83
After arriving in Huntsville, Anders
built a dugout home on the town lot he
had obtained in the community. Anders
made a stove from sheet iron which
helped to make the home more comfort-
able; however, there were seven people
living in a dugout home that was roughly
12 feet by 14 feet. At bedtime everyone
Anders Pehrson Lofgreen
would spread out their ticks or mat-
tresses, stuffed with corn husks, and
their quilts for covers. There was no pri-
vacy in this situation which must have
been hard for Pehr [Peter], who had just
married his bride, Johanna Sandberg.
In order to feel as if they had some
independence, Johanna did her own
cooking for her husband after Kjersti had
prepared the meal for the others in the
home.
Stories of Conversion and Faith
Winters in Huntsville could be diffi-
cult and that first winter the snow was so
deep that they sometimes had to burrow
a tunnel out the door. Once when the
team of horses got away, it ran right over
the top of the house without knowing it
because the snow was piled up level to
the roof.
Spring finally came and that first year
Anders finished a frame house with real
pine shingles that didn't leak. Anders also
traded his horses and harness for 20
acres of land in the north field. Then he
asked a man, who owed his wife for some
weaving she had done, if he would plow
the field to pay off the debt. The man
agreed and Anders was able to get his
field planted.
Life was not easy for these pioneers
as they had to struggle with repeated late
frosts which damaged the crops, and
grasshoppers which ate the crops. In ad-
dition to that there was the difficulty of a
short growing season due to the eleva-
tion of the town. Huntsville is at about
5,000 feet.
Education was obviously important
to Anders because in the summer of 1867
he worked on the new stone schoolhouse
where his two youngest children were
students. This schoolhouse was to re-
place the log schoolhouse the town had
outgrown. In his journal he wrote that he
"made 100 dollars which I donated to the
school."
In the 1880 census for Weber County,
his occupation was listed as "stone ma-
son." That same year of 1867 Anders and
Kjersti went to the endowment house in
Salt Lake City to receive their endow-
ments and be sealed. He described a
strange experience he and Kjersti had as
they rode through the canyon to Salt