Amalie Frederiksen

Amalie Frederiksen is the daughter of Rasmus Fredericksen Danklov and Ehm Bendtsdatter both of Denmark. Rasmus and Ehm immigrated to America on the ship Kenilworth. After arriving they traveled to Nebraska and joined the Peter Nebeker Company to trek west to the Great Salt Lake Valley.

Before leaving Nebraska, Ehm gave birth on August 4 to their first child, a daughter named Amalie. On August 8, the company left Nebraska for the journey across the Mormon Trail. Disease, injury, lack of food and medicine, prematurity, and weather were some of the greatest threats to pioneers. Amalie lived only two weeks and died on August 20. She is buried in Nebraska along the Mormon Trail West.

The company journal recorded: “Two men and myself were called to dig the grave. We dug a grave a few feet deep and the water raised in the grave so fast we had to stop. The children were wrapped in a sheet and buried together, this being as sad a scene as I ever remember of seeing.”