Maria Magdalena Lind

Biography

Maria Magdalena Lind was born on October 20, 1851 in Noresundby, Denmark. She was the third of eleven children and the first to live more than a year. Her parents had joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints about the time Maria was born, and the family wanted to move to Utah to join other saints in Zion. However, because they financially supported Maria's aunts and their families in the move to Utah, the Lind family couldn't make the trip until 1868.

Maria was the first in her family to go, and she made the journey in 1867 at the age of fifteen. She traveled with her best friend, Pauline Kerstine Poulsen, and a group of other members who funded their travel independently. Her group was the first to cross the Atlantic by steamship, traveling in the ship Manhattan. They arrived in New York on July 4, and then made the journey to Wyoming. Then, Maria and Pauline traveled to Utah by wagon with the Leonard G. Rice company.

During the fifty-four day walk to Utah, they met James Fall Freestone, a man sent to escort the Saints by the church. He married Pauline shortly after she arrived in Utah. However, a little more than a year later, James was called to take a second wife by the church. Pauline told him she agreed only if it was her friend Maria. Maria married James Fall Freestone on April 12, 1869. They had twelve children together, seven sons and five daughters. Only six of their children lived to adulthood.

The family settled first in Alpine, Utah, before James moved them all to Arizona to farm in 1883. They settled first in Juniper before moving to Safford, Graham, Arizona around 1887. Around 1893, Maria lived briefly in Ogden, where her last daughter was born and died, but by 1895, she was back in Safford. In 1901, she briefly moved to Mexico to avoid persecution before settling back in Safford. Maria continued to be friends with Pauline even after the death of their husband in 1917. She lived in Safford for the rest of her life, where she passed away on March 4, 1933, at the age of eighty-one.