Verona Lina Levin

https://familysearch.org/tree/#view=ancestor&person=KVG6-BZ9&section=details

Verona Lina Levin was born in Denmark in 1877.  She was the second child and oldest daughter of Caroline Emille Frisch.  Her father was Hirsch Levin, a Jewish man who immigrated to Denmark from Germany because of persecution.  Hirsch was married to Betty Wagner, and there is no evidence that he married Caroline even though she had at least 4 children by him.

In 1885, when Verona was about 8 years old, her mother died, shortly after giving birth to her fourth child.  Verona and her siblings, having no family members to care for them, were then placed in foster care.  Danish foster care in those days was like indentured servitude.  Somehow Verona survived and at the age of 22 married Charles Johan Jensen.

They lived in various houses in and around Copenhagen.  Records show that Verona was baptised a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1896, at the age of 18.  In 1910, Verona, her husband, and their children immigrated to the United States and settled in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Her mother in-law, Cecilia Wessman Jensen appears to be the person providing means for the family to move to Utah.

She had 13 children, seven of which died in infancy.  Her 12th child and youngest daughter is my Grandmother, Olivia Wessman Jensen Edwards.  She died before I was born, so I never knew her.

Hers is a remarkable story - how she was born in poverty in Denmark but ended up with a large posterity as a US Citizen in Utah.