Mary Caroline Sorensen Hill ~ Index
Mary Caroline Sorensen was born June 25th, 1842, in Haverup, Søro, Sjælland, Denmark. As converts to the restored gospel, her family would not remain in Denmark. Her father (Nicolai Sorensen) was a farmer and also a wheel-wright by trade. His farm of sixty acres was worked by hired help. In the shop all kinds of implements and wagons were repaired. Sometimes they made new wagons, sleds and even coffins when it was necessary. Grandmother had a very beautiful memory of her home in Denmark; of its snowy white cleanliness inside and out.
A story is told of her father who at first was very bitter toward the Mormons. One day while he was very busy white washing the walls of his shop, a Mormon Elder called and her father just very accidentally spilled a bucket of the white wash all over the Elder, with the thought in mind that he would not want to call again. What a different story would be written had that Elder not believed in the old adage, Try, Try, Again.
The farm had beautiful well-kept orchards with everything in order and all the work on the farm was done in the same orderly way.
Grandmother had a very good education because Denmark has always ranked high in that respect. Her parents also taught her to work on the farm and in the home. In 1856 the family joined the church, sold the home and decided to come to Utah, but they were unable to make the journey until 1857. During that year they lived in her father's workshop.
Answering the call to gather in Zion, her family set sail from Copenhagen on 18 April 1857, on the L.N. Hvidt, to Grimsby, England, a three day journey. They left Liverpool, England, on the sailing ship, Westmoreland, on 25 April 1857. In the sailing registry, she was listed as Karen Maria Sørensen, fourteen years of age. In an early family record, her father referred to her as "Maria." She was later known as Mary Caroline after her emigration.
This faithful family left most of their worldly possessions, friends and relatives, for their new home in Zion. While crossing the ocean a terrible storm came up, but through the prayers and faith of the Saints on board, the storm was calmed. The Captain of the ship was very grateful to the Saints for the blessing they had been instrumental in bringing to him.
Grandmother walked most of the way across the plains. Her family traveling with a handcart company most of the way. When they crossed the rivers, grandmother said it was great sport to hang on the backs of the wagons dangling their feet in the water. They arrived in the fall and spent the first winter in Salt Lake Valley on a rented farm at Mill Creek, Utah. They were hardly more than settled when orders came to "Move South" because Johnston's Army was on the way. They moved to Pond Town (now Salem) near Spanish Fork. When all the danger was over they came back again to Mill Creek.
Grandmother was a very proud young girl. When the children taunted her because she spoke such broken English, she refused to go to school any longer and decided to go out to work. She found employment in the home of Alexander Hill. Here grandmother seemed to fit in just fine. In the evenings after her work was done, she taught arithmetic to their third son, William and he in turn taught her to speak English. This reopened into a beautiful romance and on 1 January 1860, grandmother was married to William Hood Hill. She had no shoes to be married in, so she wore a pair of her future husband's shoes.
A story is told of grandmother before her marriage. A crowd of young folks wanted her to go to a party, but she said, "I have no shoes." "All right," they said, "We'll all go barefoot to the dance" and they did. In the early spring, grandfather took his bride to Mendon, in Cache Valley to live. Two years later, they moved back to Mill Creek.
When the Black Hawk war broke out in 1866, grandfather left grandmother alone with her three babies to care for. While she was milking the cows one night, an Indian came and frightened the children. Grandmother very bravely shared her bread with him, and she thought he was gone, but he came back again shortly after with a fine horse and said he would like to trade it for grandmother, "Because she was a heap good squaw."
Grandmother did all the hair cutting and suit making for a family of nine sons, and each Saturday hitched her own horses and went to town with her butter that never failed to find a market because of its quality. With the money she bought her groceries and what other things were needed for the home.
Grandmother says she went to sleep each night for ten years on grandfather's arm. Then on 4 February 1870, she was asked to share her home with Elizabeth Ann Hamilton. They lived together in the same home for many years. Fifteen children were born to grandmother and Aunt Lizzie in that time. Then came the crusade against plural marriage and it was necessary for grandfather to find another place for Aunt Lizzie to live. During that time President John Taylor came to the Hill home to hide and when he left he gave the home a blessing in which he promised that it would always be a haven of rest to the weary and a refuge to all. So neat was grandmother that she could go to her drawers at any time and find just what she wanted.
She had laughing black eyes and a quiet personality commanding respect. She was very proud and staunch for what she believed was right. She was a great lover of flowers and her garden was a paradise for those who loved them. All though the seasons one found perfect color harmony in grandmother's garden and some of the very first peonies in Utah were grown by her. She not only helped to send her husband on a mission, but five of her nine sons as well. She worked in the Primary and Relief Society for many years as well.
She died 20 January 1928, at the home in Mill Creek, where she had lived all but two of her married life. Whatever grandmother did she did very well, never doing anything by halves. May she ever be a shining example to her posterity and ever lead them to seek the finest and best life has to offer, just as she always did.
Mary Caroline S. Hill
My grandmother, Mary Caroline Sorensen Hill, was a teenager when she walked across the plains with her parents, settling first in Salt Lake City and then in Cache Valley, Utah. She was of Scandinavian descent and was born 25 June 1842 at Haverup, Pedersborg, Soro, Denmark. Like Grandpa, she was also from a large family, having ten brothers and sisters. Her parents, Nicolai and Magdalena Olsen Sorensen, were converts to Mormonism in Denmark and emigrated to Utah in 1857.
Grandpa and Grandma Hill met in Salt Lake City and fell in love. They were married there on 1 January 1860 and were sealed for time and eternity, according to ordinances of the L.D.S. Church, in the Salt Lake Endowment House on 1 March 1860. They moved to Cache Valley, shortly after their marriage where they lived for the first few years of their married life, then they moved to Mill Creek where they remained until their respective deaths in 1907 and 1928.
Quoting from the Hill Family History: January 1st, 1860, Wm. H. Hill married Mary C. Sorensen, daughter of Nicholas and Melinda Sorensen, who came from Denmark in the year 1857. In the spring of 1860, Wm. H. Hill and his wife went to Mendon to help colonize Cache Valley ~ William H. Hill and family lived at Mendon for a couple of years only, and returned to Mill Creek in the fall of 1862.
Grandpa and grandma were quite poor when they were first married, living in a dugout for a time, but Grandpa was able to obtain land in Mill Creek under the Homestead Act and soon began to prosper as a farmer and rancher. He also purchased several acres of land from his brother-in-law, Hugh Park, which adjoined him to the north, enabling him to enlarge his holdings. Hugh had obtained his land through the Homestead Act also, and he owned all of the land between 3rd and 5th East from 39th South on the north to Mill Creek on the south. James Gordon, another neighbor, owned most of the land south and west of Grandpa's farm. At one time, James Gordon, Hugh Park, and Grandpa Hill, owned all of the land between 39th and 45th South extending from 7th East to State Street. Some of the Gordon property, including the original home, remained intact until the 1960's when it was purchased by a local builder and developed as a subdivision.
Sons and Daughters
Grandpa and Grandma Hill had nine sons and two daughters; Joseph Alexander, born 12 December 1860 at Mendon, Cache County, Utah; Emeline Malena, born 27 August 1862 at Mendon who died in infancy on 21 December 1862; William Nicolai, born 23 June 1865 at Mill Creek, Salt Lake County; Moroni Nephi, born 26 February 1866 at Mill Creek; Abraham Mormon, born 22 March 1868 at Mill Creek; Edgar Eugene, born 17 February 1870 at Mill Creek; John Hyrum, born 10 February 1872 at Mill Creek; Mary Caroline, born 21 March 1874 at Mill Creek; Franklin Isaac, born 30 October 1876 at Mill Creek; Jacob Frederick, born 28 October 1879 at Mill Creek; and Guy Henry, born 31 May 1882 at Mill Creek.
With the exception of Emeline Malena who died in infancy, and Guy Henry who died a young man in 1902, all of the children married and had offspring. Grandma made suits by hand for her husband and all of those nine boys and she also cut their hair. Of course she also sewed her own dresses and those for her daughter.
Grandpa Hill, with his love for the Gospel, his sense of fairness, his love of animals and nature; and Grandma, with her good cooking, her flower gardens and her strict habits, were good teachers of their children and good examples to their neighbors. They taught their children how to work and provide for themselves and their home was almost heaven on earth in those pioneering days. Grandpa and Grandma worked hard clearing sagebrush from the land, building a home, planting and cultivating crops, raising farm animals and also raising a large family. Their first home in Mill Creek was built of logs and adobe, but they later improved and expanded it using wood and masonry construction.
Their several sons became good farmers and builders from the experienced they had with their parents and all of them were a credit to society. The family loved trees and flowers and went to the canyons often, where they obtained pine trees and shrubs to plant. They also cultivated flower gardens and planted lawns to make their surroundings more beautiful and comfortable. Their home was one of the first in Salt Lake County to have concrete sidewalks, some of which are still in use.
In the 1880's, as his sons were gaining manhood, Grandpa Hill got into the sheep business and became successful in that venture. His rangeland was in southwestern Wyoming and he and his boys spent many long hours on horseback and in wagons as they worked the operation and as they traveled between the ranch at Big Piney and the farm in Mill Creek.
Notes…
Hill Family History, by Dr. Daniel B. Hill Richards Privately Printed in Salt Lake City, Utah, 1926, page 112.