Emma O Tietjen

Emma Olava Erickson Tietjen From Gary Tietjen, Ernst Albert Tietjen: Missionary and Colonizer (Bountiful, Utah: Family History Publishers, 1992), 279–84 Sam Young described Ernest Tietjen as “a large heavy-boned German who was as strong as a prize fighting bull, standing six feet and four inches tall and weighing two hundred pounds.” His two wives, Emma O. and Emma C., cousins from Oslo, Norway, were just over five feet tall, so they must have made an amusing sight as he towered over them. Emmaline Burgon wrote that “Ernest was a strict Latter Day Saint and also a man of integrity. His word was his bond.” We have seen how strict Ernest was about gambling: he dropped one sweetheart on the spot when he found her playing cards with some other young people. Another part of being a “strict” member of the Church was keeping the Word of Wisdom, a revelation forbidding the use of alcohol, tobacco, tea and coffee. (It also encourages the use of grain and fruit and discourages the use of meat). In the earliest pioneering days, survival took precedence and the revelation was neglected, but in the 1880’s it received new emphasis. As Bishop in Ramah, Ernest said that “the Priesthood were trying to stir the people up to … live up to certain laws, viz., the Word of Wisdom … he said he had done that with the exception of drinking a few cups of coffee, but wherein he had lacked, he wanted to do better.” Thereafter, he was stricter and said “he could not give a Temple recommend to those not obeying the Word of Wisdom.” His wife, Emma O., had a difficult time with this commandment as related in an account given to Lorena Tietjen in 1915: “I had always loved coffee and had used it all my life (thow my husband nor children did not use it, onely me). It seamed that among my many trials it surely would not be expected of me to give up my coffee. As goodness onely knows, I needed a little something to wash down what little we had to eat. So I kept on drinking my coffee day after day, and justifying myself in so doing. Thow my husband tryed to show me that if I wanted the blessings of God I must obey his commandments. “While the children were outside playing, my daughter Lydia got her hand cut crosswise. The sore did not seam to heal, but seamed to get worse, causing a large lump to swell up under her arm. Blood poison set in and it looked as thow Lydia would die. I prayed that the Lord would spare her life. I felt as though this sickness was caused on account of my failing to keep the Word of Wisdom and I felt very sad and humble. That night as I dozed in my chair watching over Lydia, it seamed that my guardian angel came for me. He bade me follow him. We came to a building. On the right [the] stairway was bright and butifull and on the left it seamed dark and gloomy. I told my guardian angel that I did not want to go up those dark stairs, but he bade me follow. I seen many faces I had known and seen before. They all seamed so sad and haggard looking. When I passed up the stairs, they all made a grab for my skirts. I gathered my skirts about me as closely as I could, for surely I did not want one of them to touch me. I begged my guarding angel to take me back. But he replied, ‘Here is where the people go who cannot quit drinking coffee.’ I begged him to let me return and that I would never drink coffee again. It has been over fourtey years since this dream, but I have never tasted coffee since. To some this is only a dream, but to me it was a warning from our Heavenly Father to help me to learn that the Word of Wisdom is a commandment from God and if we, his children, live it we will not have to pass through the misuery I felt in my dream.” Attendance at Church meetings also became a problem for Emma O. Ernest recalled in his journal that “While in Savoia Canyon just above Ramah, N.M., it seemed that she could not but help murmur at her lot, as when [we] lived in Santaquin, Utah, [we] were fairle well off in a financial way, but here [we] were poor as a Church mouse. She gradually thought this over and over in her mind and felt sorry for herself and the kind of a life she had to live away from her friends and every comfort of life. At last she stopped going to Sunday School, also Sacrament meetings. “While all of the others went to church at Ramah, she would buisey herself about the house. Sometimes she churned, sometimes she scrubed the floors, or washed out a few pieces for the baby. As some of the neighbors would pass on their way to church they would call, ‘Good Morning, Sister Tietjen. Are you going to church this morning?’ (She was loved by all her neighbors). ‘Not this morning’, she would reply. One Sunday morning after she had finished her work, [and] did her churning, she spent the day as best she could for the folk were gone all day. That night after retiring, she had a dream. I will relate it to you as she told it to me, her husband: “I dreamed I was out churning. I had my skirts turned up so as not to splash cream on them as the churn was an old fashion one with a dish and lid. My neighbor who was a good church tender came in and said, ‘Sister Tietjen, I came for you to go to church with me this morning.’ I refused as I usely did, but she spoke up and said, ‘The time has come when you must go whether you want to or not. You have no choice to make now.’ I wanted to go in and clean up as I knew my hair was all bushie. ‘All there’s time for will be to unpin your skirts and drop them down to there proper place.’ “I was taken to church where it seamed they was serving a large banquet. The tables were in long rows down the room with butifull white tabel cloths on. The silverware and cut class … shown so that I could see my bushie hair in them. And what was worst of all, there were large merrows all around the room so everywhere I looked I could see my bushie uncombed hair and cream-spoted dress and shoes. I tried to get away, but there was no way of getting out. I met lots of my old friends and was introduced to lots of new ones. Words cannot express how I felt to be so dirty. Finely in my embarishment and shame I awoke. My how thankfull I was to find it was onely a dream. I crowled out of bed and knelt down and thanked my Father in heaven for his kindness in sending me this dream as a warning so that I might not be taken home to him when I was so ill prepared as I dreamed I was, and after this dream I always tried to do my best in going to church and being kind to my friends and neighbors.” Emma O. never forgot the beauty of her native land. Ina Elkins remembered her stories about the goats she herded on the hillsides and milked. She tended to all the milk in the house and made the best cheese. But, Ina said, she stepped over the line when she made some beer from the hops in her garden: “Grandfather stopped that!” Emmaline Burgon remembered that “They were pioneers in western New Mexico. This was hard on [Emma O.] because she had been raised in green, beautiful Norway and longed for it many times. Life was so different here in the red sand hills of New Mexico. But they had the gospel and knew it to be true.” Les George remembered her stories about the Witch on the hillside knitting with the golden needles and singing to call the cattle into her cave, then she would sing the witch’s song. She told her grandchildren about the tiny little men called Nissin that were thought to live in the barns (and sometimes the houses) of the Norwegian people. The Nissin made life miserable for the common people with their constant mischief, and many misfortunes were blamed on them. One man decided to move away just to escape his Nissin. When he got a few miles away, he looked back and there, jumping up and down on top of his load, was the Nissin. Les remembered that Emma’s own “family was plagued by so many Nissins, [they] could not function well. The decision was made to move—in all secrecy. Everything was loaded onto the wagon when Emma, a little girl of eight or nine, was sent back into the house to get the broom. It stood on end behind the door, and as Emma touched it, a Nissin popped its head out of the bristles and said, ‘So I see we are moving today!’” Emma O. had a sense of humor. Another story she told Les was that her “family was really bothered by a large potbellied ‘Teeklan’ who came in at Christmas time and stayed as an unwelcome family member but would not talk. After days of this, the family members asked around for ideas to make him speak. Several things were tried, but nothing worked. Finally another neighbor suggested boiling eggshells in water. This the mother did, and the Teeklan rolled out from under the table and said: ‘I’m as old as the hills, but I have never before seen egg shells boiled in water!’” Les also told about Emma O. being bothered by an old one-eyed tomcat. She called upon him and Whitney Chapman to get rid of it for her and told them she would pay them 10 cents each. “Whit had an old rusty 22 rifle minus a stock. We set out cat hunting and Whit’s shot spooked the cat, who ran away. We went back to Grandmother with the concocted story that the cat was dead and we had even buried him for her. She paid us. A few days later Grandmother called us in and said: ‘Boys, you know that cat you buried? He came back!’ We felt small, but she had a twinkle in her eye.” Allen Nielson remembered Emma O. as “a very tolerant grandmother [who] permitted her grandchildren full access to the house.” We have seen how Ernestine’s children loved her bread and how Lydia’s children loved her fried bread. No doubt they took lessons from their mother, Emma O., for Allen wrote that “Once or twice I got in on some of her home baked bread. This bread was made by the ‘sourdough’ method. It had a very different flavor which really made the saliva run when one had some butter on the hot bread. I often wished my mother would make some bread like she did, but it took too much time. At times we sneaked upstairs to get a smell of the Limburger Cheese she brewed. Her grandsons made fun of the stuff because it smelled so awful. A little of this cheese went a long ways.”