Returned from Norway
When my husband returned from his mission he sent us word from Salt Lake that he had many fine presents from Aunt Tomina Tholverson for the relatives who were scattered from Salt Lake to [Page 52] Monroe, and that he must deliver them to each family on his way home. To the Bent Rolfsen family in Salt Lake, the Frank Rolfsen family in Pleasant Grove, the Jacob Rolfsen family in Mt. Pleasant, the Aunt Marie Petersons and Aunt Ellen Dorius families of Ephraim.
He also said that he would be at a Sanpete County celebration at Ephraim on a certain day, and would go as far as Gunnison, and stop with a friend that night, and that we need not come for him as he would find a way home.
The word reached us the day before the celebration at Ephraim. And although he had told us not to come for him, we immediately made preparations to start for Gunnison early next morning. Chris Brown, Aunt Julia’s brother was our driver. We arrived in Gunnison mid afternoon, and went to the home of Charles Gladhill, and stayed until just before sundown when the people who had attended the celebration began to arrive home. (While at Gladhills I found baby B. F. with an open can of lye in his hands. Fortunately he had not gotten any of its contents on his fingers nor mouth.)
We drove onto the main highway and watched every vehicle which passed, but as there were other roads entering the town, we failed to see them all. But we made a thorough search of the town and when darkness settled upon us, we had to abandon the search. We camped about 2 blocks north of the Sanpich River on Main Street. Aunt Julia and I were so disappointed we could not settle down to rest, so we walked toward the river bridge, and then within a short distance from the bridge we stopped to discuss how we were to proceed next, when all of a sudden we heard a wagon coming from the south, and as it came to the bridge it was hailed by someone and stopped. There came to us on the evening air our husband’s voice saying, “Are you August Bohman from Monroe?” And the driver answered “No”. Then the wagon rushed toward us. We stopped the driver and asked if he had a stranger in his wagon. He answered “No”. “Then who spoke to you at the bridge?” we asked in the same breath. He said “A stranger asked if I was August Bohman from Monroe.” We said, “Oh where is he. That stranger is our husband who is just returning from a mission in Norway and we came here to meet him.”
The young man said, “Jump into my wagon and I will help you find him.” He took us a long way out into Centerfield. He went into every house on either side of the highway and made inquiries but without results. He drove us back to our camp where Chris Brown was tending the children. We heartily thanked him for his kindness and he wished us success and went on his way. [Page 53]
Another council meeting, then Chris Brown harnessed and hitched the horses. We all got into the wagon and drove on the highway passed the last house in Centerfield, singing at the top of our voices, “We are going to old Monroe, Oh we are going to old Monroe.” We sang so loud to attract his attention if he happened to be anywhere along the highway, that the farm dogs all barked and occasionally a rooster crowed.
This adventure to find him failed, so we drove back to our former camping place and decided we would wait there until daylight, then continue our search. At family prayer we prayed earnestly that the Lord would help us find him.
We were out at the break of day next morning going to every home where people had been to the celebration the day before. We found several places where the people had a stranger lodging with them, but when we inspected him, he wasn’t the one we were looking for.
We went back to camp and had breakfast, got ourselves and the children Marie, Minnie, and Bent Franklin ready for whatever adventure seemed to us most plausible.
We stood there beside our wagon on Main Street looking up and down not knowing what course to pursue when we saw a wagon with two men in it come onto the highway just beyond the river bridge from an east side road. One of the men had on a broad brimmed white hat. I jokingly said to Aunt Julia we will not have to hunt any longer for our dear husband, there he comes, wearing that beautiful white hat. Julia said Bent would never be wearing a hat like that returning from a mission, though it would make a fine field hat. So we grinned at each other and joked until they were within a hundred yards of us, then we discovered it was really him. At the same instant he recognized us. The wagon stopped and we ran and before words could be exchanged we each had our arms around him at the same time. As the excitement passed we discovered people looking out of every house door and window, I suppose they were wondering what on earth was happening.
Our Presents from Norway
When we arrived home it took my husband a few days to distribute the presents from Aunt Tomena to the Larsen family.
She was Grandma Larsen’s sister who joined the church among the early ones in Norway. Her husband never joined. He was a ship [Page 54] owner and ship captain. A rough man they called him, but his wife loved him and stayed with him though most of her family came to Utah, both those who joined the church and those who did not.
When my husband went back to Norway she asked him what his wife’s name was. He did not like to tell her he had two wives, so he said her name was Julia Lorena, and he gave her the names of his children.
When baby B. F. was nearly a year old, Aunt Maria Petersen came on a short visit to Monroe, and made a great ado’ over him. She wrote a letter to her sister in Norway telling her about Bent’s wonderful baby boy. The letter arrived just before my husband was coming home, after Aunt Tomina had bought and packed all the presents for her relatives in Utah. Bent was making a tour of the district, and bidding good by to the saints and friends, and when he finally came back to Aunt Tomina’s she took hold of him and laughingly shook him, and asked why he had told stories to her. He said I told you the truth. My wives are Julia and Lorena, but she said you never mentioned the boy. Well said my husband, he was not born until long after I left home. She said that boy must have a present, so she went shopping again, and bought for him a boy doll and Scotch cap.
She said you must divide the presents I have bought for your wife between the two.
She sent to Tomena Larsen Hunt a silver perfume container very exquisitely designed which had been in the family for nearly 100 years. To Venka Larsen Harris a silk parasol or umbrella. Also several of them to other members of the family, and many other things which I do not now recall.
To her sister Ingeborg Maria Rolfsen Larsen she sent many things, among them a beautiful black French mareno double shawl, and lace curtains or lamberquins.
She sent to Bent’s wives a feather bed, French mareno dress cloth, lace curtains just like the ones she sent to her sister, and other things. We were to divide them. Aunt Julia had no feather bed and she was older than I so I insisted that she take the feather bed, and her windows needed new curtains, so I told her to take the curtains. I think we divided the dress cloth and each made a skirt.
Aunt Tomina’s husband had two solid silver spoons made for our husband with his initials on them and the date of making. We each [Page 55] had a spoon. My husband brought some fine large Russian bowls. They were divided, and some choice china dishes with the Larsens had left in Norway when they came to America. They were divided. I got the blue and white large china cup and saucer which Granpa Larsen had drunk his coffee from for 30 years in Norway, and the old silver watch which had been Grandfather Bent Rolfsen’s, and his and his son Bent’s timekeeper when they were ship builders near Reisor, Norway. It had been handed down to my husband because he was named Bent Rolfsen Larsen for his grandfather. He had owned it when they lived in Norway, and being young and not knowing it’s great value, had traded watches with a cousin in Norway. He had kept the cousin’s watch in good condition through the years, and when he went on his mission, he took it back to exchange for that valuable family heirloom his own old watch.
After his arrival in Norway he went to the home of his cousin and immediately saw the old watch hanging on the wall. They did not recognize him, so he talked to them for some time and then with a twinkle in his eye he called his cousin by name and said, “I see you still have the old watch, how would you like to trade it back again?” His cousin said, “can it be Bent who speaks? If so, and you have my old watch we will exchange.” A happy reunion followed. And that is how it happened that on the night our husband returned home from Norway he had his grandfather’s old watch running as correctly as it had more than 80 years before when his grandfather bought it to keep time for the men at the shipbuilding wharf when he was a master ship builder.
That first night after my husband’s arrival home, before going to bed my husband came to my room with the old watch and said, “this is a choice treasure, I leave it here to keep you company.” Later he said it shall be the property of our son B. F. when he is older.
Grandma Larsen brought her lace curtains and gave them to me, and she willed me the French mareno shawl before she died. Grandma Larsen willed everything she had to the different members of her family. When settling up Grandma Larsen’s affairs at a meeting of the Larsen children Aunt Venka said I should never have that shawl, she was going to have it herself she said. It was the best thing that her mother owned. Martin spoke up and said, “Mother has been unkind to Lorena, and if she wants to make it right now, she shall have the privilege.”
The years which followed were filled with work and anxiety. Our husband was home with broken health, and although we kept up a happy appearance we did not know how long we could keep up. His [Page 56] health was so delicate he couldn’t even chop the fire wood. Day after day Aunt Julia and I knelt together in prayer for him. We both prayed and cried together and tried to make life as easy as possible for him.
During the period there was plenty of work, and we all worked with a right good will. And thus days passed into weeks, weeks into months, and the months to years, and the great wheel of time rolled on, bringing joys, anxieties, and problems of various kinds to be solved, but thank Heaven we were usually equal to the occasions. And so time rolled on.
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