This is a short sketch of the lives of my parents, Anders (Andrew) Larson and Ann Christina Jonson, I want my children to remember.

My father and mother were born in Malmo, Sweden. They were of the poor, working class of people, but honest. They heard and embraced the gospel in 1853. Mother was the first to hear it and thought it the most glorious thing she had ever heard. Father was a little slow to accept, but finally did.

Then trouble began. Their people all turned against them and placed all the blame on Mother. When they got ready to leave, Father’s mother would not shake hands with Mother but spit at her and said she had disgraced her son.

Mother had only one brother living, and he died soon after. Father had a father, mother, one sister, and two brothers.

They sailed in the fall of 1854. I was just six months old. They were nine weeks crossing the ocean. They landed at New Orleans and went on to Missouri. There they stayed and worked for about two years. Father worked in a shingle mill and Mother did housework. They had myself and brother Karl, six years older.

They had earned a yoke of oxen, a cow, and a wagon. The people had been very kind and was very fond of my little brother and would ask Mother to let him stay overnight. She thought no harm would come, but when they found out we were planning to leave, Mother came one day and they had him hid. She came day after day, and they still kept him out of the way. Finally, they told her if she would give up her religion, she could have her boy. She said no. She wouldn’t do that. They said he was too smart a boy to go to Utah and be a slave for Brigham Young, and they set the dogs on her. They drove Father’s cattle away and said if Father ever came near they would shoot him. For that reason Mother would not let him come but always came herself. They said they would not hurt her.

Some of the Saints advised her to go to court, told her the law would give her back her child, so she went to court. The small room was filled with men. She could not understand much of what they said but felt they were all against her, till one grey-haired man arose and told the court the child was hers and there was no law that could take it away from her. So they decided to let the boy go. A policeman offered to go with her as she had quite a distance to go, but she had spent all her money and thought they would be perfectly safe.

She took the boy by the hand. Their path led through a piece of woods with thickly grown underbrush. They had gone about halfway when a shot from a gun was fired nearby. It startled her so that she didn’t know how or where the boy went to, but she was running through the woods, and he was snatched from her. She stood dazed for awhile. Finally, when she came to, a man stepped up to her and offered her a quarter for the boy’s coat which she was carrying on her arm, and offered to show her a way out. But when she refused to give him the coat, he left her. She said she never knew how she got through the woods.

That was the last time she ever saw her boy. Father had become alarmed at the long absence and met her. They sent word for them to get out or they would murder them.

Neighbors helped them get away next day. That night a mob surrounded their house and burned it.

My father and mother then went into Nebraska and stayed awhile in Omaha where [my] brother Hyrum was born. Then they were counseled to go help make a settlement on Wood River. There they started to farm and build a dugout to live in.

The second summer, when their corn and melons were ripe, the Indians came and claimed the land and the crops, so they had to leave all and go back to Omaha, where they stayed till they earned means and equipment to come to Utah. Their equipment consisted of one yoke of oxen, two cows, and half of a wagon; another family owned the other half and one yoke of oxen. That is the way they crossed the plains.

I was then six years old; I had to walk most all the way as there was no room to ride. Brother Willard was born three weeks before we reached Salt Lake.

From Salt Lake they went to Sanpete. They were there one year when they were called on a mission to Dixie, where they remained the rest of their lives. Though they passed through many hardships, they always felt content, because they felt they were performing a mission.

Mother never got over grieving for her lost boy. When a number of years had gone by they again tried to find him. The answer came that he had grown into a fine young man and married quite young. When a baby girl was born to them, his wife died. Then he got into some trouble and was shot and killed. Later they tried to find the baby but were told it had been sent to a convent.

I thought it would be right for my children and grandchildren to know what their ancestors passed through for the Gospel’s sake.