Four Dollars and a Dream - The Story of Peter Christensen - Part 1

I didn’t grow up knowing much about Pete Christensen except he was born in Denmark, owned a bakery and could be a little prickly to get along with. It wasn’t until I started researching his life that I discovered that there is a lot more to Peter Christian Christensen that just those three facts.  

To understand Pete, you have to understand where he came from.  His story began in Døstrup, Hinstead Herred, Ålborg County, Denmark, the land where his father's family lived for several generations  His father, Laust (also known as Lars) Christian Christensen was a lieutenant in the Danish army, whose parents died young,  He married Elsie Kirstine Pedersen from Torslev in November of 1880, three months after the birth of their first child, Ane Katrine.  Their second child, Gjertrud, was named after Laust's mother. and then came Peter, on the 18th of May, 1884, the third of eleven children and the oldest son

Laust/Lars & Elsie Christensen

In 1890, the family lived on a farm and consisted of Laust (33), Elsie (30), Gjertrud (8), Peder (5) and Marianne (3). Laust was a farmer. “Katrina” was about ten years old and is not listed in the household. The family was poor – as soon as the kids reached ten or twelve years of age, they were sent to live in other households to work – the boys as farm laborers, and the girls as household servants, taking care of kids and keeping house. Katrina had likely assumed these duties in another household by this time.

By 1896, Laust acquired the position of “landpost”, or our equivalent of a postman. The last of their eleven children, Karl, was born in 1900 and died the same year at eight months of age. Life was hard; Laust had tuberculosis and was unable to do his job much of the time so Elsie quietly did it in his place.

Sometime before the year 1900, it had been Pete’s turn to leave his parents’ household and provide for himself. He was working as a farm laborer in 1900, some distance from home. Laust Christensen succumbed to tuberculosis in March of 1901 at the age of 44. Within a month 16 year old Peter Christensen was on a boat bound for the United States with $4 in his pocket.

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Before continuing with Pete’s journey, I think it’s important to know some of what the younger children experienced after the death of their father. Elsie still had four children in the household ranging in age from four to nine, and she needed a way to support them. With Laust’s job gone, she packed up her family and moved to the city where she took a job at a brewery. The older children took care of the younger children but they were largely on their own. Her daughter Caroline, seven years old at the time, recalled in her diary, “I don’t remember when we got ready for school, but it was up to Laura to see that we got ready. The boys were so young. I know there were times we never got to school.” She went on to say, “Sometimes Mother would lock us in our apartment for a whole day and we had to feed ourselves. As we got older, we were a wild bunch. Laura would get us into all kinds of mischief. I know we sometimes even stole things. We used to take a sack and go down to the harbor when the big ships would come in. They would bring coal in from foreign lands. We would pick it up when they spilled some. That was what we kept warm with. I know we were poor, but Mother would not take help from anyone.” She described her mother as a “beautiful, proud woman,” but also “hard” and not very affectionate toward her children. As the children were sent to other households, most were compliant, but Laura ran away several times. It was a hard life for them, and they rarely went to see their mother once they left the household. They were required to stay in the other homes until their confirmation, at which time most of them left Denmark completely.

To be continued...

Some photos courtesy of Barbara Johnson and Cynthia Christensen