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Jul 2010 Issue
By Leslie Albrecht Huber
In July, many of us turn our thoughts to the pioneers who made their way to Utah during the mid-1800s. When we think of these pioneers, we imagine their journey beginning in Nauvoo, Illinois. But for many of the Utah-bound pioneers, the journey started long before they ever took a step beside a covered wagon. Many had already been traveling for months and for thousands of miles. For thousands of early LDS converts, the journey to Zion began in Western Europe. One of these immigrants was my great-great-great-grandmother, Kerstina Nilsdotter.
Kerstina Nilsdotter was born in 1843 in Vallby, a small village in southern Sweden. In April of 1853 when Karsti was not quite ten years old, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints established its first branch in Sweden in a village not far from Vallby. The Church had already come under intense criticism and even persecution from civil and religious authorities, so the branch was formed in the middle of the night so it wouldn’t be observed by neighbors. As the year progressed, missionaries organized several more small branches. One of these was in Vallby.
I don’t know any of the details of Karsti’s conversion story. What I do know is that on September 5, 1860, a few weeks after her seventeenth birthday, Karsti was baptized a member of the Church. She was the only member of her family to join at that time (her older brother joined two years later). Not long after her baptism, Karsti followed the council of Church leaders who encouraged all converts to gather to Zion, and she prepared to set sail.
Converts preparing to immigrate received warning enough to give the faint of heart second thoughts. Shipwrecks, seasickness, cholera, frostbite, starvation, dysentery, and measles had claimed the lives of many travelers before her. The length of the trip alone was daunting. It would take Karsti five months to arrive in Utah. Most converts traded in their lifetime’s saving and any profit made from selling land or possessions to finance their voyage. Still many came up short, having to rely on the Church’s Perpetual Emigration Fund for assistance in paying their way to Utah.
Despite these difficulties, Karsti left her home in April of 1861. She first traveled to the Swedish port town of Malmö, where she crossed the Sound to Copenhagen. Here, she joined a group of 373 Danes, 128 Swedes, and 61 Norwegians—all LDS converts making their way to America. Over the next few days, this group took a series of boats and trains to Altona, near Hamburg, Germany. On May 11, the group crossed the North Sea to England. The rough waters made the two-day voyage miserable, and many claimed those two days were the worst part of the entire journey.
In Liverpool, England, Karsti’s group swelled to 960 people from ten nationalities, almost all LDS converts. On May 16, they set sail on a large sailing ship, Monarch of the Sea. For the next two months, the group endured seasickness, storms, and crowded conditions as they crossed the ocean. On June 16, they reached New York where they saw “the military parading the streets of New York, and drumming up for volunteers to go and fight the south,” as one traveler described. The US was in the midst of the Civil War.
After passing through the immigration processing station at Castle Garden, Karsti and the others took a series of trains and boats, crossing war-torn Missouri where the windows had been boarded up for safety.
They eventually arrived in Florence, Nebraska, located on the site of what had once been Winter Quarters, and the outfitting place for converts making their way west. There would be no more trains after Florence. The rest of the journey would be accomplished by covered wagon and a lot of walking.
Karsti left Florence with her wagon train on July 13. She had already been traveling for three months. It took another two months of walking through the hot sun, pouring rain, flat prairies and steep mountains before Karsti arrived in Salt Lake City on September 22, 1861.
Karsti didn’t leave behind a journal or letters. Not one word she wrote has survived. Not even a photo of her exists. Despite these limitations, I feel I have come to know this Western European pioneer ancestor. I have collected dozens of records about Karsti’s life. I have visited Vallby, Sweden where she was born and Malmo where she left her homeland behind forever to make her way to Zion. I have driven the Mormon
Trail, following in her footsteps, and sat by her grave in the little town of Fremont, Utah. Karsti was never prominent, well-known, or wealthy. Her story is much the same as thousands of others like her.
Yet as I have gained knowledge and insights into Karsti’s story, I have come to see that her story is nothing less than remarkable. She made tremendous sacrifices and took great risks because of what she believed. She was willing to leave everything behind – her home, country, and family – to follow her faith.
The fact that Karsti’s story is representative of thousands of others doesn’t show that she is ordinary. Instead, it shows that the group she represents – our Western European convert immigrant ancestors – were extraordinary.
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