Anna Sophia Soderborg

Anna Sophia Soderborg
By daughter Viola Hunt

Mother was the eldest of the family and was married just a short while before grandpa [Andreas] passed away.

I remember mother telling me about when Father courted her. Grandpa Andreas was a very strict and a religious man. The first time Father saw Mother she was throwing out dish water. The next time Father saw Mother she was upon Ensign Peak at a 4th of July celebration. He fell in love at first sight. By, when he told friends about it who knew Grandpa Andreas, they discouraged him very much telling him that Grandpa was so stern and straight laced he would never have a chance to win his daughter. My Dad, Arthur Hunt, kept up his courage and finally became a good friend to Andreas. He was allowed to come and visit my mother.

When Andreas came to see Annie, Grandpa Andreas would sit in the parlor all the time with them. He was a very studios man and he would read. But, around 10 o’clock when Grandpa Andreas closed the book, my dad knew it was time to go. Father said he almost had faint heart when he thought about asking Grandpa for his daughter, Annie’s hand. But, when he finally got up the courage, Andreas told him yes.

He said he would give them the best wedding he could afford. In those days they celebrated all night at the weddings. So they made a regular feast and they danced all night and everyone enjoyed themselves.

Annie, being the oldest girl of the family when her father passed away, Augusta missed her terribly. Grandma Augusta had a home of her own built on a large piece of ground, so she had Arthur build right next to her home. We were next door neighbors also.

We lived there until a while after Grandma Augusta passed away in 1919. So I remember her and our lives together as far back as childhood memories can recall.

For a while until I was 13 years old, I had a Great Grandma Anna Brita Eriksson Johansson. She lived down in Forest Dale at 21st South with Great Aunt Minnie Nordberg, her 2nd daughter. How I recall our visits down there to see her. In those days I thought Forest Dale was a long distance to go. When we would get up early and were busy getting ready and helping the younger ones. My mother, Annie, had eight children so we had a lot to accomplish. We would start early and make a day of it at Great Grandmother’s. My Great Grandmother Anna Brita was a very good cook and we would enjoy the nicest lunches and dinners. They had a big home, Nordberg having become well fixed in the sheep business in Utah. He had two wives in polygamy and big families with each wife. They were well provided for and lived in harmony. We looked forward to those visits and then they would come to see us. I often marvel at how they had large families yet found time to visit and really enjoy each other’s company. My Great Grandma Anna Brita passed away just before we had five generations in our family.

My mother, Annie Soderborg Hunt, followed in her mother, Augusta’s footsteps. She was a Relief Society member and worker. In those days they would get calls day and night to go to the sick and help them. Also in those days when people passed away they were mostly kept in the homes until the day of the funeral. The Relief Society sisters would go to wash and dress bodies as well as take turns sitting up at nights until the day of the funeral. They also assisted the families of the deceased in anything they could do to help them. The canned goods and anything the people would like to give, some even gave money. They also made quilts, as well as sewed for the poor and needy. So a Relief Society worker with a family never knew what it was to be idle.

Mother also followed in Grandmother’s footsteps, being a Relief Society member and worker. I often think of the quilting bees my Mother used to have with a little social included and everyone really enjoyed them. Grandmother Augusta and Mother were always doing something to help someone besides their own families, assisting with the sick, widows, elderly people or anyone in trouble. How unselfish they were and they were very rich in friends.

Grandmother was only 16 when she had my mother. Annie, and Mother always called her “Little Mama.” They seemed more like sisters than mother and daughter. Grandma [Augusta] and Grandpa [Andreas Pontus] talked Swedish as well as English. Mother learned to speak Swedish before she learned to speak English. But they lost all their Swedish accent and spoke real good English. When they wanted to say something they didn’t want us children to understand, they would speak Swedish. How aggravated us children got some times. One day my cousins were there and they were talking away in Swedish. Finally, one of them cousins, about five years old, got disgusted with them and looked up at Grandma Augusta and said, “Oh grandma, why don’t you talk decent.”

I remember when we were quite young as had to go outside to get water. We kids would complain at times so one day mother told about one place they lived when she was young. It was upon the bench (Avenues) they called it then. Mother said they had to walk one mile to get drinking water. She said it was quite wild up there. Sometimes they would see snakes and how frightened they would get.

Grandmother Augusta and mother made their own soap and made clothes over from one child to another. They raised chickens. They lived happy lives, always busy. They certainly lived full lives.

Mother went to school in her day in the one room school house. She said it really was hard to get books at times. She couldn’t go on to school until she would have finished because she had to stay home and help her mother, Augusta, with the children and work.

But mother loved to read. When her family was raised, mother sat up nights and studied and read. We children were always asking her the meaning of words instead of getting a dictionary.

Grandmother Augusta’s youngest daughter, Mabel, married and had two daughters, Helen and Evelyn, after which she had a bad fall and become an invalid. That was Aunt Mabel.

We children used to feel sorry for her having to just sit all the time. But she was always cheerful and good company. There cannot be enough said about all those pioneers. They had such faith and courage. They were hard workers.

I will never forget the picnics went on. Winter and summer nights we could have such good times at home.

Mother, after raising her family of eight children, but lost two quite young and she practically raised two cousins of ours. Then my oldest sister passed away leaving two sons, Alfred Lowell Andersen Glad; William Melvin Glad. Mother raised them til their father remarried.

Mother was a big strong woman, always seeming to have such good health until she had a bad fall. After this, she got cancer in the breast. She had a major operation and we thought she had recovered, but she got worse again. She went back East to a cancer clinic to see if they could do anything for her but they told her “no.” She still kept up her courage and took electric treatment but nothing helped her. She passed away at age 56 years on March 15, 1924.

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One Response to Anna Sophia Soderborg

  1. Jean Soderborg Naisbitt says:

    I LOVE this site, especially the written histories. Since Lloyd was my dad, does this mean I’m an intruder? I look forward to more histories if you have any. 🙂

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