages. I don't need to repeat those well-documented details, but just wanted to share some of my thoughts and feelings while traveling.

First of all, it was special to make the connection that we were in New Zealand for the 107th birthday of John Sorensen Welch, the baby who was born on their mission who only lived a few days (January 24-28, 1919).  I realized that Eulalia must have always kept that week tenderly in her heart.

iconic fence built 1913-1923

The connections were plentiful: we heard the Welch name over the airport announcements. A young family sat next to us on the flight over with a little daughter, and I thought of the Welches' transit with toddler Edith (by ship for long seasick weeks). We didn't travel to the actual area where they lived (Hastings/Napier), because the Maori Agricultural College there was destroyed by an earthquake in the 1930s. But we thought of the Welches in Auckland, knowing they arrived and departed there by ship and would have seen the ferry building and the red lantern port fence from that era, and had a wonderful day in Hamilton thinking about them at the Church History Museum, temple, and gardens. 

the historic Ferry Terminal built in 1912, five years before the Welches arrived

now dwarfed by modern skyscrapers

Eulalia had a green bead necklace that my mom's cousin made into jewelry to share amongst the female descendants a few years ago. While we were in New Zealand, I learned about their greenstone, nephrite jade, and realized that's what the necklace is. I was honored to wear my necklace and earrings back in the land they came from!

Eulalia was a young mom at the time of this mission, concerned about her family overseas. She learned by letter months after the events that her sister died, and that another sister's husband passed away. They were concerned about the ongoing World War, and John's brothers who were enlisting. They lived through a brutal time with the influenza epidemic, burying friends. She was often sick and pregnant, in a foreign land, far from home. She had some dental issues to deal with there. Her red hair must have curled in the humidity and her fair skin burned in Aotearoa (the land of the long white cloud). She may have never met Maoris, or heard a foreign language, before this trip. Did she learn how to speak some of the language? How did she feel about this assignment? Being set apart by J. Golden Kimball hopefully gave her peace and confidence about the situation. 

She saw new scenery and plants, ate different foods, probably experienced some persecution and cultural misunderstandings. There are four seasons of weather each day! And flip-flopped seasons that made the holidays feel off-kilter. Laundry and cooking and the mail and transportation were constant issues, and challenging ones. Giving birth to little John, and his subsequent death, must have colored the whole time too (along with the challenges of getting his coffin home). Her husband was deathly ill with diphtheria for months, and Eulalia was so sick with pleurisy (and pregnant with my grandfather) that she nearly couldn't travel home on the ship. It was a trying time amongst all the wonder and growth and beauty. 

Her daughter in law Nita took some notes about this era of her life:

The Hamilton temple was finished in 1958, and there is a Church History Museum in the nearby complex that has some exhibits about the MAC. 

hats the Welches would have seen (and worn?)

a pulpit John undoubtedly orated from as he spoke and conducted funerals

the MAC blazer that the students wore, did John?

We attended the Hamilton temple thinking of the Welches. (It was one of the most intense sealing sessions ever, the native sealer was not going to let a single card slip by or anyone leave, I think we were there almost two hours and did a hundred ordinances. Very sore knees!) Two of the children sealed to parents were appropriately named Edith and John. And the celestial room is ethereally gorgeous. Maori symbols such as the koru curly fern are part of the decoration, and I loved learning that the fern symbolizes new beginnings, growth, strength, peace, and the continuous cycle of life. 

However, I really wanted to connect with my redheaded great-grandmother's time in New Zealand, and instead, as I sat there, I really felt strongly about an experience she had years later in Utah: how she felt learning of the 1958 temple dedication here. 

At that time, Eulalia had been widowed more than a decade. She had just turned 68 and had several grandchildren, but they didn't live nearby. On a rainy Saturday in May, perhaps her Church News arrived on her Logan porch steps, and Eulalia went out in her housedress to pick it up. She put on her gold-rimmed glasses and opened up to read the news about the dedication of the Hamilton, New Zealand temple by President McKay:

"We express gratitude that to these fertile Islands Thou didst guide descendants of Father Lehi, and hast enabled them to prosper, to develop and to become associated in history with leading and influential nations among mankind."

She thought of that fertile isle, the beautiful green hills and flowers, and the time of hardship and growth in her young married life.

"We invoke Thy blessing particularly upon the men and women who have so willingly and generously contributed their means, time, and effort to the completion of this imposing and impressive structure. Especially we mention all those who have accepted calls as Labor Missionaries and literally consecrated their all upon the altar of service. May each contributor be comforted in spirit and prospered many fold."

Eulalia remembered her consecrated years away from friends and family. Her hard work, overseas adjustments, her infant son. Her deceased husband whom she missed daily and who was the only one to reminisce with about New Zealand.

The next day would be Mother's Day, and she would get calls from Edith, and John, and Robert, and Julie. She would always be thinking of her beloved Jack, and her dear little baby, the first John. But on this morning, reading about the New Zealand temple, her mind wandered back decades to their time there. And she didn't feel like she had anyone she could share these memories with. Edith had been too young to recall the times well, and didn't like to talk of religion, and Jack was gone.

Perhaps she pulled out some photos, and laughed at seeing the long skirts in the ocean waves at the beach. Maybe she thought of a friend like Ida Stott from those long ago days. John's Maori scriptures and his journal were at hand to leaf through. Did she put on her green beaded necklace and remember its origin? Did she pull out the Maori skirt and cloak she was gifted (where did those go?) or stroke John's hand-lathed wooden bowl (also, where did that go?).  How she wished she could travel back in time, or back around the world, and relive some of those moments. How she longed to join with the saints today celebrating in New Zealand, and give a hongi to some of those dear associates.

It was a benediction for her to reread those words from the prophet: "May each contributor be comforted in spirit and prospered many fold."

Was it on this day she wrote what seems to be her only record of her time there? This poem:

Memories of New Zealand

Orange-tinted twilights-

Purple shadowed dusks-

Weeping willows kissing streams

Soft green hills everywhere-

Towering pines and Eucalyptus

Flowers--flowers--

And peace-restful peace.

Orange Tinted twilights

Purple shadowed dusks

Weeping willows kissing streams

Soft green hills everywhere

Peaceful praying sleep

Trees-

Stately pines and eucalyptus

Flowers--

and restful peace.

We saw such beautiful views as she described--soft green hills, towering pines, eucalyptus, and flowers, flowers. Our stop after the temple was at the glorious Hamilton Gardens. We had a redheaded guide there, and saw orange butterflies, carrot top flame flowers, and on the way home a rust colored vintage 1960s car. I just felt Eulalia's presence in ways like that all day. 

I loved seeing the sights the Welches had enjoyed and memorialized:

Eulalia with the koru fern and fellow missionary Ida Stott

Maori garden and ancestral gathering house

the haka (at a later stop)

ancestral walk in New Zealand

and peace, restful peace. I'm glad Eulalia's memories of this era of her life were so peaceful and beautiful in the rear view mirror. Grateful for my Welch heritage in New Zealand, and those consecrated hardships and examples that continue to bless and inspire us.

William West Woodland's quick Australian adventure

Before his marriage to Laura at age 30, William West Woodland had some interesting bachelor days, including time at the California Gold Rush and a quick trip to Australia. The only mention of this trip down under comes from his life history written by his children:

So somewhere between that window in the late 1850s until his marriage in June of 1862, he had quite an international journey! Trying to pin that down exactly has been tricky. William is in the June 20, 1860 census living with his sister in Salt Lake City, so the best travel window is either right before or right after that. Searching through ship manifests, I did find this potential passenger match:

Melbourne, Australia, was a hub of the Australian Gold Rush that began in the 1850s, so it would make sense that William sailed there. Clipper ships in the day could make the voyage from San Francisco to Australia in about 70-80 days, which matches the account above of two months. He would have experienced rough seas in the "Roaring Forties" latitude winds, and a long journey there and back. If he sailed from Melbourne to Sydney on the ship listed above, City of Sydney, that was a 700-ton steamer operated by Captain Moodie for coastal voyages around Australia and New Zealand, but I'm not sure how that fits with the story of returning on the same ship back to America, which was probably a different vessel. We await further possible details!

Nevertheless, on our recent visit to Melbourne, I tried to imagine his experience.

Arriving at the port of Melbourne, he would have seen the aqua waters of Port Phillip Bay, and the Yarra River leading into town.

but not these buildings...

Few buildings still stand from that era, but the old Customs House is now an Immigration Museum. If he disembarked, he probably would have entered here.

While we were standing there, I looked across the street and there was a W hotel with several big Ws in the window--made me think William West Woodland was saying hi. 

W top left, bottom right

a bridge talking about immigrants to Melbourne from various countries

one of the historic buildings still standing from that ear

Right after leaving the Customs House/ Immigration Museum, I had two more moments connecting with William: we walked past Banana Alley (where bananas were historically stored from ships to ripen)--after his death, William came in a dream to his wife Laura to prevent her from investing in a banana scheme that would ultimately fail. 

And then we saw the heirloom Polly Woodside sailing ship docked in Melbourne--Polly was the name of William's close sister, his aunt, and his grandma.

Polly Woodside

Whether or not this was William's exact voyage and destination, I loved learning more about the Australian Gold Rush and our historical connections there. William was likely our only ancestor to travel to that part of the world before the twentieth century!