One Whale of a Story

Today at Church we had a couple of lessons on family history. I was asked to share a few thoughts during one of the classes. I told of how I had made efforts to learn more about my Danish ncestors. I read a book called "Homeward to Zion" that tells how Scandinavian converts to the LDS Church emigrated from Denmark to Utah during the latter half of the nineteenth century - - that is when my ancestors joined the Church and went to Utah. I told of having traveled to Denmark with my parents to visit the land of my ancestors, including a specific town where they had lived. I told of having used the LDS website www.familysearch.org to identify a microfilmed scrapbook that seemed likely to contain information about my ancestors. I ordered the microfilm at the Cambridge Family History Center, and took interest in a story from their passage across the Atlantic. One day a whale came along and started pushing against the side of the ship. This put the ship in danger of capsizing. All the passengers were told to shift to the opposite side of the ship, which evidently averted the sinking of the ship. Finally some on board dumped a bunch of potatoes on the whale and, for whatever reason, the whale left. It turned out that my family already had a hard copy of the scrapbook, but the first time I read the story was on microfilm in Cambridge, Massachusetts after learning of the record through a Church website. Supplement (entered by Greg Jones on November 26, 2005). The following is an excerpt from a document entitled "BRIEF HISTORY OF MARY ANDERSEN PETERSON." Mary Andersen was the fifth child of ten children born to HAN ANDERSEN and MAREN JENSEN on 22 June 1856, at Bredstrup, Odense, Den. Her father rented land which consisted of 70 acres of timberland, on the beautiful island of Fyen, and was quite prosperous . . . On March 13, 1861 Elder H. K. Brown had the pleasure of baptizing Hans and Maren into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Two years later they sold nearly all their possessions and their rights to rent the land on the island, and on April 18, 1863 left Denmark with their seven children, also paying the passage for some friends that did not have the means to travel. They left Liverpool on April 20, 1863 on the ship John J. Boyd in company with 755 Saints under the direction of William W. Cluff. They were five weeks on the water. Mary was seven years old and told the following incident: One day a whale came up to the vessel and raised its head up, leaning against the boat. The Captain ordered all the people to go to the opposite side of the vessel so it would not tip over, then ordered some of the men to bring buckets of potatoes, which they poured into the whale's mouth until finally it slid back into the water and went away.