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Note: [Van Jensen.FTW]
ISAAC H. JENSEN
Isaac H. Jensen was born July 24, 1890, on his father's 37th birthday. Born in Chesterfield, Bannock County, Idaho, a son of Denmark and Lucina Johnson Jensen. He was the eighth child of a family of eleven. His father was working with the sawmill business in Gentile Valley in Turner's Canyon at the time of his birth.
The family made several moves during Isaac's growing up years. He lived in Chesterfield and Mike Creek, Idaho. His schooling was received in a one room school house at Lower Mink Creek, later named Glenco, and in Preston, Idaho.
In 1901 at the age of eleven, he lost his beloved mother. She was buried Oct. 10th. In June the following summer, Ike was bringing horses from the pasture, his pony fell and his foot was caught in the stirrup, this frightened the horse and he ran dragging and kicking with every jump. He ran for a half a mile before he stopped. Ike was badly hurt, but no bones were broken.
On December 3, 1902 his father married Lydia Rasmussen Keller. The children called her Aunt Lydia. By 1903 the family was living in Mink Creek and made their living through farming. The children labored long hours in the fields. Most mornings started at five o'clock. Ike and his sister Lola were very close and she preferred going into the fields rather than to stay in the home doing housework. Ike's father had built his family a large brick home, a very beautiful home in those days.
On November 8, 1904 his father was elected to the State Legislature. On January 2, 1905 Isaac was elected as a page boy in the House of Representatives with his father. Their work was in the Capitol building in Boise, Idaho. He attended Oneida Stake Academy after the eight grade, which would be the equivalent to our High School today. This was in Preston, Idaho.
Ike's sister Alien Neville relates that she understood that Ike's lip was cut when he put a dynamite cap under a can and lit a string to it. When it exploded it burned his face and cut the cord under his lip. He did seem to get into trouble because of his curious nature, always trying to find out why and how things worked. Another time Ike had bought a colt to ride. This pony was his pride and job. Alien remembers watching him curry this pretty hose for hours. It was tan color and really beautiful. Early one morning his father called him from the bottom of the stairs saying, "Ike, your pony is all tangled up in the ropes and is choking to death." She relates how he came running down the stairs pulling his pants on and at the same time trying to open the pocket knife he had in one hand. It would have been funny if we hadn't all been so excited. Just as Ike reached the barn his father called out, "April Fool." Ike was so glad that nothing had happened that he didn't get mad. We all had a good laugh.
Ike's father had part of his ranch up on the hill, on the other side of the valley and we had to cross Mike Creek to get up there. One day as Ike was riding his horse to these wheat fields, the creek was at flooding stage, his horse lost it's footing and fell in the swift current. It was so Ike could have saved himself easily, but he wouldn't leave the horse and they were both nearly drowned. Somehow he was able to help the horse get out. Ike's father talked to him about the horses life not being nearly as important as his own life. Ike's reply was 'I couldn't leave him, I had to save him...' I think his father was very proud of his young son at that time.
When Ike was 19 years old the family moved to Brigham City, Utah. He was not too happy there, so he returned to Idaho to live with older brother Jarvis D. who was farming. He worked for him and another brother Chris. It was during this time that his sister-in-law Emma had a sister come and stay with her and helped her. Her name was Ester Call. She sent for her daughter to come from Afton, Wyoming to help out also. Ike met the train and therefore became acquainted with Martha Call, who later became his companion.
The summer of 1912 was spent on Yorks Ranch just south of Blackfoot and was a very nice summer. Ike was a chore boy, Martha and her mother were the cooks. The last of July Ike got sick and Jarvis was going to Island Park, so he took Ike along. Ike and Martha were dating during this time and before he left for Island Park they set the wedding date of September 4th
On the 28th of August Ike came from Island Park to Blackfoot where Ike and Martha met. They left the next day for Brigham City as that was where he needed to get his temple recommend. They spent three very busy days getting ready. They left Brigham at 5 o'clock the morning of September 4, 1912 by train. They were married about 4 o'clock and went to Temple Square hotel and registered. They returned to Brigham on the 5th where Ike's family gave them a wedding shower.
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Ike's sister Allien tells.."I remember when they came to our home in Brigham to be married, they were so very very happy. After they came back from the temple we had a dinner at our home. I can still remember Martha in her beautiful white dress. She was a beautiful bride. After they left, Lola cried saying, If I ever find a guy like Ike, I'm going to marry him.'
They spent two weeks with Ike's folks and then returned to Blackfoot and lived in grandma Call's house while Ike worked with Jarve in Sugar City. He was able to come home just three time until March when he quit and came home. On the train he met a man named Frank Jacobs, who was hunting a man and woman to go to Soda Springs to work on Austin's Ranch. Ike and Martha decided to try it, leaving Blackfoot the last of March. Orson Hudson met them in Soda Springs and took them to the ranch, some twenty miles. On the first of April the snow as six feet on the level and it had rained all night so they had a pretty rough time getting out there. The horses gave out and the sleigh got tipped over. Ike had to get out and ride the lead tem. When they arrived at the ranch they found it was a six room log house with all the rooms in a straight line. The bed fell down with they when they sat down to take their shoes off, the mattress
was so lumpy it was worse than the floor. They were pretty discouraged kids, but after a few days they felt they were going to like it.
Ike spent seven years working out there and met a lot of wonder people and had some very good times. Martha did the cooking and Ike the farm work. Martha's mother would come and help out from May to October each year.
During the winters of 1915 and 1916 Ike work on a little home on land they had taken up. This was about a mile from the ranch. Ike would leave about 6 in the morning and came home about 8 at night. Ike still did the chores and rode for cattle or horses for the Austin Brothers during the day. He had 1200 cattle to keep on the summer range.
That fall of 1918 they moved back to the ranch and bunkhouse. In the spring they moved back to the dry farm. A garden was planted along with a crop of hay and grain. Ike's brother Jarve wrote and ask Ike, Martha and the family to come to Blackfoot to help get the crops out that fall. As they were expecting a new baby in November they left the ranch for the winter and moved to Blackfoot living on the Robethan ranch.
The family moved back to the ranch early in the spring of 1919 . Ike was called home as his brother Chris had passed away. He had just been home four weeks when he received word that his brother Ray had been killed while working in a power house in Salt Lake. So again he left for several days to attend Ray's funeral.
That summer a good crop was raised and they had a heard of seven horses. Ike felt that fall they should go and help Tina and her family get their crops out. Chris had left her with six children and a farm, the three oldest were girls. The family moved to Basalt, Idaho and lived in a sheep camp. They stayed there until all the potatoes were picked up and the beets were out. When the fall work was done they moved to Wapello where Ike went to work at the Sugar Company feeding cattle. They lived on the Robathan Ranch.
The next year, 1921, they decided to stay in Blackfoot and farm. They rented a seven room brick home on a rented farm. That fall everything was harvested but the beets, Ike had a job driving a school wagon. .
The end of September, Leon and Bus came running in to say the hay stack was on fire. Ike was seven miles away helping Jarve take out his beets. Everyone ran with water, but there was no use as the fire was spreading too fast. They lost everything, the straw that was stacked near by, the potatoes in the barn and some sheds with machinery in them. Two neighbor boys, older than Leon and Bus had been playing Indian with them and this was how the fire started. The family moved off the farm and rented a house in town for the winter and sold part of the horses to pay for the help they had hired.
In the spring they went back to work for the Austins'. They had a ranch out on the Fort Hall Reservation. They lived in a two room house. Two years were spent here, in the winter Martha would take the children and move into town so they could go to school. Ike stayed on the ranch to do the chores.
During the summer of 1923, Ike's father came to visit at the ranch. He thought it was too hard for this family to live in such a small place so he began to look for a place in Utah. In the spring of 1924 the family loaded all they could in a box car with Ike and the two older boys to watch the cow and horses, and with Martha and the other children in a coach, they traveled by train to Brigham City, Utah.
Six weeks was spent on a ranch owned by Chet Knudsen and Ike was helping him, as they could not agree Ike quit and they moved to Mantua and worked on the pipe line that was bringing the water to Brigham. In November they moved to Brigham and Ike worked for the Sugar Company that winter.
When school was out in May they moved to Perry as Ike had rented a farm from Dan Davis. They rented a home from E.J. Weaver. They all worked hard that summer, milking 20 cows, picking fruit, putting up hay and grain. By the first of November they found they could not live there that winter as Brother Davis was working at the Duck Club and his sons were very hard to get along with. They would not give Ike a written contract.
The family purchased a home on fourth south and fourth west and started doing the necessary repairs.
Ike decided to go into something on his own so they would not have to move again. He sold his dry farm in Idaho and drew out what they could on his life insurance and bought a 3/4 ton screen body truck. In the spring Ike started trucking fruit out and chickens or anything else he could buy on his return trip. He did pretty good all summer but by fall he had started to work for Nelson and Ricks Creamery, buying cream and eggs.
The family enjoyed the Fifth Ward very much and it was nice having a home of their own. Ike took pride in fixing it up. He went to the canyon and got some nice logs to build him a log barn and chicken coop. Set out a lot of new fruit trees and soon Ike and Martha were finding time to do a lot of Temple work. Grandpa Jensen and Aunt Ann were living in Logan where Grandpa was working in the Temple. There was quite a lot of work to be done on the family line, so it gave them a great thrill to do something for their kindred dead. Ike was working with the M-Men basketball team, they were enjoying life a great deal.
Ike was hauling milk, now working for the Morning Milk Company and hauled into Wellsville instead of Ogden. Ike started to build on the house, he built a large kitchen with such nice cabinets, painted the house and had things looking so nice. He then got the idea that they should move to Mantua.
On June 16, 1933 he came home at noon and said, "Come on, Mother, we are going to clean house up where we are going to live." They took hot water and supplies, Anna and the older boys and scrubbed until late in the afternoon. Bedding and food were moved that night and they all slept there that night. They had rented Dr. Weymullers home. It took about a week to get straightened around, just in time to have the Denmark Jensen Reunion at their home on July 24th. Most of Ike's brothers and sister and their families came so they had a large crowd. They moved again the first of October to a large home in Mantua belonging to Bishop Schow. They were settled in in time for Ike to go deer hunting.
Ike's health was not too well and in September 1944 the Jensen family moved back to Brigham City on Third West between Fifth and Sixth South.
May 30, 1946, Ike had a stroke, he was very sick for three weeks, then slowly recovered some. He could get around by himself. Uncle Harry and Aunt Alice Mifflin lived through the block and they spent a lot of time with him. LaWana used to come and take him riding. On New Years Eve, 1947 Francis and Vera Christensen came for the evening. They visited and when Ike seemed tired they had a snack and put him to bed. From then on he became worse. The family heard of a specialist in Pocatello, Idaho that had helped Aunt Em, so Aunt Allein got an appointment for him. They made three trips to see him and he told the family there was no use bringing him back as he could not help him. It was a type of heart trouble that nothing would help.
Ike died May 27, 1947 and was buried on May 31st.
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