Ida Kirstine Nielsen

Biography

Ida Kirstine Nielsen was born on January 13, 1855 in Hojbjerg, Denmark. She was the youngest of eight children, though only two or three of her siblings were living when she was born. When Ida was about four years old, in 1859, her family learned about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Her mother and older sisters became members, but her father did not approve. He took her brother and left them. In 1863, Ida left for Utah with her mother Johanne, and her two sisters, Wilhelmina and Marie. Marie's fate is unknown, but Ida, Wilhelmina, and Johanne settled in Provo, Utah.

In 1869, when she was only fourteen years old, Ida married Jens Knudsen, the same man her mother had married only four years earlier. She had her first child at sixteen and had five children, three sons and two daughters, with him. One son and one daughter died very young. Ida later divorced Jens when she was about twenty-five (around 1880) because she objected to him marrying another woman besides her and her mother.

In 1881, Ida married again, this time to Anders Rasmussen, another Danish immigrant. He was also much older than her. Ida had met him once when she was only five years old at a gathering of Saints in Denmark, where she played with his children, but when they reconnected more than twenty years later, Anders was a widower. They married in Salt Lake City and settled in Provo together. Ida had six children, two daughters and four sons, with Anders. At one point, after Anders had died in 1907, Ida moved to Pleasant Grove. She died there on March 27, 1938, at the age of eighty-three, and was buried in Provo.