Anthonette Marie Olsen, A Legacy of Faith

About a hundred and sixty years ago in a land far away from Spanish Fork, Utah, a family lived in poverty. The father, whose name was Christian Olsen, worked hard every day as a skilled stonemason, which means he made buildings out of blocks of stone. As a child he had been leased-out as a bond servant to a rich landowner in Norway, and was essentially a slave. He had received a very little of motherly love as a little boy. But now in my story of his family, he was married to a woman he loved very much. 1

He received his pay at the end of each week. But he liked to spend a lot of his pay on “ale and wine with his jolly companions” before he took his money home to his family. “This made it hard on his wife, Christine,” and their eight living “children at home”.  Their oldest daughter, Anthonette Marie (who was called Nettie) went to work at the tender age of ten to earn money for food for the family. At first, she served as a helper at a textile factory. Each day she would arrive at 6 am and depart at 9 pm. Her first job was to hand threads to the girl who threaded the harness for the loom to make cloth. She worked there until age sixteen.1

As a young child, Nettie longed for the teachings of God and to have prayer in her family. At her school, she heard about the Mormon missionaries. Her teacher told the students to stay away from them because they are false teachers. “Young as she was she decided to find out for herself what the doctrine was they were sent to teach.”1

When she was sixteen, the Mormon missionaries contacted their family. The whole family joined the church. Nettie’s family was happy now. The father quit drinking and smoking. He prayed and attended church with the family. They had missionary meetings in their home every Thursday night.1

At work at the textile factory things were not so good. All her friends there became her enemies when they found out she had joined the church. She left that job and found another one the next day where she worked until she was twenty years old.1

Christian and Christine and their family dreamed of immigrating to Zion in the Rocky Mountains. They decided to send 20 year-old Nettie first. Her father bought her a trunk. In it she placed a few pieces of underwear and a dress. She had one pair of shoes and a dress to wear. She brought along a shawl. “Neither she nor her parents understood the nature of the journey she was going to undertake.” 1

First she crossed the North Sea and then the Atlantic Ocean, all alone, without her family. In Boston, she boarded a train and rode to Florence, Nebraska with other newcomers. From Florence, which is Omaha now, she walked to Salt Lake City, a distance of nearly 1000 miles. It took six weeks. I just want to stop a minute and really think about what it means to walk over a 1000 miles in six weeks. I figure that if you walk 1000 miles in six weeks, minus Sundays, you would walk an average of 28 miles a day. Three miles an hour is a pretty good walking pace for people who just walk for exercise. If she walked 3 miles an hour it would take over 9 hours a day. No stopping, no resting. If she walked 2 miles an hour it would take 14 hours a day. And, Nettie walked that distance every day except possibly Sundays for six weeks. Her shoes wore off her feet at 300 miles in about 12-13 days or a third of the way, so she walked in her stockings for the rest of the way.1

Let’s talk about what she ate. Her food ration was two cups of flour a day. At night she would mix the flour with water and set it in a tin cup near the tiny fire she had built. In the morning she would bake a large biscuit and eat it as the day progressed. Sometimes she was given a strip of bacon.1

At night, she lay on the ground with a bag under her head for a pillow, and her shawl for a blanket. The trek was not without accidents and fearful incidents.  Several people died on the journey. A young girl she walked with was trampled in a cattle stampede. Other dangerous experiences occurred on her journey. One woman lagged behind the others and an Indian came out of the bushes, lassooed her, and took her on his horse. Her husband chased after them, but was shot in the legs with two arrows by another Indian. They never saw the woman again.1

Nettie prayed to God every day for a portion of His spirit to guide and lead her on. With that help, she was able to maintain a spirit of harmony and good will, for which she was grateful. 1

When she arrived in Salt Lake in November of 1865, she was on foot and alone and went to bed without any supper. She knew only a few words in English, and couldn’t put together one sentence. After a time, she worked weaving cloth, and learned how to prepare wool to make cloth. She learned to speak English.1

In a few months, she married Christian Frederick Bernard Lybbert in the endowment house, becoming his second wife. They had six sons and five daughters, and settled in Ashley Valley, near Vernal, Utah. Her children adored her and her friends and family enjoyed the comfort and good food she provided in her home.1

Four years after Nettie immigrated, her father and a brother, arrived in Utah. They worked and earned money for the mother and five more children to come to America and settled in Santaquin.1

The reason I am telling you this story is that we can learn something important from this woman and her family. This Nettie is my great-great grandmother. I love her with all my heart, even though I have never met her in this life. I knew some of her children and grandchildren. They are great people, strong in the gospel. Today she has over 5,000 descendants. What would my life be like if her father and mother had rejected the church? Who would I be if she had rebelled against her parents and had given up on them or the church and stayed in her home country? Her struggles crossing the ocean and the plains so she could raise her family in the gospel have great meaning in my life. 1

I think about Nettie and remember a talk given by Sister Elaine S. Dalton, the general Young Women President last year. Sister Dalton spoke in General Young Women Meeting March 30, 2013. In talking about another young woman from Denmark a long time ago, and this applies to my great-great grandma too, she said, “her decision… had eternal significance for generations.”2

Sister Dalton also says to the young women of the church, and I might add as well as to the young men, “…You are standing on the edge of many important decisions and making choices daily, some of them difficult, that will shape not only your future but also the destiny of generations. You too are facing…opposition, adversity, peer pressure and moral pollutions. And yet you are standing immovable and living the gospel in the face of the raging storms in our society. Like (my great-great grandmother, Nettie) you are making correct decisions. You are loyal, you are royal.”2

“The choices you are making right now are of critical importance. …Live your lives in such a way that you can listen to and hear the Holy Ghost and he will help you make correct decisions. In fact, ‘he will tell you all things what ye should do’.”2

I believe what Sister Dalton has said. I see the value in living a Christ-like life. I see the turmoil and unhappiness in the lives of members of our community and of members of our extended family who do not live the principles of the gospel. Some of them are caught in and believe the lies of the terrible, terrible monster who teaches that, “This is my life and I can do what I want to do.” Some of our extended family members may also believe that since they have sinned, it is too late for them. There is no way back for them.  In Doctrine and Covenants 18:10-13 we read. “10-Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God. 11 For, behold, the Lord your redeemer suffered death in the flesh; wherefore he suffered the pain of all men that all men might repent and come unto him. 12 And he hath risen again from the dead that he might bring all men unto him on conditions of repentance.13  And now how great is his joy in the soul that repenteth.” I say to you that Jesus Christ has suffered for our sins and wants us to return to him, no matter what we have done. Our behavior does matter to Him and to our families, those who live now, even those who have already lived and also those yet to come. Keep the commandments. Remember who you are, a child of God and  you belong to families of people who love the Lord and sacrifice their time, talents, energy and their very lives that you might have the gospel in your own life to bless you.

My great-great grandmother, Nettie taught her children the value of the gospel by living it with all her heart. As she walked the three fourths of a mile to church on Sundays with her children she would say to her daughter, Mary, my great-grandmother, “ ‘It’s a privilege to attend meeting and to partake of the Sacrament. We must ever guard ourselves against the temptation to fall asleep spiritually’.”1

May we all ever guard against falling asleep spiritually!  May we have the strength and intelligence us to repent and come back to Heavenly Father when we fail! May we have faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement!

1.      From the book, Christian Frederick Bernard Lybbert, a family history, 1974. Anthonette Marie Olsen’s history and Christian Olsen’s written by Minnie I. Hodapp. pp 51-57. 

2.      Elaine S. Dalton, “Be Not Moved”, Ensign, May 2013, pp121-124.