Maren Pedersen Jensen

Maren was two years old when her mother died.  Six months later her father married Dorthea Christensen, who was a good mother to Maren.  The family were farmers and members of the Lutheran church.

At the age of twenty-nine, Maren married Anders Jensen (Vestergaard).  The Vestergaard name had been used in Denmark but after the christening of the daughters, it was dropped and they used the name Jensen, but they used Vestergaard in Ephraim sometimes to distinguish Anders from others of the same name.  Their first two children were christened in the Lutheran church.

By April, 1862, the new converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were making preparations to emigrate to Zion.  They boarded the "Franklin" on April 9, 1962, from Hamburg, Germany, landing in New York City on May 29, 1862.  They traveled by rail, then by steamship to Hanibal, Missouri, then by train again to Florence, Nebraska, joining the wagon train with handcarts

The Jensen family pulled handcarts and walked to the Salt Lake Valley, arriving on September 23, 1862.  Maren and Anders were sent to Hogwalla, on the Sanpitch River in the Gunnison Valley.

President Young came to this area and suggested that all the settlers mo9ve to Ephraim for their protection from the Indians.

Anders became very sick and passed away in 1872.  This left Maren a widow with four children under the age of fifteen. She received help from the Priesthood to do the farming and help with the sheep shearing by cooking for the workers.  As the children grew older, they all worked out and helped as they could.

Maren passed away on May 12, 1894, at the age os sixty-seven and is buried in the old cemetery in Ephraim..

Children:

Caroline (Wickman), 27 August 1856

Mary Anne (Whitlock), 12 March 1859

James Peter, 16 July 1863

Niels Christian, 28 March 1867

(Source: Piopneer Women of Faith and Fortitude Volume II F to L, International Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers, P.1553)