A LIFE SKETCH OF BARBETTA GESSEL AND ERASTUS
JENSEN
by Katie Jensen Nielsen
Erastus Jensen was born 19 March 1868 in
Logan, Utah, the eldest of the family of [nine] children born to Anna Fredrika
Peterson and Frederik Nielsen Jensen. Erastus learned the building trade, very early.
His father taught him the fundamental [principles] of neatness and dependability. If he
promised to do something, “his word was his bond.” If there was ever an honest
man in the world Erastus was the man.
He went to school until he was big enough
to work. There were few jobs to be found when he was a young man. For several years he
went into Wyoming and helped to build the railroad through Wyoming and Utah. He never
gambled, drank or smoked or spoke filthy words. He was sociable and made friends very
easy, but never learned bad habits that many men fall into living with a group of rough
men month after month. He spent much of his time cooking for the men, which he did after
he married and had a large family. He made good wages for that day and time and helped his
mother financially. He saved some. He had the gift of thrift and management.
Erastus Jensen married Barbetta Gessel [1]
[2]
12 July 1893, in Logan, Utah. Father bought [five] acres of land on the east side of 2nd
East at 9th North in Logan, Utah, where he built a two room home and as the
family grew he built a room on and modernized it as he carefully built. After their
marriage they lived in a small home on 4th [?] East in Logan about where the
Nelson Funeral Home now stands. They lived next door to Bishop John A. Anderson, who got
father very active in church activities and three years after their civil marriage their
marriage was sealed in the Logan Temple. They had much respect and appreciation for John
A. Anderson and his family who had much influence for good for Barbetta and Erastus.
My parents worked well as a team each
pulling more than half of the load.
We always had a few acres of wheat, which
at harvest time we put in the grain mill, and took out flour, cereal and wheat stuff. We
ate a great deal of bread for a family of fifteen……which mother mixed ‘by
hand’ and baked [twelve] loaves every other day in a large dripper pan the full size
of the oven in the coal stove. We also had home-made ice cream often, cookies, plain cake,
(good, we thought, without icing on top). Mother also bottled all the fruit and vegetable
or dehydrated fruits. She bought several bushels of apples and put them in a carefully
built storage pit and they were enjoyed until the next spring. When the food was used in
the spring time the ground was leveled again and a new garden was planted. We also had at
least [three][?] cows so we nearly always had fresh milk, butter and also meat. We always
had a couple dozen or more chickens and eggs were plentiful. There were no supermarkets in
my parents’ day. Mother planted, with father’s help and preparation, a large
garden, carefully cultivated, watered and weeded. Mother worked hard at it. She cared for
it and when produce was ready she had regular customers who bought all their vegetables
from our garden. It was hard work but mother and the older kids [bunched and picked][?]
and then with a horse hitched onto a ‘flat’ rack buggy, mother usually took
Naomi and I with her as she drove certain regular routes where we had regular customers,
where Naomi and I each took one side of the street. We usually sold everything on our
[load][?]. Mother paid us well and she helped with the family expenses.
There was a new baby regular every two
years and one of the kids older and totally responsible was left at home with the smaller
kids and baby. It worked well. Mother was a great manager. Sometimes I think she was the
“World’s 8th Wonder.” She sewed every stitch we wore besides our stockings
and shoes. She even made pants for the little girls out of cloth sugar sacks. She was a
beautiful seamstress. She made tailored suits and coats for us girls and made over
trousers for the boys until they were old enough to earn and buy their own clothes. Her
sewing machine was powered by a foot tread and I wondered how she endured peddeling it by
foot hour after hour.
Mother could read the newspapers and sign
her name, but she never wrote letters or notes. I wrote letters for her many times. She
only went to 5th grade in school, but she surely knew how to figure and keep
records. She was better at business than father. When small pigs were purchased mother
always went to make the deal. Father came home with the runt of the litter just once.
Mother had a special ‘touch’……she could really stretch the money. She
could make the best meals from so little and also with sewing and homemaking.
Father worked for ‘Gessel Press Brick
,’ [3] [4]
owned by his father-in-law Gottlieb Gessel and Sons. Father stayed at the brick yard at 6th
West and 6th North in Logan sometimes 18 and 20 hours a day when the bricks
were baking to fire the kiln just right and keep the heat at correct temperatures. He was
very dependable and on the job making bricks as in any job he did it was done the best. He
never received ‘overtime’ for his long hours. He was never paid regular. Mother
carried on the family garden and animals. In the winter months, father was home more of
the time because, the bricks were made only in moderate weather. He did a great deal of
the cooking---he could make the best Potatoe Hot Cakes. He was very neat, in keeping his
clothes cared for.
In the winter months father hitched the
team on the Bob Sleighs and we would go to Providence to visit our aunts and cousins on
mild winter days with a lot of clean straw on the sleigh box and there were sleigh bells
jingling on the horses. We would always go early and get home well before dark.
We never had electricity in our home until
I was about [twelve] years old. Mother schooled us on the danger of the oil lamps we had
to use. We were taught to be very careful because of a fire hazard.
Father always went to the canyon to cut a
Christmas Tree just a few days before Christmas. It was always decorated on Christmas Eve.
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