Hans Frederick Rasmussen

  This is a picture of my great grandfather Hans Frederick Rasmussen and this post will share his history. I hope that in each blog I do I can share a little more about his family and Anina his wife's family to help everyone who is related to him gain a greater knowledge of their progenitors.

Hans Frederick Rasmussen

  Here is the autobiography on Hans Fredrick Rasmussen. I apologize for any Errors. Please let me know if there is any thing in this history that I need to change or clarify.

Hans Frederick Rasmussen

I, Hans Frederick Rasmussen, was born March 30, 1880 in Lyngby, Randers, Denmark, the son of Jens Peter Rasmussen and Marie Christensen Nielsen. I was the seventh child of my family of eight children. I weighted 2 ½ pounds at birth. The mid-wife went home and told her husband the tinner’s wife and a tiny baby but it died. However, I fooled them and didn’t die. The mid-wife died soon after and I was the last baby she delivered.

As a child I was very small. At six I started school and enjoyed schooling. I attended school until I was fourteen, completing six grades, which was all the average child received at that time. We attended school eleven months out of the year. August was our vacation month. We also attended school on Saturday.

My family belonged to the Lutheran church the attended quite regularly. I was christened as soon as I was born because I wasn’t expected to live. I was baptized in the Lutheran when I was about a year old. I was confirmed 1 April 1894. This is a sort of a renewal of the baptism covenant. Because of my size my parents thought that the only profession I could follow would be tailoring, so on May 1, 1894 at the age of fourteen I began my apprenticeship as a tailor. The law required four years as an apprentice. This I served in a regular tailor shop under the tutorship of Peter Petersen at Lyngby. After I was through in 1998 I went to Hamburg, Germany, where I continued tailoring. Here I stayed two years, returning to Denmark in 1990. I came home to serve training as a soldier for six months, having my training in Aarhus. I stayed in Denmark as tailor until 1904. My brother John and I decided to go to America because of the influences of m cousins who were in America. My cousin, Peter Christian Rasmussen, who had come to America in 1883, had retuned to Denmark on a mission in 1896 and he told us of the opportunities in America. I never heard him speak of religion had nothing to do with my going to America. On the day before we left we met Niels Mickelsen of Draper, Utah, who was serving as missionary. He asked us to take a picture of himself and another missionary to his wife in Draper. This we did, the reason for our coming to Utah.

We left Aarhus on June 24, 1904. John, his wife Frieda and their three children, Marie, Carl, and Georgia. We expected to visit in America and return. We arrived in New York July 4, 1904 and left New York the same day for Chicago, Illinois. There we spent a few days trying to locate Frieda’s brother. We had no address. He had come to America, and all Frieda knew was that he was in Chicago, having left Hamburg, Germany, because of the cholera plague. We then came to Draper, Utah, which we reached on July 14^th. In Draper we stayed with our cousin Sophie. On account of our cousins Soren, Peter, and Antone Rasmussen, who didn’t want us to leave, we stayed. I got work as a section hand at Draper, working here for three months, and then I quit and started tailoring at Midvale for Mr. Lohman. I started business for myself in 1905 in Midvale, Utah but this didn’t work out as I did not have enough experiences and could not speak the language well enough. My shop was on

North Main Street

and

Second Avenue

. I went to Provo and worked for August Carlson.

Through the discussions of religion with my cousin, Peter C. Rasmussen, I joined the L.D.S. church and was baptized May 30, 1906. Nina Marie Mickelsen of Draper helped to influence me in my decision to join the church, but I really believed it was the right church. I was baptized by Willard Snow in the canal at draper and was confirmed by Peter C. Rasmussen.

Nina was a Danish girl, who had immigrated to Utah in 1883 with her parents when she was six years old because they had joined the L.D.S. church. Nina could speak Danish, and I enjoyed visiting her and soon decided I would like to marry her. We were married on September 26, 1906 at Provo, by Bishop Ole Berg and we lived in Provo.

Early in 1907 I got rheumatism and the doctor advised that I quit tailoring and do outside work, so we moved back to Draper where I bought my first home in 1909 on 7^th East and 12300 South. Here I worked at various things, trading horses, selling cloths, and worked at Bingham and at the smelter at Midvale. While in Draper five children were born: Lois in 1907, Erma in 1909, Genevieve in 1911, Harold in 1913, and Clara in 1915.

I started tailoring again in Midvale about March 1912. I rented a shop on Main Street where Walker Bank (Corner of Center and Main street) now stands. On the corner was Cox’s Market and I had a small shop just north of this market. I drove my horse and buggy back and forth to Draper for three years. I decided to buy a home in Midvale and move my family here. In Center Street just west, a little over a half a block away from my business, was a place for sale. It had been a meat market, a post office, and a residence combined. I could move my family into the three rooms and eventually remodel the rest. I made arrangements to buy this place and to sell my place in Draper. We moved to Midvale on September 25, 1915. I remodeled the house to accommodate our growing family. Next I built on another large room which became my tailor shop. I also did cleaning and pressing and selling suits. Here three more children were born: Arthur, who died of pneumonia three weeks after his birth, in 1918; Beatrice in 1919; and Arvid in 1922. Nina helped me in the tailor shop. She was a very good seamstress. She tended shop while I went out selling suits and delivering cloths that had been cleaned.

After the four older girls were married and Harold had gone to California to work, Nina had problems with her heart. The doctor said her heart was completely worn out. She died on Mother’s Day, May 10, 1942. Clara was living in Hawaii during that time and wanted to get home to see her but it was war time and she couldn’t get passage to fly home.

In church I served as Genealogical chairman for several years in the Midvale Second Ward. I was a ward teacher for many years. I hold the office of High Priest. We were endowed in the Salt Lake Temple on March 16, 1922, and our children were sealed to us.

I continued tailoring in Midvale until 1945 when I sold m business to Betty Fossen and moved to Salt Lake. For a year I sold suits and then decided to go back to tailoring. I started working for English Tailors about March 1, 1947 and am still working there at the time of my seventy-second birthday.

On March 29, 1951 I married Josephine Thompson Nielson Stubbs.

One of my greatest thrills was a return trip to Denmark, leaving Salt Lake City  June 5, 1950 and going by plane via United Air Lines to New York and the Scandinavian lines from New York to Denmark. I went with Arelious and Louise Mickelsen. Here I stayed three months , visiting with my two sisters, Kirstine , 81, and Nathalia, 73,  at the time, and their families and my nieces and nephews. Here I met many of my old friends and had a wonderful time. I returned to Salt Lake via plane August 22, 1950. I was happy to return to the United States. Denmark was not as wonderful a place as I remembered it.

Dad died 28 July 1956 in the L.D.S. Hospital in Salt Lake City.

Dad married:

(2) 25 February 1944 Linda Sorensen Stewart from Draper (divorced)

(3) 13 August 1947 Matilda Annette Mickelsen Jorgensen (divorced)

(4) 29 March 1951 Josie Thompson Nielsen Stubbs of Salt Lake City