Eva Charlotta Andersson

Biography

When Eva Charlotta was young her brother August was drafted into the Swedish military. She and her sister Johanna took up house cleaning to make money for the family. Because of the burden of providing for a family, Johanna and Eva promised one another they would never marry, a promise her sister Johanna kept. While working as a washer Eva encountered missionaries and was baptized on March 30, 1881. The missionary who baptized her, Charles Anderson, paid for her immigration with the promise of working as a housekeeping in his home. She kept a thorough journal throughout her travels including comments about Ogden, "No one can imagine this land before we see it. It is awe inspiring." In 1884 she arrived in  Grantsville, Utah and married William Bjork, a prominent businessman, as his second wife. The family moved to Orem, then called Provo Bench, where they took residence at the corner of modern-day 1600 North and State Street.

During this time in Orem, Eva gave birth to two little boys in 1891 and 1899 respectively who died in infancy. Because of her illegitimate status as a plural wife, Eva did not have access to a cemetery and buried her children in unmarked graves outside the family barn. Two daughters survived to adulthood, Beatrice and Sophia Vilma, and recorded that Eva "was a woman who lived her religion and did all she could in the temple for her relatives." She died in December of 1901 after seventeen years in America.