Platine Plattina Gottfredsen

Platine Gottfredsen was born to Jens Lund Gotfredsen and Karen Marie Pedersen of Denmark. The family sailed the ocean from Denmark and to America where they joined the Christian Christiansen Company westward bound to the Salt Lake Valley.

While the company was in Nebraska, family history records: “When we had traveled a distance of about a hundred and twenty miles, to Loup Fork River we crossed over and camped on the west side in a cottonwood grove. The river was about a quarter of a mile wide at the ford, with a quicksand bottom. If we stopped in the river the handcarts began to sink and were hard to get loose. That night Karen Gottfredson gave premature birth to a girl baby. The baby was blessed and named Platine [Gottfredson], for the Platte River of which the Loup Fork is a tributary. The baby died and was buried there.”

Platine is buried by Genoa, Nebraska.

Karen wrote in her journal: “I was married [to Jens Gottfredson] in St. Louis, August 12, 1856. I went to Omaha in 1857, then we took our journey on the Plains in the handcart Company. Went 125 miles, then I took sick and had a baby girl on July 17th [Platine Plattina Gottfredsen 17 July 1857-20 July 1857, Loup Fork River, Nebraska]. Stayed there until November, then we went back to Omaha 'till spring.”