AUGUSTA MARIA OUTZEN SMITH
Father was born in Holms, Denmark and mother in Randers, Denmark. Father and mother belonged to the Christian Church, sometimes called the Lutherian Church. Father served in the War of 1848 - 50 between Denmark and Germany. He received the honor of Second Lieutenant. He also received a medal to be worn on the left breast with a red ribbon with white stripes.
In 1852 or 53 father and mother were married in Randers, Denmark, and in 1854 I was born. We had a good home. Mother had some money received from her parents and before they were married father and grandfather Christiansen bought a city lot and built a house and furnished it with good homemade furniture. It was all complete - everything mother could wish for was there. Grandfather Christiansen was a good cabinet maker. He made all the furniture except one sofa and the chairs in the Parlor. Father was a good carpenter too. Grandfather served his apprenticeship with honor - took first prize in some of his work.
We had a lovely garden with bushes and hedges and flowers and a large summer house with bushes and a table. We spent lots of our time in the Garden. Father took lots of pride in keeping our house in order and worked hard to make us all comfortable and happy.
I started to school when seven years old. We had to go to school all the year. Just one month vacation in the summer. I helped mother take care of the babies and do the housework and I also helped knit the stockings for the children. I just love to sew and do fancy work. When I was twelve years old father took me out of the District School and put me in a private school where I studied the English language and took fancy work. My teacher's name was Miss Cofod.
In the year of 1850 Apostle Erastus Snow and company brought the gospel over the sea to the city of Copenhagen and in the year of 1853 or 1854 it reached Randers. Father and mother went to some of the meetings and it wasn't long until they believed it was the true gospel but it was a year or more before they were baptized. And after that they soon lost all of their old friends.
Father and mother were some of the very first to join the Latter-day Saints Church in Randers. Father helped the Elders to rent the first hall to hold public meetings in. It wasn't long before the mob gave them lots of trouble. At one meeting they threw stones and broke nearly all of the windows in the hall. They disturbed the meetings so they often had to be dismissed. At another time they broke the stairway down and father helped to pay the bill for repairing or helped to do the work himself. Father soon got the spirit of immigration, but was advised to stay a while longer to help care for the young missionaries. There were only a few married people at that time so they tried to be satisfied to stay. They were faithful and true to their religion and were very particular to pay an honest tithing and always made the Elders welcome to our home. It was a good resting place for them after traveling in the country for days and sometimes weeks at a time. They only had two children at that time, my brother Henry and myself.
In the year of 1870, Father and mother and seven children left Denmark with the Emigration Company. Left Randers first of July for Copenhagen on the train and left Copenhagen on the 15th of July in a steamship to cross the North Sea, landed in Hull, England and then by train to Liverpool. My little sister, Ida, was very sick on that trip and died on the train before we reached Liverpool, England and was buried in that city.
It was a great sorrow to us all to have to leave our dear little sister, especially for mother. She felt so bad. She had buried three children before in Denmark but never had I heard her complain. She felt satisfied that it was the will of the Lord.
We rested in Liverpool a day or two and then we boarded the great Steamship called Minnesota. There were ten returning missionaries and nearly 600 emigrants. We reached New York in about twelve days, all in safety. Went by train to Salt Lake City the first emigration company that ever crossed the plains by railroad. Just before we reached Salt Lake City, President Young and Company came in the President's private car as far as Ogden to welcome the Saints. It was indeed a happy time for us to know that we had reached our future home in the land of Zion and with the people of God. I can see my father now, how happy he was to have his family out from the World that he had so long waited for.
Soon after reaching Salt Lake City father moved his family to Parowan, Utah. There he worked hard to provide for his family. My brother, Henry, was as good as a boy could be to help him. They loved there two years then they moved to Richfield, Utah were they lived until they died. Mother died in the year of 1905 and father in the year of 1907 or 8. They had twelve children, seven girls and five boys.
I was married to President Jesse Nathaniel Smith in the year of 1869, the 3rd of June, in Denmark. Went through the Endowment House and was sealed to my husband on the 15th of August, 1870. My husband then had two other wives, Emma S. and Janet M. They were good and kind to me and I loved them like sisters. We each had a large family of children. I lived ten years in Parowan, Utah in a good, comfortable home. We were happy and contented. Why shouldn't we be? We had the dearest and best husband in the world and the best children.
In the year of 1878 Brother Smith was called to go to Arizona to preside over the Eastern Arizona Stake of Zion and so he moved part of his family to Snowflake, Arizona. He helped organize this stake and all the wards in this stake and took an active part in building up this new country. He built a comfortable log house and raised a very good crop of wheat and in the fall of 1879 he came back to Parowan after being absent nearly one year. We were glad to see him. He attended the Legislature in Salt Lake City 1879-1880 and in the spring of 1880 he moved the rest of his family to Snowflake, Arizona.
We had a long and hard journey out here but we liked our new home and were thankful to be all together again. We had some good new tents to sleep in. We had plenty of fresh air and we had good health and were happy.
Brother Smith with a company of men took a contract on the railroad the summer of 1880. For weeks and weeks at a time there was hardly a man in Snowflake, just enough to preside over the meetings and Sunday Schools. Everybody went to meetings and we had good times. The work on the railroad was taken to provide for the people. We had plenty of wheat but no mills to grind it on. In the fall when the folks came home they brought provisions, shoes and cloth for the family for the winter. Aunt Emma and Sadie went with Brother Smith to cook for him and the boys.
Our Relief Society was organized soon after we came here and I was chosen as one of the first teachers in the Snowflake Ward. I worked faithfully in the capacity for 25 or 30 years.
We were blessed with eleven children, two sons and nine daughters. All lived to become men and women and faithful in the church. My dear husband died in Snowflake in the year of 1906. He was 71 years old. Our dear daughter, Anna, died in the year of 1910, 26 years old and our dear son, Robert, died this year, 1920, 45 years old. God bless their memory.
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