Carl Jensen (February 24, 1971)

              Voices From the Past
Carl Jensen
By Carl Jensen
February 24, 1971
Tape # 89
Oral Interview conducted by Harold Forbush
Transcribed by Brittney Law and Alyona Veselova
October 2006
Brigham Young University- Idaho
HF: The following interview was transcribed from reel- to- reel tape onto cassette this 26th
day of December 1983.
HF: Side one, oral history of the Upper Snake River Valley. The date is February 24th
1971 and I’m in the home this afternoon, this day, of Mr. Jensen who resides in Burton,
some 2 ½ to 3 miles west and south of Rexburg. I appreciate the opportunity, Mr. Jensen,
of being in your home. In this interview, we’ll be asking you a number of questions to
which you’ll make a narrative response. First, would you kindly state your full name and
the date and place where you were born?
CJ: My name is Carl Jensen. I was born in Glenwood, Severe County, Utah on the 17th
day of July 1885.
HF: Alright, now, Mr. Jensen, what has been your lifetime occupation?
CJ: I’ve had different things that I’ve done in my life. In the first part of my life I
monkeyed with cattle pretty much in my early days. My parents had sold their property
in Southern Utah in a little town they called Elsinore and decided to come up into the
Kilgore country on account of being feed, grass, water, because down in that part of the
country, the water was very scarce, and it was near impossible to get water for our cattle
to drink. So they sold the property and bought cattle, and we came up into Kilgore for
those cattle.
HF: And so the major part or at least a big portion of your life has been spent in handling
cattle?
CJ: In my early part.
HF: Now, later in life, has it been farming more here in Burton?
CJ: It’s been, I carried mail for a while. I started Arch Andersen out, learned him to carry
mail. Then I decided to go into the sheep business, and I got a hold of a few sheep. But I
had bought, in the mean time, the 40 that I’m now living on here, and deciding that I
would run sheep up in the Kilgore country, in which I did for something like 17 years.
HF: SO you had quite a full life in that regard, and according to my understanding from
you, you’ve spent quite a lot of time doing missionary work for the LDS Church.
CJ: That’s correct.
HF: So you’ve had quite a full life haven’t you? Well now, I would prefer going into
these respective categories a little later on. First of all, I would like to have you tell me
the name of your father and something of the Jensen background. Now this doesn’t have
to be a long detail, but just kinda sketchy. What his full name is and where he came
from, which country, and a little about the Jensen family.
CJ: My father’s name is Peter P. Jensen. That isn’t his right name, but the Danish people
apparently, if I understand it correctly, took their father’s first name and my father, my
grandfather’s name was Peter Pane Jensen, no, Peter Jensen Pane, and father took Peter
Pane Jensen. And he was born in a town they call Aalborg, Denmark, and his occupation
in there is he run a saloon, he was in the saloon business for 15 years. My mother had
been in the restaurant business, or they call it a “ bateek” in Danish, and my mother would
run the restaurant and my father would run the saloon. And in that way, that’s the way
they made their life, their livelihood. I might tell a little about his mother. His mother
joined the Church, but my grandfather never did. My grandmother joined the Church,
and my grandfather never did. And it was a big family, my father being the youngest of
the family, he got the information that my grandmother was under a big fence in Salt
Lake and was held as a slave. And for that simple reason he hated the Mormons, he was
awful bitter against them.
As my mother was running the restaurant, two young elders came into that home, or into
that restaurant, and got their meals and asked mother, my mother, if she wouldn’t please
come on that Sunday and hear what they had to say. So she waited till my father came to
bed, and when he closed his saloon at midnight and came to bed, she talked to my father
and he said, “ If you have anything to do with them, I will divorce you. I’ll leave you.”
She thought a lot of father, they were well, I never heard a cross word between them in
my life, and she thought a lot of him. And she didn’t know what to do, so she lay there
and let father sleep, and when he went to sleep, as much as their home was above their
saloon and restaurant, she went down into the saloon and, quoting her now, she said that
“ I never prayed in my life, I didn’t know how to pray, but I knelt down by that little cross
piece there in front of the saloon bar and I pled to the Lord” that he would loosen his
heart, that he would give her an opportunity to come to that meeting.
So mother went back to bed, and about 3 o’clock my father woke up again, and he asked
my mother, woke her and he said, “ where’s these two elders holding this meeting?” . And
she told him, and he made this statement to her, “ if you can find a place through this town
that nobody will see where we’re going, we’ll go and listen to what these elders have got
to say.” She, being well acquainted with Aalborg, it was a nice big town; she knew just
where to go. She said, “ I’ll find a place that nobody will ever know what we’re doing.”
So they decided to go, and as they went, my father was not a man that said much, he was
a quiet fellow, and he says to my mother again, he says when they were done speaking,
he says, “ Tell these young men, they ain’t got much money, to come and have their”-
they called it supper at that time, - “ and have their meals with us tonight.”
And while they were eating their supper, and he turned to my mother again and he says,
“ We’ve got an extra bed; they just as well stay here tonight.” Which they did, and they
stayed there for 2 weeks and used that for their headquarters; ate there, and slept there,
and inside of two weeks, they baptized my father and my mother and my brother, there’s
only 2 in the family, it’s us two boys. He’s 13 years older than I am. And they got ready
then to come to the United States. They came to this little town they call Glenwood,
Severe County, Utah and had no home. They just got money enough for them to come,
and my father went out on the railroad to get a little money, till the others would follow
him. And he slept with a quilt, one quilt, on the frozen ground that entire winter. He
couldn’t talk the English language. And all he received out of that pay, was an old white
cow.
Consequently, I was on the way, I was born in Glenwood, of course, and they had no
home, my mother would trail from place to place to live until my father could get a home.
Thinking this other money would follow him, he wrote to Denmark for the rest of his
money. They told him, if he wanted this money, he would have to come to Denmark to
spend it, so my mother and father talked it over and they decided Mormonism was worth
more to them than all the money they had coming. So they forgot about the money and
resided in Glenwood and tried to find a place for me to be born. The place I was born, I
went a looked at it, was a little calf’s shed, had a little slope to it, and they used an old
blanket for a door and some old white rags for a window. It had a dirt floor and a dirt
roof, and that’s where I was born.
HF: With the aid, I guess, of a midwife?
CJ: No, there was no midwife. My mother was alone, my mother and father. My mother,
but the way, was a kind of a doctor for, oh what to you call it now…
HF: Polio?
CJ: Polio. She could cure it.
HF: That’s very interesting. Well now, Brother Jensen, tell me a little about your
mother’s side of the… what was her full name, and then maybe you can give me just a
little about, well a little about your mother.
CJ: Okay.
HF: You don’t know what her maiden name is?
CJ: Yes.
HF: Go ahead and state it.
CJ: Her maiden name was Madsen, Marne Christine Madsen. Her father’s name was
Larsen, Mass Larsen, but she took the first name and made it a Madsen.
HF: I see. Now, did your parents, what year did your parents come to America? Was it
following, did they come across the country on the railroad?
CJ: As far as Provo, they had to have a team from Provo down to Glenwood.
HF: I see. So they weren’t considered as pioneers in the sense of having come before the
railroad?
CJ: No.
HF: I see. That’s interesting. Well now, you had mentioned that in order to find free
ground or cheaper ground and plenty of water and grass and so forth, they decided to
come up to Camas Creek country, or near Kilgore.
CJ: That’s correct.
HF: Can you detail for me a little something about the trip up here? How was it made?
What part did you have to do with coming up here?
CJ: It was made by horse and wagon, teams, and horseback, trail and cattle. I was only
10 years old, and I was put on a horse to help trail these cattle. Come from Elsinore, a
distance of 500 miles. My father walked part of the way; he wouldn’t ride so when it was
right bad going, he would help by walking.
But I rode a horse all the way from Elsinore, which is 10 miles from where I was born.
In other words, it’s just exactly 5 miles from Richfield. Glenwood is exactly 5 miles east
of Richfield, Severe County, Utah. And we trailed these cattle from up into the Kilgore
country.
HF: Were these your own cattle?
CJ: These were our own cattle.
HF: About how many cattle did you trail?
CJ: Well, I couldn’t give you the definite amount on that if I wanted to. It’s kinda slipped
my mind in an amount, but I will say this along with that, we met a man by the name of
Shoup at Bear River. And how many cattle he had I can’t recall off- handed, it’s slipped
my mind entirely the amount. But we met him at Bear River and the bridge was out at
Bear River, and we come to that river with this bunch of cattle and we, my brother was
driving 4 head of horses, 2 wagons, and on lead of us all the time.
When Shoups and then met up with us, my father says I believe we better swim these
cattle across Bear River, the bridge was just chained. I can remember that part of it, but
the amount of cattle we had, I couldn’t give you a definite answer.
HF: How long did it take you to get up here?
CJ: About 2 months.
HF: Now this was in the summer of what year?
CJ: I was 10 years old, I’d have to stop and figure on that part of it.
HF: Let’s see, you were 10… you were born in 1885, so that would be about 1895 then,
when you came.
CJ: I think that’s about right.
HF: Upon your arrival out near Kilgore, which direction, where was the ranch or the
place where you stayed and settled?
CJ: We took a squatter’s right. The ground wasn’t surveyed, so we took what’s called
squatter’s right, my father did, and it was just straight across from where the Kilgore
schoolhouse now stands and where the store, just north, right across the road. There was
160 there, and we eventually, me and my brother and father, eventually owned practically
the whole section.
HF: Almost 640 acres?
CJ: Well, we didn’t get quite to 640; there would be 160 out of that. There’d be 400
acres.
HF: 480 acres. Well now, did you find plenty of water?
CJ: Yes, there’s a lot of streams up there. That’s where old Camas Creek goes down here
into Old Hamer in, and empties into Old Hamer, or not Old Hamer, but Mud Lake. That
big lake comes from the water that run through Camas Meadows, or from Kilgore.
There’s something like, there’s Camas Creek, or Spring Creek, there’s King Creek and
there’s West Camas Creek, all going through this valley. This valley is about in the
neighborhood of 8 mile wide and about 15 miles long.
HF: Do they have any name for that valley, Brother Jensen?
CJ: Yeah, they call it Camas Meadows.
HF: Did they? I see. They just refer to it as the Camas Meadows, then.
CJ: That’s right. Their Post Office is Kilgore.
HF: At the time you arrived in Kilgore or near there, was there a little settlement? Had
anything been established there?
CJ: Yeah, there was about 4 or 5 families in there, besides us.
HF: Do you recall their names?
CJ: Well, I don’t know that I could get them all, I’d get most of them. One was
Rasmussen, Good Rasmussen. One was Cheen, John Cheen. And one was Soren Kelson,
and my brother had gone up to it, Chris B. Jensen, and a fellow by the name of McCullen,
he was a braky on the train running into Butte, shuttled in there. And a fellow by the
name of McGovern.
HF: All of these people owned cattle and were kind of ranchers?
CJ: That’s correct. They done all ranching, nothing but hay raised there. They still raise
a lot of hay up in there and bring it down here into our part of the country here feeding
cattle.
HF: In those early days, the winters, I’d imagine, were pretty severe out there, weren’t
they?
CJ: They were really severe. Our first experience there was seven foot of snow on the
level that winter. We weren’t used to snow, and to get into a mess of that kind…
HF: Until you received, until a store was located out there, where would you go to get
your provisions for the winter?
CJ: We would go to St. Anthony. We’d trail down to St. Anthony for our winter supply.
There was a store over at Spencer, that’d be 18 miles from there, it was a small store, but
we’d get some supplies there. We usually went up to St. Anthony for our winter supply,
had to prepare for the winter.
HF: Well now, wouldn’t Market Lake be quite a community where these things could be
supplied right on the railroad?
CJ: That was too far for us. St. Anthony was closer.
HF: How far would St. Anthony have been from your ranch?
CJ: About 35- 40 miles.
HF: I see. Well now, do you recall when and who first established a store in Kilgore and
commenced to have the little settlement grow?
CJ: Man by the name of George Allen.
HF: And about what year did he establish this store? Would it be before the turn of the
century?
CJ: I don’t believe I can give you an answer on that at all.
HF: I see. Did he, did they open a post office about the same time?
CJ: Yes, they opened the post office; in fact, the post office was its own, to these two
before we got in there. Just exactly what year that was I don’t know. They carried the
mail from Spencer to Camas Meadows or Kilgore with the dogs in the wintertime. They
run dogs and skis, either crusted snow of course, or hold the dogs up in good shape, and
they would haul that mail out with those dogs and in order to find out, so the heavy winds
would come so they couldn’t see, blizzards, they would stake willows all along the trial
that come from Spencer to Kilgore so they wouldn’t get lost and freeze to death.
HF: Of course, the mail would be brought to Spencer by the railroad?
CJ: By the railroad, going to Butte, it was right on the Butte line.
HF: Was there much of a problem with wild animals in that time in that area?
CJ: Coyotes are your greatest trouble for sheep. Coyotes and bobcats, some lions, we had
a little trouble with lions, too, few lions in there, and bear.
HF: Would they bother the cows?
CJ: Lions would, but the bears didn’t bother them. The coyotes didn’t bother cows
either, they’d …
HF: But they would the sheep?
CJ: That’s correct.
HF: Well now, did your father and mother continue to have cattle for some years over
there?
CJ: Yeah, we ran the cattle. They got down to about 20 head, if I remember right, before
we left there. They counted down to about 20 head, or 25. Just the amount we brought in
there I couldn’t give up.
HF: Now, these animals that you later reduced these animals in number, were these all
what we’d call range cattle?
CJ: They were durum cattle.
HF: You didn’t milk them, though?
CJ: No, they was all range cattle, but they was pretty much thoroughbred: rome durum
and red durum cattle.
HF: What other big breeders got started out there about this time?
CJ: There was no others that I know anything about.
HF: No other big breeders out of there, in that area?
CJ: Oh, you mean, people have cattle? Yea, all of them had about; all had a bunch of
cattle. That’s what they went in there with in the first place.
HF: But, I know the Rigbys have a lot of land down in there, don’t they?
CJ: If they do, I don’t know. I thought they were out here down toward Camas. I think
they were out here down toward Camas.
HF: I see. You mentioned earlier that you became involved, after you’d had cattle, in the
sheep industry. Was that conducted in the same area?
CJ: That’s where I, after I got married that I started in the sheep business. My father and
mother never monkeyed a sheep. I started going into sheep when I quit carrying mail,
and I took them, I had my ranch up in the Camas Meadow country.
HF: Was it on the same ranch that you had previously—
CJ: No, it wasn’t.
HF: What, was your experience a good one with the sheep? Did you get along fine?
CJ: Well, for some years it was pretty good, but we had to consign our ward, and we
consigned, and for two years and only got 7 cents a pounds for a wool, and that’s the
reason I forgot about sheep. I got the ‘ big head’ among the sheep and lost half of them
on one trip.
HF: That’s a disease that causes the sheep’s head to swell…
CJ: Yeah, and they go blind.
HF: Go blind, and quickly die, I guess.
CJ: Eventually die, yes.
HF: Now, you mention that both sheep and cattle were allowed out in the Kilgore area.
CJ: That’s correct.
HF: Did there seem to be any conflict arise between the cattlemen and the sheep men?
CJ: No there wasn’t. There was more of a conflict between Wood’s Livestock Company
and us little sheep men. They tried to run us out, so we had to have our, we had to get out
permits from the state, of course. We couldn’t run on the open ranch on the count of
Wood’s Livestock Company would push us around.
HF: What particular methods did they employ to discriminate and be mean to ya?
CJ: Well, they were a big outfit, they run close to 100,000 head of sheep and a bunch of
cattle besides, hundreds of head of cattle in that part of the country. They brought up a
whole mess of this longhorn stuff from Texas and turned them loose in on us.
HF: What’s the real problem there, Mister Jensen, between… in other words, why do
cattlemen hate the sheep men so badly? What is there about a sheep—
CJ: Well, you’d like to know the reason?
HF: Yes.
CJ: The main reason is that cattle don’t follow sheep, sheep will follow cattle. But there
is a scent, wherever the sheep goes, it leaves a scent and the cattle won’t follow the same
ground where the sheep feeds over without a rainstorm comes and do away with that
scent.
HF: I see. Then sheep, of course, clip the grass so close to the ground that I guess cattle
have a hard time getting at it.
CJ: Well, I don’t think that….
HF: You don’t think that that’s a problem?
CJ: No, I don’t think that is the problem.
HF: About what year did you leave Camas Meadow? When did you move out of there?
CJ: Well, I was about 18 years old when I first came down here. We lived, I lived in
Camas Meadows 8 years and came down here when I was 18 to got to Ricks, to go to
school. There was only the one building at Rexburg at that time, and that’s the big rock
building that now stands in the center, and that’s where I went to school.
HF: Where had you gotten your previous schooling?
CJ: Well, I came down here and took my 8th grade here in Burgundy first. Else I got
most of my schooling up until I was 10 in Elsinore, Severe County, Utah, and the rest in
Kilgore.
HF: What did they just have a real small school up over there to Kilgore?
CJ: We had to hire our own teachers. We had to pay our own teachers there, and had to
buy our own books and schooling was only 3 months. That was the size of my schooling
a year for 8 years.
HF: Do you recall your instructors over there at Kilgore? Any of their names?
CJ: Yes. My first lady teacher that I recall right now was Mrs. Hormann, Ms. Hormann.
She was the lady that married Frank Davis that used to run the bank in Sugar City and
come to Rexburg and worked in the courthouse in Rexburg for a good many years.
HF: As a Probate Judge.
CJ: Yes. That’s correct. His wife was my first teacher out there, and my next one was a
fellow by the name of Pete Mordich, for 2 years or 3 years.
HF: Was he the one who had lived in Salem?
CJ: No, and no relation.
HF: No relation to that Pete?
CJ: Whatever. He came from way down at what they call Rabbit Valley in Southern
Utah.
HF: Now, by the time you had left as a boy of 18, had the Hersheys moved out in that
area? Dave Hershey and some of his family?
CJ: No, they came a little after I’d left there. Just the year they came in there, but my
brother still lives up there, so I’ve made a good many trips up there, and to help put up
the hay, we put up a lot of hay, I got acquainted to the Hersheys in that way, but just what
year they went in there I don’t know.
HF: He operated a store, didn’t he?
CJ: Not that I know of. If they operated a store, I don’t know.
HF: But he was the mail carrier?
CJ: Yes, he carried mail. My brother’s done the same thing. He carried before he did.
HF: Carried mail?
CJ: Yes.
HF: Now would that be from Spencer out to Kilgore?
CJ: And from Kilgore out to Shotgun then Shirton out here to what they call now Island
Park country.
HF: In other words, that would be on further east?
CJ: Yeah, you see the railroad hadn’t gone up in that country by that time, so they had to
carry from out they called it Shirton and Shotgun.
HF: So much of that country out there is public domain, isn’t it?
CJ: That’s correct.
HF: Forest ground and so on?
CJ: That’s correct.
HF: Very little private property at that time, I suppose.
CJ: Well, at that time, when I first came in it wasn’t, but eventually it was filed on and
taken up.
HF: Now you mentioned that you also carried mail.
CJ: That’s correct. Out of here. I run route one, started Arch Andersen out. I learned
Arch to carry.
HF: Well now, talk about yourself, not about Andersen. Now, specifically you were
employed as a rural deliveryman, were you?
CJ: That’s correct---
Tape stops
Tape resumes
Side Two
HF: Side Two, continuing the interview with Carl Jensen.
CJ: I run horses and a buggy.
HF: Out of Rexburg?
CJ: Out of Rexburg.
HF: What area did you cover?
CJ: I covered route one, and it’s route one today. Well, there’s a little more added,
Hibbard is added. At that time we had just all of Barton and part of Rexburg’s 3rd ward,
now there’s a little more to it.
HF: Did you take over after Mr. Dudley ceased being postmaster here in Burton?
CJ: Well, this was before my time, Dudley was.
HF: Now, see, Mr. Dudley was a postmaster here.
CJ: Yes, but that’s before my time.
HF: Who preceded you carrying the mail out here?
CJ: Arch Andersen? He carried after I did.
HF: No, but I mean—
CJ: Oh, ahead of me? Fellow by the name of Ellsworth, Ben Ellsworth.
HF: Ben Ellsworth, now he had been at it quite a few years, hadn’t he?
CJ: I wouldn’t know that.
HF: About what year did you start carrying the mail?
CJ: I believe in 12, 1912. Either 12 or 13. I wouldn’t be right positive on that, either.
HF: 12 or 13?
CJ: Yes
HF: And about how many years did you have it?
CJ: Oh, 2 or 3 years.
HF: Just 2 or 3, and you got this Andersen started?
CJ: Yes, I started him on right after I quit and started monkeying sheep.
HF: Has he been involved, was he involved for a number of years as a mail carrier?
CJ: I helped Andersen, he went to work and got me involved in with him to help him
after he got it. In my spare time as a substitute, too.
HF: Well, how many years was he a carrier?
CJ: Oh, I think he carried for 20 years.
HF: Going back just a few years from your experience as a mail carrier, I guess we’re
doing quite a lot of shifting around here, but you mentioned that you had had a year or
two at Ricks.
CJ: Yes.
HF: Can you tell me a little about your experiences there at the college? Of course, in
those years, there was just the one building on the campus.
CJ: That’s right. I had a little experience that might be interesting to you. There was no
sidewalk, well, they had lumber sidewalks. I can’t remember if they had any, but I
helped build the first sidewalk that went up to the school.
HF: Cement?
CJ: No, they used lumber, 2x6’ s I believe, if I remember right, 2x6 or 2x4, nailed
together. And we made from… Flamm had his store there for, right across from the co-op
now. He had a store, Henry Flamm did. So we come from there straight up to the 4th
North, where the 4th arsenal is, and cat- a- corner over to school, over to that rock building.
HF: Can you recall some of the classmates you had?
CJ: Oh, yes, there was, fellow by the name of Jeff Watson, he’s a brother to Frank
Watson, the barber there in town now. There was Jeff and there was Pete Ricks and
there…
HF: Now when you say Pete Ricks, is that …
CJ: Peter Ricks, President Ricks.
HF: President Ricks?
CJ: Ya. President Ricks.
HF: That’s interesting. Anyone else?
CJ: Well, there was a lot of them that I knew them beside. There was a fellow from
Teton by the name of Tim Bird and another one by the name of Richmond. This
Richmond, he went to Idaho Falls and eventually worked as an officiator in the Idaho
Falls Temple. I met him there since, but he’s passed away now.
HF: Who was your favorite professor or instructor while you were there at Ricks?
CJ: Well, I don’t know that I had any favorites. I thought they were all, I enjoyed all of
them. I thought Dalby, that is Principal Dalby, was a little too strict, but that was all
right, we had it coming. We had, we were kinda rough and ready going fellows, and
there was a lot of things happened during that time that he had to be strict. They tried to
make us quit using the tobacco, a lot of us were using tobacco, I was one of them. But he
was mean, tried to hold me down.
HF: He had a brother also who taught, didn’t he?
CJ: Oliver.
HF: Oliver?
CJ: That’s the one that became bishop up in Rexburg.
HF: I see. Let’s see, I’m just trying to think of possibly others that would…
CJ: Well, Brother, that runs that store up town, by the name of…
HF: Arthur Porter, Jr.?
CJ: Ya. His wife taught, too there, taught music, his second wife. His first wife, of
course, had died. Arthur was one of my teachers, too.
HF: Well now, as we move along here, you acquired some property, I suppose, here in
Burton and have continued to live here as a farmer?
CJ: The home I’m sitting in right now I bought, I and my good wife did. Then I bought
my brother out when my father died, got his share, I got a little of that and then he did
and I bought him out and that’s my other place down below here.
HF: What have you grown, what crops particularly have you grown here?
CJ: Oh, very different. Beets, I never did get potatoes, I raised beets, grain, hay, because I
always milked a bunch of cows. I milked them by hand, and then I quit the sheep. I went
into the cow business to milk the cows. Would it be of interest to tell you about the cows?
HF: You might make some comments there. Where did you sell your milk?
CJ: My sheep died with the big head, half of them, then I decided to buy some Holstein
cows, and I bought 12 of them. I’d had them about a week and pastured them down on
my other place in the fall of the year. I decided to keep them down there a little bit
longer, and I brought them home one night and that night, all 12 was down, all 12 of
those cows was down. So I called up the veterinarian, his name was Nichols. I said my
cattle are sick, I wish you’d come down and see what’s the trouble. He came down and
he said they’d been poisoned, I don’t what they did to be poisoned, but they were all
down and I couldn’t get them up. He doctored them cows for 2 weeks and I lost one
every night till all them was dead. Then my neighbor over here come put his arm around
me and he says, “ Blessed are they that have nothing, they’ve got nothing to loose.” So
we had a good laugh over that.
HF: What good neighbor was that, Brother Jensen?
CJ; He was a father to Ray George, name was Joe George.
HF: I see.
CJ: I had another experience on that account I can put it to ya too, and just kinda
laughable. Run a store up { inaudible} in Rexburg, I come up there and the old man, he
was { inaudible}, and the old Jew come and put his arm around me and knew me, he said
my neighbor had the dam and it busted 3 times all bankruptcies{ inaudible??}
HF: I don’t suppose you did any of that though, did you?
CJ: No, I never did take out bankruptcy, and I don’t ever intend to. Don’t believe in it.
HF: That’s a good thrifty Latter- Day Saint Spirit, I’m sure. As we move along here, I
would like to have you comment about some of your experiences as a missionary.—
CJ: I’d like to tell you, on my first mission- my father was still alive at that time- and he
came to this very house we’re now sitting in, and when I got ready to go, my wife and I
and my father walked out on the porch out here and he put his arm around me and kissed
me, the first time I ever remember my father kissing me. And he says, “ You’ll never see
me again on this earth.” I says, “ Dad, I’m only going for 6 months, and I’ll be here to see
ya.” “ No,” he says, “ You’ll never see me again.” My wife took me to town to take the
train to Salt Lake.
HF: What year was this approximately?
CJ: Well, I’d have to figure it out. It was about 45 years ago since I left here. I was only
gone 6 months. Well, I went to Salt Lake and there was 16 of us being set apart at the
same time. Talmage set us apart, and President Ballard. Talmage set me apart, and I was
the last one to be set apart, and we could hear each one’s blessings, we was all short term
missionaries, all 16 of us was married people. They were promised they’d all return to
their loved ones. I was the last one to be set apart and I wasn’t promised that. So the man
set me to the side of him, and he was a big fellow and he says, “ It’s funny you wasn’t
promised the same as the rest.” I didn’t give him an answer, but they were sent on their
way. They would be going to Chicago, East.
President Grant was president of the Church. President Grant held me back, and I thought
he was gonna release me. He said, “ I want you here tomorrow at 10: 00 in the morning, I
wanna talk to ya.” So the next morning I came alone, entirely alone, and he says to
President Smith, who became President of the Church, “ I wish you’d take Elder Jensen
into a room and see how he got his money because I know he get a bunch of money on
him”, and that’s what he did. My wife had made a belt, and I had $ 300 resting in my
own lap and down again my body. When I showed President Smith this, President Smith
reported to President Grant, President Grant said, “ That’s what I was worried about.
You’ll get into Omaha in the middle of the night, and you will have to walk about a mile
and a half in the deep cold in to the hotel, they might cause you some trouble. I didn’t
know really what to do, and I was oh, so alone. So I, he sent me on that, he says, “ Now
you are going into Minneapolis, you’ll arrive there in the night and you’ve got to go to
headquarters.” I didn’t know where headquarters was, and in the middle of the night.
So when I got on the train in Salt Lake, we came into a little post or a little town they call
Valance, on this side of Omaha. The conductor came and he put his arm around me, and
he says, “ You’re a missionary, aren’t you?” I said, “ How do you know I’m a
missionary?” He says, “ I knew the minute you got on this train that you was a
missionary.” “ Now,” he says, “ there’s a sleeper on this train, it’ll got to Chicago, there’s
no one in it, and it’ll only cost you a dollar and a half. You will take this sleeper, I’ll put
a nigger back for you, but I change conductors here. When you come into Omaha, if
you’re on this, they’ll have to switch you off and leave you in Omaha in this sleeper, till
morning, and this nigger will take care of you.” I was always scared to death of a nigger
and I still am.
Well anyway, he did. He told this nigger to take me back, I gave him the dollar and a
half and was in the sleeper. I told him to switch me off at Omaha, and there the nigger
called me the next morning at 8 o’clock, and I gave him a breakfast in the hotel, or in the
depot there. I got my breakfast on the train from Minneapolis.
I arrived there in the night at midnight. Well, I don’t believe it was quite midnight, don’t
know what you would call the hour, but there was quite a bunch of us riding in together,
and all took a seat and I was still standing. The man came in through the other door. I
came through one, he came through the other, I had my directions mixed up here, and he
comes toward me and he says, “ You’re a missionary, aren’t you?” And I says, “ Yes.”
And he says, “ I’ll take you to headquarters.” I says, “ Wonderful, I don’t know where it is
at.” And he did. He took me to headquarters, and when I got there, I told President
Allright, which was president of the mission at that time, I told him I’d like to keep a
going. He wanted me to stay there for a day or two. I said the train’s leaving here
tonight, before daylight I wanna take it. He says it will take you up to Breckenridge,
Minnesota and Wahpeton, North Dakota where you’ll be laboring in the Red River
Valley.
I’d like to tell you one experience that I thought was a great experience in my life, one of
the biggest. My companion was name Sorensen. Sorensen woke me up, we were
sleeping together, and he says, “ Let’s go out to Campbell,” and I says, “ Where’s
Campbell?” I’d never been out there, and it was a railroad center, these two places was,
so we got the train at 3: 00 in the morning, and we went to Campbell, I said “ Well. I see a
light,” a little rest home, we didn’t know what it was, we went over to this place, and we
found that it was a place where you could get your lunches or you could get your place to
sleep. We told the lady that we’d like to do this town today if we could, so we decided to
change and not to stay together. I took one street, there’s only the 2 streets, and he’d take
the other.
So we went back depot, and one went straight from the depot and one went up north then
went that same direction, turned around on the direction. He says, “ What street do you
wanna take?” The Lord said this to me, “ you go north one block and take that street.”
Now I says to Elder Sorensen, “ did you say something?” He said, “ I never said a word.”
And I said, “ If it don’t make any difference to you, I’d like to take this next street, go
north,” I called it block, one block north and go west. That was my direction whether it’s
right or wrong.” “ That doesn’t make a bit of difference to me.” So I went. And as I
come, I started up one house on the corner and I couldn’t go into it, I made 3 different
attempts to go to it and couldn’t do it. I wanted to cross the street. As I crossed the
street, I knocked at the door, and a man was playing one of his old- style phonographs, I
could hear it running. And he says, “ Come in.” I didn’t wanna go in without telling him
what I was representing. I knocked again, and he said “ Come in,” and as I came in, I
came into his kitchen and I attempted to tell him what I was representing and he stopped
me again.
He says, “ Come in,” he was sitting in his dining room or front room or whatever it was,
it was a small house, and there was a little cot right at the end of this old phonograph
you’d wind it. I started to tell him and he stopped me again, he says, “ I got a story I want
to tell you. My wife left me two years ago and refuses to enter my room, and I’m about
to go crazy. I love her so much I can’t live without her.” And the voice, I couldn’t tell
any difference, the same voice said, “ If you will repent and do it no more, I promise you,
if you do it no more, she’d come and live with you.” So I made this statement, I had to
do it, “ If you’ll ask the Lord to forgive you, I promise you this woman will come back
and live with you.” And he started to cry, and he says, “ You don’t know what you’re
talking about.” I mentioned again about prayer, and he says, “ I’ve never prayed in my
life, and I don’t know how to pray.” I says, “ If you’ll kneel by the end of that cot,” he
pointed me to a rocking chair, and I says “ I’ll meet you there by the rocking chair and I’ll
lead in prayer,” which I did.
When I got through praying, he’d come in and was crying and he took me by the hand
and I said, “ I’ll come back and see how this turns out.” As I walked through that door
another voice said, “ What you’ve done will be of detriment to missionaries the rest of
their lives.” I never took sicker in my life than I did at that present time. I went back to
this little rooming house and never took another home. Elder Sorensen came and he says,
“ How many homes did you get?” I says, “ I got one,” he says, “ maybe I can run back and
finish it up so we can got back to Wahpeton where we’ve got a place that’s ready there,”
which he did, and we did go back and we got a release together.
I said to him, “ I gotta go over to Campbell, before I go home, and see a person,” and he
wanted to know why. So I told him, what I’ve now told you, and he says, “ you’re not a
prophet. You’ve got no right of making such a statement.” I says, “ I’m a going,” and two
other elders decided to go with me, he decided to go, and we went over there, and this
man met us in the middle of the street, put his arm around me and he says, “ I wish you’d
come into my home and pray again, my wife has come and we’re living together and
hasn’t got a thing against me.” He says, “ How did you know I was a bootlegger?” I says,
“ I didn’t know you was a bootlegger,” and he says, “ why did you say what you did say?”
I didn’t tell him why, but he said, “ If you’ll come in and let us have some Books of
Mormon, I’d appreciate it very much.” And when we came in he said, “ Won’t you pray
in my home,” I turned to my companion, and I said, “ you do the praying this time”,
which he did.
HF: Quite a marvelous experience.
CJ: Marvelous.
HF: Well now, you have served, you told me, some 5 missions.
CJ: 6
HF: 6 missions?
CJ: 3 Stake missions, and I call this little building mission making 3 of each kind.
HF: Isn’t that marvelous? Now, the last one you were out in Oregon, is this correct?
CJ: That’s correct.
HF: Just a little---
CJ: Hood River country.
HF: Hood River? Working up there on the church.
CJ: Yep, that’s where I and my wife did our mission.
HF: I see. And when you and your wife were together, this was a 6 months mission?
CJ: That’s correct.
HF: Out in the Hood River country?
CJ: That’s correct.
HF: That’s real wonderful. Now as we come and bring this to a close, Brother Jensen,
why don’t you tell me, and make some appropriate comments about whom did you marry
and when, and how did you meet this lovely girl, and something about your family, we
have a few moments left.
CJ: I married Elizabeth Jensen and we was married in the Salt Lake Temple, lot of them
thought we was related, I told the man that married us, he asked me this question he says,
“ You don’t happen to by chance be related?’ I says, “ No, but we expect to be.” But we
have the same name, and in this, we still live together.
We’ve had our 60th anniversary and we’re heading for our 70th if things go alright, and
we’ve had 6 children come into our happy home. It’s been a happy home. We hardly
know what a quarrel is in this home. Pardon me. I have a lovely family; some of them
are in Seattle, some of them in Idaho Falls, my boy in Idaho Falls has a wonderful job.
He does a blueprint out here, and the one that’s in Seattle, my son- in- law in Seattle is
foreman at the, where they make these big saws and big round saws, he has that in his
charge. I have a lot of family up there, they’re strung around, and I’ve lost 3, 2 girls and
a little boy.
HF: Having lived in the Burton ward all these many years…
CJ: That’s correct.
HF: Would you care to make a comment about how you have come to love and
appreciate the people in the Burton Ward?
CJ: I think we have some of the finest people as any ward could ever have in this world.
I don’t know if there’s one man or woman that I have a thing against, but I love and
respect in every respect. I don’t know of a one, I couldn’t find one that I haven’t got that
respect for. They’ve proven it to us through all the sicknesses that we’ve had, friends
have come here day after day…
HF: I can feel, Brother Jensen, that you’ve had some very close relationships then with
the good people of this ward.
CJ: Wonderful people.
HF: You’ve had an opportunity, I presume, to serve in the ward.
CJ: That’s correct.
HF: In various capacities.
CJ: Bishop James Johnson superintendent, we were together for 15 years, and we’ve
worked together. He’s dead now, he became bishop here for, after he come out of Sunday
School, he was in the Sunday School for 15 years as superintendent. I’ll make this
statement, I’ve done a home mission, stake mission, a home missionary, a home teacher
in the ward for 60 years and never quit. As I’ve been served now 60 years as a ward
teacher in this ward and still serve.
HF: Isn’t that marvelous? I want to tell you that it’s been a real privilege for me to be
here in your home on this day. And feel the sweet spirit that does exist here in your
home. I perceive that you are and have been a real fine man, and I’m sure this is so.
HF: The Upper Snake River Valley Historical Society Inc, of North Center Rexburg,
Idaho where they are headquartered has these tapes, and for a small fee will be pleased to
make copies available.