Mary Ingrid Ahlstrom

Biography

Mary Ingrid Ahlstrom was born in Malmö, Sweden on January 26, 1838. She was the fourth of twelve children, but only she and five of her siblings lived to adulthood. In 1854, Mary and her family joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The next year, the family left their life in Sweden to join the other Saints in Utah. At the age of seventeen, Mary immigrated with her family to America. They traveled from Copenhagen to Kiel, Germany on the steamship Lyona in October 1855. Then, they took another steamship from Germany to England and a train to Liverpool, where they boarded the John J. Boyd. They left Liverpool on December 12 and didn't arrive in New York until February 15 of the next year. On the journey, their ship experienced storms, a fire, and a collision with another ship, but Mary, her parents, and her living siblings made the trip safely.
Once in the United States, they took the train to Burlington, Iowa, where they crossed the frozen Mississippi River on foot. However, they couldn't travel farther without more money, so the family stopped there while Mary's father, Ole Nilsson Ahlstrom, worked felling trees. He was killed in a logging accident on June 13, 1856, when Mary was only eighteen years old. Due to her father's death, Mary and her family stayed in Iowa for more than three years. In this time, Mary's mother Ingeborg remarried. Eventually, they joined the Warren Walling Wagon Company and journeyed from Florence, Nebraska to Salt Lake City, Utah, where they arrived on August 9, 1860.
Mary settled in Salt Lake City, where, on June 20, 1863 she married William Asper, a carpenter who helped build the Manti temple. They settled in Salt Lake city and eventually had seven children together, four daughters and three sons. One of their daughters and one of their sons died as infants, but three of her children outlived her. Her husband eventually married three more wives. He died in 1910, leaving Mary a widow. Mary lived the rest of her life in Salt Lake City. She passed away on November 29, 1914 at the age of 76 and was buried there.