Helge Knudsen
From NeilDocs
Janet Gardner, daughter of Ruth Stoker, daughter of Alvin David Stoker, son of David Stoker, Jr., son of Regina Hogan, daughter of Helge Knudsen
Helge Knudsen was born February 6, 1809, in Tinn, Telemark, Norway, the daughter of Knud Olsen and Helge Toresen . She married Erik Gautesen Midtboen Haugen on March 26, 1829, in Tinn. Five children were born to them in Norway before Erik determined to emigrate to the United States. They left Norway in 1837 (burying one child on the seas), settled for a time in Chicago (where another child died), then farmed for four years in Lasal County, Illinois (where another child was born), before moving to Lee County, Iowa, where in 1843 they joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and three more children were born. In 1844 they moved to Nauvoo, Illinois.
They were forced from Nauvoo on April 17, 1846, and went to Garden Grove (with another child, Helge's tenth, being born on the trail), where they stayed the winter. In 1847 Eric built a cabin at Plum Hollow, between Garden Grove and Council Bluffs, Iowa, "cleared 15 acres of land, and raised 700 bushels of corn. . . . This year they buried a third child, five year old Margaret." (Van Noy and others) In the fall, after the harvest, they moved with other Saints to Council Bluffs, where they stayed for the winter and another child was born.
On June 5, 1848, the Hogan family, consisting of Eric, Helge, and seven children, set out for Salt Lake City with the Brigham Young Company. Goudy, the oldest son, at 19, reported, "My father drove a pair of cattle on one wagon, my mother drove one horse on a small wagon, and I drove 3 pair on one wagon, 3 cows, 1 bull, and one pair of oxen. We also had 6 sheep, 6 chickens, and 1 pig."
They reached Salt Lake City on September 22 and immediately went to settle in South Bountiful, where Helge's last two children were born and another child died. Helge died February 21, 1884, at 75 years of age.
Sources:
Goudy Ericsen Hogan, Autobiography [1], 5.
Elsie H. Van Noy, granddaughter, and Ora Haven Barlow, great grandson, with information from Ardelle Hogan Mills, granddaughter, edited in 1997 by Janet Gardner Stoddard. "Biography of Eric Goudy Bidtboen Hogan and Helge Knudsen," undated typescript, seven pages, in the possession of Janet Gardner Stoddard.
