Christiane Hansen Breinholt
BIOGRAPHY OF CHRISTIANE HANSEN BREINHOLT
Pioneer of Utah — 1856
Written by her son, Oliver Christian Breinholt,
Notes by grandson, Verle Breinholt
Christiane Hansen Breinholt was born April 7, 1856 at St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A. She was the fifth and youngest child of Anders Hansen and Abelone Knudsen. Their oldest daughter, Mariah, was about 16 years old at the time, and lived to raise a large family. Their son, Jorgen Andersen, died aboard ship coming across the ocean and was buried at sea at the age of 11 years. They had an infant boy who died at birth, while they were in Denmark. Their daughter, Anne Andersen, died at St. Louis, Missouri at the age of four years, at about the time Christiane was born.
Anders Hansen and Abelone Knudsen were both born in Denmark and immigrated to Utah in 1856. They sailed from Liverpool, England on 12 December 1855 on the ship John J. Boyd. They arrived in New York February 15, 1856, and arrived at St. Louis, Missouri sometime between the 15th of February and the 7th of April, 1856. They then sailed via the Missouri River to Florence, Nebraska. They departed from Florence on June 10, 1856 with the Knud Peterson Company, consisting of 320 persons and 60 wagons, arriving in Salt Lake City on September 20, 1856.
Mother (Christiane) was born in St. Louis while her parents were waiting for passage across the plains to Utah. At this time, the Saints were emigrating west so fast that they did not have enough teams and wagons to transport them. Therefore, Brigham Young instructed the emigration authorities to provide handcarts to move the Saints west. I assume that Mother’s cradle was a handcart, but it did not seem to hurt her disposition, because when she grew to womanhood she was known among her friends as “Gentle Annie”. She had blue eyes, a fair complexion and a slender build when she was a girl.
When they arrived in Utah, they settled in Ephraim, Sanpete County. Because her parents were advanced in years, Mother had to assume considerable responsibility in the home; and because they were very poor, she worked out when possible at a very young age. Their circumstances greatly hampered her schooling, of which she had very little, but she learned the arts of homemaking early, such as spinning yarns, knitting sweaters and stockings, and cooking. I have heard her relate how she went out into the fields and gleaned heads of wheat that were left after the harvesting.
She and her parents experienced some of the troubles during the Black Hawk War. During the year 1873 she became engaged to Jens Christian Larsen (Breinholt name adopted 1882). (1) He went to St. George on a labor mission during that winter to work on the temple, and when he returned home in March, 1874 they went to Salt Lake City and were married in the Endowment House on the 30th of March, 1874, and were sealed for time and eternity by Joseph F. Smith.
