Written by Daughter Olena Homer

Johanna Sandberg was born in Dahibe Sweden the 13th of January 1836. She joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints at the age of seventeen and was baptized by Bro. Stahl and confirmed by A. W. Windborg in July 1853. There was not religious freedom in Sweden and the Saints suffered much persecution. The people would break the windows and arrest the Saints and do everything they could to prevent the Saints from holding meetings.

Her Father, Ole Peher Sandberg, was a master blacksmith, but after the family joined the Church they would not take their work to him and would not sell food to him. A friend brought them a sack of flour at night, but their enemies found out about it. They took the man and his oldest son and whipped them with a fail on a threshing floor so severely that the man never recovered.

The authorities would not let them have pass ports, so they left Sweden secretly and went to Denmark, where there was Religious liberty. They had lert their home and all they possessed in Sweden. Her Father, brother, sister and herself worked in a factory until they earned enough money for their transportation.

While they were in Denmark Erastus Snow and his companion arrived from America as Mormon Missionaries. They had just arrived and did not know the Danish language. Erastus Snow delivered a powerful sermon in the Danish language. It was a wonderful testimony. I have heard my Mother and Grandfather talk of it many times.

The family sailed on the ship Tuscarord and landed in Philedelphia July 3rd, 1857. Johanna went to Burlington, Iowa. Her parents to Fairfield. Johanna got work ina hotel as a cook and learned the language spoken there, which she thought was English, but when she left there she found it was a German Hotel, and then she had to learn the English language. She worked there two years. While there she had a serious illness , Scarlet Fever. She lost all her hair, affected her hearing, and her deafness got worse as time went on. She learned to speak and read the English language after she was deaf.

She walked across the plains in Captain James Brown's Ox Team Company. They arrived in Salt Lake City in the Spring of 1859. She married Neils Jensen April 21, 1860. Her parents came to Utah two years after her marriage. She, with her husband and two children moved from Salt Lake City in the fall of 1863. They made their home in Logan, Utah. Her husband had a pottery shop and a farm. The glazing used on the pottery affected his lungs and his doctor advised him to work out doors. So in the Spring of 1878 they moved to Trenton, Utah. They had a farm of 236 acres there. Johanna was the mother of nine children, three boys and six girls.

Johanna's parents came to live near her to spend their last days. Her husband built them a house near them. Her mother passed away and her father lived with johanna twelve years after the death of her mother. Her sister, Fedena's two daghters lived with Johanna for awhile after the death of their mother. We were fourteen in the family at that time. Her borther Niels never married and he spend his last days with her.

Johanna's children all married with the exception of Louis, who died at the age of fourteen. His last words were, "Oh God, receive my spirit".

In 1902 Johanna and her husband moved to Farr West, Weber County, Utah. After the death of her husband, who passed away April 6, 1917, she sold her home to her daughter, Olena. She then went back to Trenton and had a snug little house built near her daughter, Clara. After Clara's death she went to Soda Springs, Idaho and lived with her youngest daughter, Ellanora. Johanna passed away the 5th of October, 1924. She would have been 89 in January. She was buried by the side of her husband at Cornish, Utah.

Two young men who are bishops now and who spoke at her funeral said they were thankful for the association they had had with her family. Her house was the gathering place of the young people. They often brought musicians and we would roll back the rug and dance. When we would see a covered wagon we were almost sure it was some acquaintance froma distance coming to our home their stopping place for the night. They always found a warm welcome.

Johanna was a great reader of religious and biblical articles. He father took the "Beakelen", a Swedish paper published by A. W. Windberg, in Salt Lake City. It had the Sunday sermons given in the tabernacle printed in book form. She always sewed them together and treasured them. She always subscribed to the New York Sun, and kept up to date on the politics of the state and nation. Johanna was always busy, happy and dedpendent. She made her own bed till the fourth day before her death.