CHRISTENA BOLETTA ANDERSON ALLRED

Written by Elizabeth Elmira Allred Aiken

Our mother Stena Anderson Allred was one of ten children born to Jens Christian Anderson

and Margaret Christiansen.  Mother was the third child and was born February 18, 1854. 

She and her brothers and sisters were born in a time and under circumstances which demanded much of each of them, but they possessed the spirit and strength that was needed to meet the trials of their day.  Stena was a year old when her father and mother joined the LDS Church and only three when they left for “Zion” in April 1857.

They sailed eleven weeks and five days on the ocean, from there traveled to Philadelphia where they took a rail to Iowa City.  Here their family as provided with hand carts for their trek across the plains under the Captain Christian Christiansen Company. (Father of Margaret Christiansen Anderson?)  There were 330 in the company, 68 hand carts, 3 wagons, and 10 mules which were provided to carry the sick.  The company left Florence, Nebraska in July 1857.  Stena’s older brother Louritz Peter, who was eight years old, walked the entire distance to

Salt Lake City with the exception of a day and a half.  Stena was pulled in a handcart.  Stena’s mother Margaret was stricken with mountain fever and had to be taken ahead, leaving Stena’s grandmother (our great grandmother, Johanna Marie Christiansen) to care for Margaret’s family.  This included four children eight years and younger.  They arrived in the Great Salt Lake Basin September 13 of that same year.  Although Stena was very young when she made this journey and was a tiny framed person, she met her pioneer existence with faith and courage.

Stena’s father, Jens Christian Anderson, was often called by church authorities to move form one pioneer settlement to another; thus helping to settle this great western wilderness.  Stena was very young but she would go with her father to each new location to cook and keep house for him until preparations were made so the rest of the family might join them.  They eventually settled in Spring City.

As a very young girl, Stena learned how to sew, knit, weave, and cook as well as work at hard labor in the fields.  All of this was necessary to help their family earn a livelihood.  She often told how she gleaned wheat to trade for flour that sold for five dollars a sack.  She also did house hold work in other homes.  At one time she worked in the home of apostle Orson Hyde she lived in  Spring City, Utah.  In those days furniture wasn’t painted; cupboards, washstand, chairs, floors and etc. were scrubbed white with sand.  Because wh did this so well, Apostle Hyde commended mother for being a good worker.  She did her work so well she never once had to be corrected by her employer.

She married very young, just two months short of her seventeenth birthday.  Her young husband James Tilman Sanford Allred Jr. was the same age.  Both of them understood responsibility and had been brought up by parents who had taught them well the lesson of hard work.  They were married December 19, 1870.  Together with two other couples, they made their journey from Spring City to Salt Lake City (a distance of one hundred and nine miles) in that cold winter by wagon so they might receive the blessing of being married in the Endowment house.  They were married by Daniel H. Wells.  Mother said despite the conditions they had a wonderful time.

Stena and Tilman moved into one of the rooms in the home of Tilman’s father, James Tilman Sanford Allred.  They stayed only as long as it took them to build their own little log house.  This home consisted of two rooms; one large room 15 x 16 feet and a small slant roofed kitchen, not more than 12 feet wide.  In this small home their six oldest children were born.  The two younger children were born in a two story home built on the same lot.  It was in those homes that Stena spent seventy years of her life.

During their early married life they encountered many hardships.  For many years they lived in fear of Indians.  Chief Black Hawk and his warriors caused great threat to life and property to settlers during that time in Sanpete and Sevier counties.  The first one to spot Indians would race to the fort to ring a bell to call the settlers in where they would gather at the old meeting house.  It was necessary to keep a constant guard on alert for Indian attacks and Tilman stood guard many times lest the Indians would take everyone by surprise.

On August 11, 1902, father Tilman died in Mt. View, Canada where he had gone to see his son and our brother Q. who had moved his family there.  This left Stena with a young family to raise; she had all she could do to keep her family properly fed and clothed.  To her children she imparted a sense of industry, thrift and a dislike for waste of any kind.  She had very little and understood that nothing could be wasted this same sense of frugal care has been carried on by her family throughout their lives.

No one can ever recall seeing Stena sit idle.  (It was said of her that she would rather dig a hole and fill it up again than do nothing.) During her life there were very few conveniences.  In the winter season water had to be carried form a creek two blocks away.  Always she made her own soap, milked cows, and made cottage cheese and butter.  In her home she did all of her own sewing and taught her daughters to do likewise, besides making her own carpets, quilts, and rugs.  Very few could excel her skill with a needle.  Whatever she did she did well.  In those days few were laid away without her assisting in preparing some of the burial clothing.

Throughout her long and useful life of nearly ninety four years she never had three months of formal schooling; yet she was very good at spelling and arithmetic as well as receiving much joy from reading. Mother studied the scriptures continually and very often referred to them in her conversations.  Her two favorite topics were religion and politics.  For forty three years she did her duty as a Relief Society teacher, she was always punctual to church, and kept the Sabbath.  She was also a charter member of Canal Creek Daughters of the Utah Pioneers.

It is hard to think of any womanly virtue Stena did not possess.  She was always considerate of family, friends and neighbors.  She never took pleasure in repeating gossip about anyone.  Her most dominate trait was her self reliance and independence, often sacrificing her wants and needs for the pleasure of others.  If she had any faults they weren’t serious ones.

Above all she loved her parents, her brothers and sisters and she was always loyal to them.  Several of her nieces and nephews have said she was the best aunt they had.  She didn’t boast of her children’s achievements, but if they made right choices she always expressed her pleasure in them and showed her motherly pride.