Peter Ostensen & Caroline Anderson were Pioneers
(Parents
of Annie Ostensen, Mother of Annie Elizabeth Brady, Mother of Simeon Woodrow White, Father of Alan J White)
Peter
was born in 1824 in Norway. His family lived in the country, 100 miles from a
trading center or school, so he only attended school for three days his entire
life. Peter joined the church in about 1855, and sailed for the United States
in 1856. On the ship, he met Caroline Andersen, and they were married by
Lorenzo Snow before arriving in New York. They travelled to St. Louis where
they lived for a year to prepare for the trip.
In 1857, they crossed the plains in the
seventh handcart company led by Christian Christiansen. Most of the people in
the company were Scandinavians. The group was first led by Elder J P Park, but
he was unable to communicate with the people because he could not speak their
language. He usually traveled with the wagons so far ahead of the handcarts
that they emigrants sometimes took a wrong road.
For the first week or so, progress
along the trail was slow because many were sick. Almost daily some of these
fell by the wayside and had to be gathered up in the evening by the wagons or
by handcarts that had been unloaded and shuttled back to the camp.
Nevertheless, some invalids complained that they had to wait long hours for a
ride because the wagons were overcrowded and had to make more than one trip.
Young, healthy men sometimes took turns carrying the faint on their backs. They
also carried many of the infirm across rivers.
Elder Christian Christiansen, a
native of Denmark who had lived in Utah and who was returning from a Church
mission in the Midwest, now became company captain. This change in leadership
was universally welcomed.
Pulling the handcarts, the saints
were almost always hungry and thirsty. At one point, some of them were so
hungry that they killed, cooked, and ate a crow. An old man, unacquainted with
American wildlife and with no sense of smell, bludgeoned a skunk to death with
his cane and brought it into camp. All the others scattered.