Sophia Skoglund

Biography

Sophia Curtis was born in Älvsborg, Sweden on August 6, 1863. Her father died in 1865 and mother in 1871, leaving her to be a maid to care for herself. She gave birth to two children in Sweden, Carl Skoglund/Curtis on 17 August 1883 and Johan Emanuel Arronsson/Olsson on 31 August 1887. She joined the church there (date unknown) and Sophia emigrated from Sweden in 1889, bringing with her Carl and leaving Johan with his father, Aron Olsson (Carl’s father is unknown but may also be Aron Olsson according to someone on Family Tree). Aron Olsson and Sophia lived together under common law before her emigration.

After immigrating to Utah with Carl, Sophia settled in Vernal and then moved to Fort Duchesne in 1890, where she stayed for most of the rest of her life. She married Uriah Martin Curtis, described by the Vernal Express as a “bachelor whose case has long been considered hopeless,” on July 3, 1892. Uriah died on July 2 1894, just before the birth of his and Sophia’s son, Martin Romeo, on the 31st. Sophia never remarried, and raised her two sons in Fort Duchesne. To support her family she kept a hotel, the Garrison Hotel, for which there are numerous advertisements in the Vernal Express. In 1907 she purchased a ranch and saloon on a river with the intent to “conduct an eating house.” In 1908 she applied for a saloon license but was denied it, so she probably just kept the hotel, though there are many accounts of her legal disputes over land documented in the paper. Near the end of her life she lived with different people, but moved to Salt Lake in 1942. She died December 16, 1946 in the Utah State Hospital (where she had been for about 3 months) from Chronic Myocarditis as a result of “general debility” and is buried today in the Provo City Cemetery.