Christian Knudsen was born 26 October 1856 in Manti, Sanpete County, Utah, United States to Jorgen Knudsen (1828-1878) and Anna Sophia Nielson (1833-1876) and died 19 December 1945 Farmington, San Juan County, New Mexico, United States of unspecified causes. He married Rhoda Susan Chapman (1872-1944) 22 November 1897 in Ramah, McKinley County, New Mexico, United States. He married Martha Amelia Rogers (1871-1947) 15 October 1944 in Stockton, San Joaquin County, California, United States.
Life Sketch
Compiled in June 1988 by Wanda Knudsen Guthrie, granddaughter and William Warren Knudsen, son.
Christian Moroni Knudsen was born 26 October, 1856 in Manti, Sanpete County, Utah, to Jorgen Knudsen and Anna Sophia Nielsen. He is their second child. His brothers and sisters are Jorgen Lamoni, Anna Sophia, Joseph Enos, Mariana, Caroline, Anna Margarite, Melinda Jorgena, Frida, Sarah Artemesia and Mabel Matilda. Only four of the children lived to adulthood: Christian Moroni, Anna Sophia, Joseph Enos and Melinda Jorgena. The first child, Jorgen Lamoni, was stillborn and six died in infancy.
Danish Ancestry
Christian's father, Jorgen Knudsen, was born 14 March, 1828 in Norup or Fyen, Odense, Denmark to Knud Jorgensen and [[Ane Marie Andersdatter (1796-1848)| Anna Marie Anderson. Christina's mother, Anna Sophia Nielsen, was born 22 August, 1833 in Veijla, Veijla, Denmark.
Jorgen was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 3 October, 1853. He left his homeland in December of that year with a large group of Saints for America. They arrived in Salt Lake City, Utah in September, 1854. Jorgen's younger sister, Kistrene came with him, and two other sisters came the following year. They were Else Maria and Caroline.
Anna Sophia was baptized 19 March 1851 and came to America with her father, Christian Nielsen, his wife, Maria, and Anna's younger brother, Fritz. They traveled with the first large group of Saints from Scandinavia, leaving Denmark in December 1852 and arriving in Utah in September 1853. The stayed in Salt Lake City just a short time,then went on to Manti, where Christian Nielsen and his family lived the rest of their lives.
Early years in Utah
Jorgen and his sisters settled in Salt Lake City. Anna Sophia also stayed in Salt Lake City and worked as a housekeeper there. Jorgen and Anna met while there and were married 13 January 1855. On 11 April 1856, they were endowed and sealed in the Endowment House.
Jorgen and Anna moved to Manti the summer of 1856 and lived near Anna's parents. Three of their children were born in Manti; Christian Moroni, Anna Sophia, and Joseph Enos. In 1861 or 1862, the moved to Washington, Utah, Washington Co., Utah which is about five miles northeast of St. George, where they made their home until their death.
Travels
Christian was about twenty years old when his mother died, and his father passed away two years later in Benjamin, Utah. After that he went off on his own and tried to get jobs any place he could find work. He was on a job when he was 28 years old and decided to give up the tobacco habit which he had acquired after his parents died. He went through a wooded place and threw all of his tobacco away after he had bought enough to last him a couple of months on a jog he was sgoing out on. He got to thinking about the habit he had let himself get into, as he rode along, so he decided to stop his habit right then and there. He let the horses follow the road, closed his eyes and threw it into the trees. He never touched tobacco again and always after that he would get sick if he was around anybody who was smoking.
Christian had double teeth all around in his mouth, something no one had ever heard of. In his later year, he grew a mushtache and beard.
He was an active member of the Church after he gave up the tobacco habit. He was ordained a Seventy before he went on his mission. He was probably still living in Utah when he was called at the age of 35 He served a mission in Arizona with th eIndians who lived north of Mesa and Lehi, the Pimas and Maricopas. When he was released from his mission, probably in 1893 or 4, he got a gob working on Santa Fe Railroad in northern Arizona. He moved along, working on different sections of the railroad. There wasn't any other place east of Joseph City where there was a Mormon settlement right on the railroad track, until Bluewater New Mexico. He probably heard about the Saints there and might have asked to be transferred so he could be in a Mormon environment.
That's when he got acquainted with the Chapman family, and a daughter, Rhoda Susan. They courted and then were married 22 November 1897 in Ramah, New Mexico, which is over the mountain, west, from Bluewater. He continued to work on the railroad and they moved to Joseph City, where their first child, Hyrum Christian was born in 1898. He worked on the railroad there and in some of the little towns towards Gallup. The railroad is cutup into ten-mile sections and workers were assigned to each section to keep the railroad in repair. That's how the railroad kept their tracks in such good shape. The Santa Fe had hardly any wrecks when they were going back then, because of the good upkeep of the tracks. Christian was one of those who kept the track in repair.
Zuni Mountain Homestead
Christian filed on a homestead up on the Zuni Mountain and it had plenty of good timber on it. The Chapmans built a sawmill up there and cut the timber. Christian was the fireman for the mill. There were quite a few acres of land to farm and he grew the best potatoes around on that farm. When it was time to hoe weeds, he would take Warren with him. He had a big hoe and Warren had a little one. He could hoe three rows to Warren's one. He would take lumber from the sawmill, haul it to Gallup and sell it to buy clothes and food. They got along on a very meager substance.
The milk cow got a away from the farm and went up in the mountains. It was the spring of the year when it was really boggy up in that country when the snow melted, probably six feet. The cows would get in the bog. Christian went up to find that cow one day. She was running loose because he didn't have any feed for her at the house. They had run out of potatoes and everything. So Christian and his son, Warren went up in the hills up north of their place up on the Zuni Mountain and hunted all around for their cow. There were lots of trees and brush and things and they couldn't see very far ahead. Christian said, "Let's see if the Lord will help us find the cow." So they kneeled down and prayed that they would find the cow. They got up and started walking and didn't go 50 yards until they found the cow. They were almost to her but didn't know it.
When they were living up on the Zuni Mountain, Christian would lead his family in song and prayer every Sunday. They were the only LDS people up there after the Chapmans moved back to Bluewater, so they held their own services. They would sing hymns and have circle prayer. They would start with the youngest and if he couldn't pray by himself, Christian would tell him what to say. And then he would have next oldest ne pray if they could pray by themselves. Then on through the family, with Rhoda and Christian would pray last. They would be on their knees for an hour or more. Warren remembers: after he had his turn, he would go off and play with something for quite a while before all the prayers were over. He would get tired of listening and just start playing marbles or something. He was just a little boy then.
Christian must have been able to go to school when he was young while he was living in Washington, Utah. He was a very good reader, about the best in Bluewater. If anyone wated to get some reading done they would generally ask him to read. He could read the scriptures well and anything that he was asked to read. He read Bible stories to his children. He had a little book that he got on his mission that had words to the songs, but no music. He knew the music and taught the gongs to his family. Both he and Rhoda were good singers.
Before the family moved back to Bluewater, Christian sold the part of the homestead with the timber on to a neighbor. They lived up there for eight years. He bought a brand new wagon and a team of horses, and they thought they were really up in the world.
Return to Bluewater
When Christian was about 55 years old, he had a heart attack. Rhoda's brothers, who lived nearby, came to the house and did all they could think of revive him. They all gave up but Uncle Eugene. He kept working with him and saw some color come back to his cheeks. Uncle Eugene got his heart going again and soon he was breathing alright. He lived to be 89 years old and never had another heart attack.
They moved back to Bluewater in the spring of 1916. They sold their homestead for $300.00. Christian and his son, Christian were both working at the rock crusher. Theytook the $300.00, but another $125.25 with it and bought a new Ford Touring Car. Mr. Thigpen, the owenr of the store there in Bluewater, had just bought the car for himself, but sold it to us so they would have transportation.
When the Knudsen family first moved back to Bluewater from the Zuni Mountain Christian got a job working a little velocipede on the railroad track. It was kinda like a child's toy, that you push with your feet and pull on the handles. It had three wheels, two would fit on one track and the third on the other rail. It was called a track-walk. When Christian got his eye put out in the Santa Fe shops in Albuquerque and they only gave him $250.00, he was told that he could work for the railroad anytime the rest of his life, no matter where he was. It used to scare Warren to death when he worked as a track-walker. He was riding along on one track and trains were apt to come from either direction. The trains would really be speeding down the track and Warren was afraid that a train would slip up behind him and knock him off. With one eye, he didn't have the vision he needed. On the little velocipede he would go along and check to see if anything needed repairing. If he found anything wrong, he would report it to the foreman. If a train came he could pull the velocipede off the track real quick. He never had any trouble. He must have known what he was doing. He worked for the railroad just a short time until he got a job at the crusher.
Uncle Archie, Rhoda's brother, took Christian and Warren in a car to show Christian how to drive it. As they came back by Uncle Archie's place, he jumped out and left Christian driving the car. When they got to their house, the rock house, Christian didn't stop. As they went further up the road, there was a narrow bridge over a deep wash. Warren was afraid that he might not steer the car right and that they would end up in the wash. So he just shut off the key and stopped the car. Warren had been driving already, so he just cranked it and drove it back to their place. Christian never drove a car again.
When Christian got a job at the crusher, they were living in the Chapman rock house. It wasn't very far from the railroad track and it was right on the road from the depot and the railroad track going up to the crusher. So it was a pretty good place fo rhim to have a job. When he started working at the crusher, he was a night watchman. The night watchman had to take care of the dinkey engine boilers. They were fired with coal. By seven o'clock in the morning, Christian had to have all the boilers steamed up. He would start working on them about two or three o'clock in the morning, making his way around and around through that crusher. Some of them were quite a way from each other, but he would go from one to another, carrying a lantern with him to see how to get there in the dark. They called him a night watchman, but the night watchman had a pretty big job to do to have the steam just the right pressure in everyone of those boilers, so when seven o'clock came the men could start working. The engines that were working off the steam would be able to run. They kept th eboilers banked with coals all night, so it would be easier to start the fires. The coals would just sit there and smoulder all night long. Then when they would be stirred up and the air pressure turned on where it comes up underneath, it doesn't take long to get the steam up. He had abig boiler down at the crusher, and big one over at the compressor, and one for each of two steam shovels. There were two dinkes, two small intines that ran the trains. The small engines pulled the cars up, where they were loaded with rock and back down to the crusher. They had a track right around the edge of the quarry. The quarry was about a quarter of a mile across by that time. WHen it started up again later, Warren worked there with his Dad, clear up to about 1923. It was after this that Christian just watched the place and took care of the animals, after the crusher shut down. Christian got 50 or 60 dollars a month for being the watchman. He was the watchman there until it start up again ,sometime between 1918 and 1923. The Knudsen family lived up there for six or seven years.
After the crusher started up again, Christian didn't get to be the night watchman, they hired someone else. This was when Warren got a job there an Christian worked with him. When Warren got a drill to run, then Christian, his Dad was his helper. The drill was on a tripod and I would sit on top of it. It would make an eight-inch stroke. It would move around by itself, going around and around, always hitting in a different place. Warren would be up there running the handle and it would be making the longest strokes that it could. If it was making little short strokes it wouldn't hit very hard, and wouldn't get very much drilled. When they would get off and move the tripod, they would have to take the big heavy weights off the legs first. The weights weighed about a hundred pounds each, one on each of the three legs. They would throw the weights aside, each of us would take hold of a leg, then walk it around and balance it on the other leg, until they had it in place to drill another hole. They were right on the edge of the cliff. They made a row of holes about eight feet apart, then another row behind them with the holes in the middles of each of the holes in the first row. Then they would put powder in the holes and blast the whole cliff off. There would be a nice windrow of rocks out in front of where we had drilled. The steam shovel would pick up the rocks and load them in the little cars.
After they worked at the rock crusher a couple of years, Christian then worked firing lime kilns. He worked for Louis Lam firing his lime kilns for a while. Mr. Thigpen even had some lime kilns, right by the crusher and Christian worked there while he was a night watchman. He worked with Warren again doing their own drilling and blasting. They had a drill about three feet long. One of them had to turn the drill and the other was hitting it with a hammer just as hard as he could with an eight-pound sledge. They would take turns hitting the drill and turning it. If they ever missed, the guy who was holding the drill might get his hand broken all to pieces. The hammer got to where it was worn out right in the middle of the head, he hit it so straight on the top of the drill. Warren was never afraid that he was going to hit him at all, and Christian only had one eye. They worked on the lime kiln, then Mr. Thigpen quit running it after a whole. That's where Mr. Thigpen got acquainted with them. Christian always took his check down to Mr. Thigpen. They would buy their groceries and supplies on credit and when Christian got his check, he would go down and pay the bill off and then start getting credit again. That $60.00 wold go as far as $600.00 no days, I guess.
Life after the Crusher
When the crusher shut down, there was a man living there and taking care of the place. There were a lot of mules and horses for him to look after. Then the animals were finally shipped out. There was a buggy there and sometimes the man who was taking care of the place, would come down to our little town in the buggy and take Christian, his wife and two sons for a ride with him. The buggy was pulled by a couple of big mules or horses. They would ride around the country-side with him. It was a two-seated buggy and nice when two animals pulled it.
When the people who owned the crusher, L.W. Lewis and Sons, shipped all of the animals out of there, they didn't actually need that watchman there anymore. So the watchman suggested to his boss that they hire Christian to watch the place. So Christian and his family moved up to the crusher into the foreman's house, which was a pretty nice place. The rest of the buildings were bunkhouses, but the foreman's houses was built like a house. It had a kitchen, dining room, bedrooms and so forth. Christian was about 62 years old when he took that job at the crusher.
While they were living at the crusher, they didn't have any water. The company hauled their water in big tanks with their mules and horses. this was before cars and trucks. So Christian would go down to the irrigation ditch, maybe half a mile from where we lived. He would start out and carry eight buckets with him, empty buckets. He would do down to the ditch and fill all the buckets. The irrigation ditch was three or four feet wide. He would take two buckets and walk up a way toward the house, set them down, then go back and get two more buckets and walk past the first two buckets a way. He would do the same thing with the other four buckets, and keep moving them all along until he got them all to the house. Sometime it would take him a couple of hours to get all of those buckets of water up to the house. The he got them all there, the eight buckets of water, it would be enough to last us about a week. The children would be off to school or playing somewhere when he carried the water. They drank the water, it was good water out of the canyon.
The frames broke on the old Model-T Ford, on both sides where the engine went across the back end, or where the back of the the engine went across. Warren ordered new frames, tore the car down, took everything off that car, put new frames in and put everything back together just like it was. Christian never tried to drive again after the episode on the narrow bridge wen Warren was eleven years old. Warren drove it , worked on it, did everything on it. He couldn't crank it when it was cold, because there would be a big lot of oil right down in where the crank turned around. He was too small to turn it fast enough to get it started when it was cold. He would get Mr. Thigpen to crank it for him, then take Mr. Thigpen home, and after that it would work all day long until the next morning. Mr. Thigpen was the best old guy to their family. Warren was only eleven years old and was driving the car, chauffering everyone around. The next year when he was twelve, his Uncle Gene was living in Toltec. He was milking sever or eight cows. Warren would help Uncle Gene milk his cows, would save the night's milk and after the morning milking, would go to Grants as the chauffer. His Aunt Nellie would go along and Warren drove the car. Uncle Gene would stay home and work on the farm and Walter, his cousin help him. But Warren was the main chauffer on the car of Uncle Gene's. Uncle Gene's car was just like Warren's family's car, but it was a little pickup. Warren and Aunt Nellie would drive all over Grants, selling milk. Uncle Gene really trusted him driving his car.
One day Warren drove his parents and brother and sister to Grants. They stayed there all day and it was practically dark when they got away and on their way home. The car didn't have good lights on it. You almost had to strike a match to see if the lights were on. As they were going away from Grants a mile or two, that old Ford died on us. They just couldn't get it started. They would just crank and crank and nothing would happen. Well, Christian suggested that they all kneel down by the side of the car and ask the Lord to help them get the car started. So they all knelt there by the side of the road. When they had finished praying, Warren got up and went around to the front of the car, gave it a little crank and it started right up. It was ready to go. All they had to do was get in and drive. home. The car was fixed that quick. Christian was a very prayerful man.
Christian could really work and he did difficult manual labor. He worked on the limekiln for Grandpa Lamb, mostly. It was about the only type of work he could do. He would walk clear out to the lime kiln every morning, about four miles, and walk back in the evening after he had worked all day, sometimes a twelve-hour shift, firing that lime kiln. He could lift logs that most men couldn't lift. He would pick them up and throw them in the fire. He must have had really good health. When he was in his eighties, he would walk all over, clear in to town when he lived with Warren and his family in Mesa. And he wouldn't walk slow. People would stop and want to give him a ride and he would tell them, he would rather walk. He would walk every day.
Christian was very musical, as was his father, Jorgen. Jorgen composed songs, writing one after his wife and baby died for their funerals. Christian played the accordion and the harmonica. His children and grandchildren would dance to his music. He played for dances and would sometimes go to sleep while playing and would have to be awakened when the dancers got tired. His children are all musical and Christian taught them folk songs of Denmark, which he learned from his father.
While Warren and his family lived in Phoenix, milking cows on the Fletcher dairy, he took some accordion lessons from Ziggie Zartiss there. Christian had a little piano accordion and also an old semi-tone. One night Warren took his Dad with him to his accordion lesson. He wanted his Dad to hear Ziggie Zartiss play, see him play. So when Warren finished his lesson, he asked Mr. Zartiss if the would play a tune so his Dad could hear and watch him play. So he did. Boy he was good on the accordion. He was Italian.
Later Years
After Christian's wife, Rhoda died, he got in touch with a woman that he had met in Mesa when he was on his mission years ago, and they decided to get married. So Morley and Warren took him clear to Stockton, California and they got married. But then he almost beat us home. The lady's son brought him home on the train/ Christian had tried to take over the lady's household and it didn't work. Christian was eighty-eight years old at the time. After that, each of his four children would keep him three months out of the year.
Christian died 19 December, 1945 at the age of eighty-nine. He was living with his son, Christian in Farmington, New Mexico at the time. Christian brought his body over to Bluewater to be buried by his wife, Rhoda's side in the little Bluewater cemetery. His children asked Tom McNeil to give the funeral sermon, which was hold in the Bluewater Chapel. They sent word around about the funeral to those who lived there. It was in the winter time and the grave had to be blasted out because the ground was frozen. Warren and Morely flew to Bluewater in the private plane of Mitchel McFadden. Mr. McFadden piloted the plane.
Mr. McNeil came over the the chapel a little ahead of time for the services to begin. They opened the casket and Tom McNeil said, "I want to tell you boys a story. Brother LeGrande Richards' father, who was an apostle at the time, came down to Bluewater quite sometime before that to put in a new bishop. Elder Richards chose Brother McNeil. When they voted on me in Priesthood Meeting to put me in as bishop, that man there in that casket was the only one who voted for me, held his hand up to sustain me. I am very pleased to be asked to speak at his funeral."
The Knudsen name is on a monument that was erected in Pioneer Park in Mesa across from the temple. Christian was in that area in the 1890's, the time period when the list of names of people appearing on the monument were living in that area.
Memories of Wanda Guthrie
"MEMOROIES OF MY GRANDFATHER KNUDSEN, BY WANDA KNUDSEN GUTHRIE" I used to enjoy dancing to his music and he would take me on his knee and sing to me. He was a very spiritual man and always attended Church. He always had a beard and mushtache(sic) the years that I knew him. I am grateful to him for my Danish heritage.
Timeline
- 1856-Oct-26 : Birth at Manti, Sanpete, UT
- 1860-Summer : US Census listing at Moroni UT
- 1865-Jul-30 : Baptised (LDS)
- 1870-Jul-06 : US Census Listing with parents at Washington UT
- 1877-Jun-28 : Endowed (LDS) at St George Utah Mormon Temple
- 1897-Nov-22 : Marriage to Rhoda Chapman at Ramah, McKinley NM
- 1898-Sep-11 : Birth of Son Hyrum at Joseph City AZ
- 1900-Oct-23 : Birth of Daughter Rhoda at Bluewater NM
- 1903-Feb-20 : Birth of Son Welcome at Bluewater NM (Died at age 3)
- 1906-Feb-13 : Birth of Son William Warren at Albuquerque NM
- 1908-Sep-09 : Birth of Son Joseph at Page NM (died two days later)
- 1909-Aug-18 : Birht of Son Oscar at Page NM (died one year later)
- 1910-Summer : US Census Listing at Guam NM
- 1910-Sep-22 : Birth of Son Morley at Page NM
- 1912-Dec-18 : Birth of Daughter Arminnie at Page NM (died 21 months later)
- 1920-Summer : US Census Listing at Bluewater NM
- 1926-Oct-26 : Temple Sealing (LDS) to Rhoda Chapman
- 1930-Summer : US Census Listing at Bluewater NM
- 1944-Jan-24 : Death of wife Rhoda Chapman at Valencia NM
- 1945-Dec-19 : Death of Christian Knudsen at Farmington, San Juan Co, NM
- 1945-Dec-21 : Burial of Christan Knudsen at Bluewater NM
Children
Siblings
See Also
- Christian Knudsen
- Knudsen Family
- Knudsen in Sanpete County, Utah
- Knudsen in San Juan County, New Mexico
- Knudsen in McKinley County, New Mexico
Gravestone
Christian Knudsen Gravestone - Pioneer Memorial Cemetery - Bluewater, NM
Christian Knudsen is buried next to his wife at Pioneer Memorial Cemetery in Bluewater, NM.
Census Records
1860 US Census : Moroni UT
Listed at Christian M Knutson - Age 3 - Residence Morni UT
1870 US Census : Washington Utah
Survey taken 06-July-1870 in Washington, Washington Co, Utah. / House #18 /
- Jorgen Knudsen / M / 43Y / Born- Denmark / Ocp: Farmer
- Annie / F / 36Y / Born- Denmark / Ocp: KeepingHouse - (wife)
- Christian / M / 13Y / Born- Utah - (son)
- Annie G / F / 11Y / Born- Utah - (daughter)
- Joseph E / M / 9Y / Born- Utah - (son)
- Betsey M / F / 10Y / Born- Utah - (orphan niece)
- Malinda / F / 1Y / Born- Utah - (daughter)
1910 US Census : Guam NM
Survey taken 1910 in Guam, McKinley County, New Mexico Survey District #122 - Street Number 1B - Household #14
- Christian M Knudsen - M/53 - Born- Utah (Head)
- Rhodie S Knudsen - F/38 - Born - Utah (Wife)
- Hyrum Knudsen - M/11 - Born-Arizona (Son)
- Rhodie S Knudsen - F/9 - Born-New Mexico (Daughter)
- William W Knudsen - M/4 - Born-New Mexico (Son)
1920 US Census : Bluewater NM
Survey Taken 1920 in Bluewater, Valencia Co, New Mexico Survey District #191 - Street Number 1A - Household #4.
- C M Knudsen - M/63 - Born-Utah (Head)
- Rhoda S Knudsen - F/47 - Born-Utah (Wife)
- Hyram C Knudsen - M/21 - Born-Arizona (Son)
- Rhoda L Knudsen - F/19 - Born-New Mexico (Daughter)
- William W Knudsen - M/13 - Born-New Mexico (Son)
- Morley A Knudsen - M/9 - Born-New Mexico (Son)
1930 US Census : Bluewater NM
Survey Taken 1930 in Valencia Co, New Mexico Survey District #16 - Street Number 2b - Household #28.
- Christian M Knudsen - M/73 - Born-Utah (Head)
- Rhoda S Knudsen - F/58 - Born-Utah (Wife)
- Marley A Knudsen - M/19 - Born-New Mexico
References