The story of the Family of George and Margaret Nelson, aka, Jorgen Nielsen (1821-1871) and Margrethe Pedersdatter (1823-1882), including their lives in Denmark, as well as their emigration to the US as part of the first large party of LDS members from Denmark to do so, on the Forest Monarch in 1853. Their defection from the LDS while crossing the plains on the way to Utah, and their subsequent lives and those of their children are documented.
George and Margaret Nelson, (aka, Jorgen Nielsen, 1821-1871, and Margrethe Pedersdatter 1823-1882) and two of their children immigrated to the United States in 1853. This growing family eventually settled in Gentry County, Missouri. Most of the grown children ventured further west, two to California; two, first, to Colorado; and another to Montana. The correspondence between them over the next thirty years that was preserved is reproduced in this volume, offering a wonderful panorama of what was going on in the family.
Dixie Mountain, 20 miles northwest of Portland, Oregon, is depicted in this local history telling of the early homesteading, the logging industry in the area, the civic organizations that bound the community together, and the more recent success of strawberry and Christmas tree farming. Two of the grown children of Jorgen Nielsen (1821-1871) and Margrethe Pedersdatter (1823-1882) homesteaded in the community. Interesting anecdotes from their lives are part of the story.
C. Donald Nelson, known as Dr. Don, was a great-grandson of Danish immigrants Jorgen Nielsen (1821-1871) and Margrethe Pedersdatter (1823-1882) who immigrated from Denmark in 1853. At a young age, while growing up in the rural logging community of Dixie Mountain, Oregon, Don was challenged by the local minister to devote himself to full-time ministry. He set the ambitious goal of becoming a missionary doctor in the Belgian Congo. Here is the story of his childhood in Oregon, his ten years as a missionary doctor in the Congo, his subsequent medical work in Redding, California, and the founding of a hospital in Haiti. In an age when it is so easy to just observe events from the sidelines, it is a story of someone devoted to the Christian faith who believed he could make significantly positive contributions to life in this world.
Venturing Forth