Emma's EarthlyTreasure

For some, antique objects collected and loved are a real value, especially those which hold provenance. Once in a while I wonder what earthy things my ancestors would have considered a treasure. 

My family has a few items which belonged to my mother's paternal grandmother Emma Martinsen Anderson. Those items include a beautiful, ornate mirror, a claw-footed table, one of her nicer hair pins, two pieces of costume jewelry, a fancy, store-bought, blue dress [which would have been much too small for her to wear in her later years] and a few family photos--some taken in 1937 just a year before her death.

I believe if Emma could answer my question about what her treasure might be, she would preface her answer by explaining her life. No doubt she would remind me that her parents and older siblings joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Norway and traveled a great distance by sea and land to live among the LDS saints in Utah.

She might express to me her sadness and fear as both her parents died within a few weeks of each other when she was only 11 years old. She probably would try to help me understand the weight of responsibility she had for her 5 year old brother when her older siblings went out to find work to support the family.

I hope she would express happiness at her marriage to my great grandfather Andrew Anderson. I assume her heart grew a little bigger when she gave birth two years later to their first child, a daughter. What loneliness she must have felt just six weeks after the birth as she bid goodbye to Andrew as he left to serve a mission for the LDS Church and was gone for over two years.

She probably would have told of how anxious she was when she learned Andrew had contracted typhoid fever on his mission and might die. I picture her with pure joy when the Lord sent Andrew home safely to her. I would expect to see despair when just 11 months later her newborn son died. 

I suppose she would express to me the security she felt when Andrew's business became quite profitable, and they were able to move into a big, beautiful home. She likely would have been delighted to tell me about the births of three more sons and another daughter.

Emma might not have been able to express the grief she felt when her oldest daughter passed away at the young age of 15. She herself likely wondered why she could no longer go to back into her beautiful home because of the death. Her eyes might reflect the look of uncertainty she saw on her husband and children as they left their home to help her escape her grief only to camp in the out-of-doors under a bowery.

Grandma Emma might remind me that after this, she was never well, and life was very difficult for her in the years leading to her death.

So what would Grandma have saved as a treasure--something she valued highly? Probably not the blue dress. Likely she would not have said it was her costume jewelry. Pictures are nice but never take the place of the people they portray.

I think if I were to guess, Grandma would say the beautiful mirror was her treasure. Emma might explain to me how the mirror reflected her life including her daily choices and actions both good and bad. The mirror also displayed her emotions, her happiness and sorrow, as well as the faces of those she loved so much. The mirror reflected her, and I hope she knew her life was a treasure.

Today as I look into my great grandmother's mirror, I can't see Grandma or any of the events of her life. I only see my own reflection and my life is a treasure--I think she might remind me of that too.

Cleanliness Takes Effort

Almost everything my ancestors needed to keep them and their families alive and well was produced by their own hands. For us today, soap is something we don't think about much. It is easy to obtain from local markets and the price can be minimal. But this was not the case in earlier years--they had to make their own.

The process of making soap has been around for thousands of years, and the ingredients were usually available to my early ancestors. But the making of soap took a great effort. 

A very important ingredient for soap was fat. Women saved fat scraps from the cows and pigs which were butchered. The scraps were put in very large pots, usually in the out of doors, where it was rendered or cooked down in water and a little salt. Then the rendering was strained to remove any impurities.This was time consuming and probably a very smelly process.

Lye is another ingredient essential to making soap. Lye is commonly known as sodium hydroxide and highly caustic. In earlier days our ancestors produced it from the ashes of hardwood trees and water. The ash water then had to be filtered. This was another highly labor intensive process.

To make soap, fat, lye and water were added together in a very large pot. The lye had to be put into the fat and water mixture at the right time and temperature and stirred to a perfect consistency. One wrong step and all would be for nothing. As the mixture was constantly stirred, it began to present folds. Then it could be poured into molds, wrapped in cloth or newspaper and put away in a cool, dark, and dry place to cure for at least four to six weeks. After that time the soap was cut into bars or grated.

Women in those early years took great pride in their soap. The soap had a neutral, clean smell, and the goal was to make the soap as white as possible. The browner the soap, the less respect others had for the soap and for the soap maker. A great deal of expertise went into soap making.

My family was no different from any other as far as their soap making. In fact my mother has a soap story of her own. She vividly remembers that her father was out one day plowing down some weeds around their out buildings. After a short time, he came into their home bringing a medium-sized, lidded, tin box he had inadvertently dug up. Her mother opened the tin and discovered a beautiful, white, uncut soap. 

This was in the 1950s and my mom had never seen anything like this before, but my grandmother certainly recognized it and was very delighted. Grandma grated the soap and used it in her laundry. Even in the 1950s women were very proud of nice, clean laundry drying on their clothes lines. [I suppose we women have been prideful since the beginning of time.]

My mom and her family were then living in the home and on the property which once belonged to her grandparents, and her mother knew the soap must have been made by her mother-in-law Emma Martinsen Anderson. Emma had died in 1938 long before the soap find. But the work of her hands had endured for decades.

Soap seems like such a small thing but very important for hygiene especially before indoor plumbing was invented. Personal cleanliness added to the good health of families, and just like us, we always want keep our families well and happy.

Emma Martinsen Anderson

Emma Martinsen Anderson

My maternal grandfather, LeGrand McKay Anderson's mother was Emma Josephine Martinsen Anderson. She was born 1 November 1877 to Peter and Toline Christensen Martinsen in Ephraim, Sanpete, Utah.

Emma's parents joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Norway in July of 1871. Shortly thereafter Peter and his wife, Toline and three children sailed for America. After arriving in America, the family crossed the United States by train and made their first home in Ephraim, Utah. After a couple of years in Ephraim, her family moved to Koosharem, Sevier, Utah. Her father built a one-room rock house on the property.


Emma's mother, Toline, died 25 February 1889, and her father, Peter died just the next month on 14 March 1889--seventeen days after his wife. The older children in the home were left to care for themselves and their younger siblings--Emma was 11 and her younger brother just 5. The children had to find outside work to support themselves. Emma's older sisters Pauline and Caroline milked cows and anything else to make a living. Emma stayed at home tending her younger brother George. They did chores around their own home such as making cheese and cleaning corrals. They raised a garden, chickens and pigs.

Emma helped her older brother, Charlie make cheese. Occasionally the two went to Salt Lake Temple Square and found a place to sell their cheese. Emma told her son, R.D., "Oh, I was nervous about that. People would come up to me and ask, "What have we got?" She would reply, "We've got cheese."

The Martinsen Sisters
Pauline Bagley, Caroline Wright
and Emma Anderson

It must have been difficult and frightening at times for the Martinsen children to grow up without their parents. Emma's granddaughter Rolaine remembered Emma telling her, "Each spring and fall a big tribe of Indians from the St. George area would travel through our land to get to Fish Lake--their summer hunting ground." Emma and her brothers and sisters were scared of the Indians, and when they saw them coming, they would hide in the chicken coop and watch them.

Emma met Andrew Anderson of Koosharem, Utah and married him in the Manti Utah Temple on 3 May 1899. They traveled by wagon to Manti with her sister Pauline and husband Edward who accompanied them as chaperones.

Emma gave birth to six children, Leila, Rodney, LaRell, LeGrand, Robert Donal and Emma Vione.

Emma's niece, Donna Bagley Harward mentioned that Emma did not know some of the housekeeping chores that other women had been taught to do by their mothers. Donna said, "My mother, Pauline, helped Emma with her housecleaning. That was in the 'good ole days' when laundry soap was homemade--mother helped Aunt Emmy make her laundry soap too."

Emma and her sisters Pauline and Carolina spoke Norwegian. When they visited one another they would talk and laugh in Norwegian. LeGrand said of his childhood, "My father always told us kids, 'If you don't mind your mother, bad things will happen to you.' One day Mother was out washing with her wringer washer. She told us boys, 'Stay away from the machine.'" LeGrand disobeyed and got his hands in the wringer. His mother came at him shouting in Norwegian. He knew she was cussing him, because she was speaking Norwegian as fast as she could.

Her granddaughter Rolaine Anderson Haynie remembered, "Grandmother had long, dark hair which she wore in a bun. When she did her hair, she would twist and twist until it formed into the shape of a bun. Then she would put many hair pins into the bun to hold it in place. When I was a little girl, she would remove her many clips and ask me to brush her hair. She loved her hair brushed. Grandma would sometimes say to me, 'I will let you play with the matches [a favorite past time of mine] if you will comb my hair.'"

Emma's health declined after the death of her first daughter, Leila, from Bright's disease. Because of the death, Emma moved from a beautiful home Andrew had built in Koosharem, Utah to live with family and even out in the open air in tents until he built her another home. Her daughter Vione said of her mother's health, "My mother developed rheumatism, asthma and high blood pressure and was ill often."

Emma passed away 11 June 1938 on Koosharem, Utah and is buried there. Her death certificate states she died of essential hypertension contributed by chronic myocarditis.