Josephine Fritz is Steve's great-great grandmother, born in Lundberg, Litslene, Uppsala County, Sweden on February 18, 1849. She was the oldest of six children and lived on a small farm that was the source of their living.
Josephine's parents were Lutheran. In order to join the Lutheran church, she had to be able to read the catechism before the reverend minister, so her parents let her go to school to learn to read and write. They wanted her to learn just enough reading so that she could be confirmed a Lutheran, since women were not given a chance to become educated. So when her parents occasionally asked Josephine if she could read, she told them not very well because she was so anxious to learn all she could.
At the age of 28, Josephine joined the church on February 15, 1878. Here are her own words about this event:
"My mother said she would disown me when I joined the Church and thought I had turned crazy when I went to the priest for genealogy records, because I would not let the dead alone. The river was frozen over where I was baptized, a hole having been chopped in the ice the preceding evening. I had my first faith-promoting experience at that time. As I stood on the bank, I shuddered and thought, "I will surely take cold going in such cold water. But when I entered the icy water, I felt no cold, nor did I get a cold."
Josephine worked with a few other women in the home of a well-to-do professor in Stockholm. Because of the unpopularity of the church, she cleverly concealed her conversion from the women she worked with. Eventually they found out where she was going on her Sunday evenings off, and they were anxious to hear this new gospel from America that was led by prophets and apostles. When they heard the gospel, it rang true in the hearts and ears of these women.
Lovisa was one of these women, a good friend of Josephine's who was also baptized. Lovisa and Josephine wanted to come to America. They started to save their money, but they didn't have enough. They decided one of them would go and work, and then send for the other. So Lovisa loaned Josephine enough money that when combined with her own savings was enough to go to America.
Josephine left Sweden for America on June 8, 1883. The water was rough and the journey across the ocean took two weeks. She then traveled to Salt Lake on a railroad car, a rather miserable trip. She went to work doing laundry in Park City for almost two years. Each time she was paid, she sent money to her mother and Lovisa in Sweden. When Lovisa had been repaid, Josephina sent her enough extra money so that she too could come to America. They were lifelong friends.
Concerning her mother, Josephine said, "I sent money to my mother for years after coming to Amerca. She wrote and said she received almost $20 for every $5 I sent her. I was forgiven, but she never expected me to come back to Sweden."
Josephine met her husband, Carl Johan Larsen (Steve's great-great grandfather) at a Scandinavian meeting in her Ward in Salt Lake City. Carl was born July 13, 1844 in Copenhagen, Denmark. He immigrated from Denmark to America in 1880 after being baptized around 1865 by a brother Lundberg, a member of the 3rd Quorum of the Seventy. (The Autobiography of Anna Larsen Kolts)
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