I, Anna Jorgena Christina Madsen, was born the 18th day of May 1864, in the town of Veilby, Aarhus, Denmark. My parents were Christian Madsen and Rasmine Rasmussen Hoisgaard Madsen. My father was a miller by profession, and also a carpenter. My early childhood days were spent with my parents at a mill, in the town of Marstal, Denmark.

My parents had a large pond of water back of the mill, where there were always many ducks. Father being a miller, they always kept lots of ducks and chickens. One day my brother and I were standing b the edge of the pond watching the ducks play and swim about over the water, when suddenly, in some way I fell into the water. The screams and cries of my brother brought my mother and father there in time to save me, with enough life in me so that I was saved from death.

When I was a little girl between four and five years old, I went on a journey with my mother to visit my father’s people. We sailed in a ship. A storm arose at sea, and they stopped the ship for the night at a place called Korsor, Denmark. I remember we had a room at a hotel. The streets were paved with rock, and the traffic was very noisy, so we could not sleep at all that night. However, we went on our way in due time when the storm cleared and arrived at my grandfather, Mads Andersen’s place. While we were visiting there, my mother and her sister-in-law were walking in the orchard. I was playing around not far away, when I found some boards piled up, and I thought it great fun to run back and forth across the boards because they would tip and rap-clap when I stepped off and on them. Then, the first thing that happed I dropped or fell into a hole or space between the boards, when my mother looked and ran to me.  When she got there, she found that I was hanging there over a deep well, and she turned white and sick with fear and almost fainted. She rescued me with greatest thanks to her God again for my safety. My guardian angel was surely watching over me that day, also!

I don’t remember for sure what Church or denomination my parents belonged to, but I believe it was the Lutheran faith. Some time after the events I have already related, my parents bought a little place in another town where we lived for about two years. My father made a living by working as a carpenter, and also cabinetmaking. It was while we were living there that mother heard the message of the “Mormon” missionaries and joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In the early part of 1870, my parents moved to Venge (or Veng) Denmark, where my father rented a flour mill and continued in the milling business which was always his choice occupation. In this little town of Veng we lived for about three years. It was while we lived here that my father, slow to accept the Gospel, was converted, and when he did accept it, his conversion was deep. He was baptized at Veng, Denmark. My brother, Marius, and I were both baptized on the same day June 23, 1873, by a Mormon missionary named Christian Fischer Schade, and then it seemed my parents could not rest until they joined the other Saints in Zion, that is, emigrate to America, to Utah and dwell among the Saints there. We emigrated in 1873. Father was a man of great integrity, faithful to the end of his long life. He died June 1, 1904, at Huntsville, Utah. Mother was just as faithful, right by father’s side, and faithful to her death, on December 27, 1925.