Four Dollars and a Dream - The Story of Peter Christensen - Part 2 - The Immigration

 Part 2 of Pete's Story - read Part 1 here.

The S. S. New York

It was April 20, 1901 when Pete boarded the ocean liner S. S. New York from Southampton, England. Southampton was a major, established point of departure for transatlantic voyages. At the time of this boat’s launch in 1893 it was called The City of New York and was the largest and fastest ocean liner crossing the Atlantic. The massive boat was 528 feet long and 63 feet wide and could accommodate 290 first-class, 250 second class, and 725 third-class passengers. This ship, in 1912, had the notoriety of nearly colliding with the Titanic on the latter ship’s maiden voyage departing Southampton.

Pete stepped foot on American soil on April 30 after a ten-day journey. He was 16 years and 11 months old, could read and write, and claimed “farmer” as vocation. His final destination was Exira, Iowa, where surprisingly his maternal grandfather, Peder C. Larsen lived. From there, he boarded a train for Iowa.

Peder and Jacobine Larsen

Pete’s grandparents, Peder and Jacobina Larsen, had immigrated between 1890 and 1895 in order to join the rest of their children - Soren, Niels, Anna and Kjersten - who had come to the United States about 1886. Their daughter Elsie, Pete’s mother, was the only one of their children opting to stay in Denmark.

It was said that Pete learned the baking trade from an uncle in Omaha, Nebraska, but there is no known uncle in Omaha at that particular time. Pete appears to have stayed in Exira until 1903, possibly helping out on his uncle and grandfather’s farm. In 1903, his older sister Katrina and her family immigrated and joined Pete in Exira. Katrina’s husband, Jens Jensen, was a baker in Denmark and established himself in that occupation in Council Bluffs, Iowa. About the same time, Pete also moved to Council Bluffs, where he learned the baking trade and worked for bakers in the city for the next four years. It is entirely possible that he apprenticed with his brother-in-law, Jens Jensen.

One by one, most of his siblings made their way to Iowa, several of them helped by Pete to immigrate, and he helped them get settled. His brother Chris and sister Katrina arrived in 1903; Laura in 1908; Caroline in 1909; Soren in 1910; and Martinas in 1911 and Mary sometime before 1919. Only Gjertrud stayed behind in Denmark.

Back in Denmark, Pete’s mother Elsie married Jens Eriksen, a neighbor 11 years her junior, and the two of them also immigrated in 1911, settling in Omaha, Nebraska, across the river from Council Bluffs.

To be continued...

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

I didn’t grow up knowing much about Pete Christensen except he was born in Denmark, owned Bell Bakery in Huron, and could be a little prickly for his family to get along with. It wasn’t until I started researching his life that I discovered that there is a lot more to my great-grandfather 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

Wordless Wednesday - Downtown Huron, 1940, Bell Bakery Truck