Birgithe Jensen

Biography

Birgithe was born in Dronninglund, Hjørring, Denmark, in 1853 to Poul Martines Jensen and Mette Kjerstine Olsdatter, and emigrated with her parents and sister to the United States, leaving everything they had for the sake of the gospel when she was 13 years old. They sailed on the ship Kenilworth which departed from Hamburg, Germany, in May 1866 with 684 Scandinavian Saints on board, led by Samuel D. Sprague, and landed in New York on 17 July 1866. When they reached Omaha, Nebraska, they crossed the plains to Utah with the Andrew Scott Wagon Train and arrived in Salt Lake City on October 8th, 1866. She met her husband, James Ephraim Madsen, a fellow immigrant from Denmark (who had actually been on the same ship as she had but they did not meet until they had arrived to Utah) in Spanish Fork, and eventually moved to Salem, Utah, where she would live for the rest of her life. She had 8 sons and one daughter. She had only gone to school for one year in Denmark and did not have the chance to attend school in the United States. She was set apart as treasurer of the Relief Society in February 1844 and kept that calling for 27 years. She did a lot of sewing, making temples clothes and helped the sick in whatever way she could. She died in Salem on September 15th, 1932, at the age of 79.