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Sister Jensen ---Midwife, Nurse, and Saint
In 1891 Bishop Hans Funk called Sister Jensen go to Salt Lake City to study obstetrics and nursing in the church school there. The Bishop and Relief Society President Martha Beck both expressed deep conviction that she was the one to do this needed to do this position in the ward. The 37 year old mother of 6 children was reluctant to leave her family, but after fasting and praying she decided to go. She left home on Oct. 1, 1891, and began her studies immediately. She graduated on Apr. 29. 1892, and all the graduates were given a blessing sealing the calling they had heeded. Heber J Grant and Abraham H. Cannon with the latter being mouth, gave Sister Jensen her Blessing. Her daughter wrote “mother attended over 1000 confinement’s cases and only lost one. She nursed almost every disease that can be mentioned and afflicted day after day and night after night and never brought a contagious disease home to her family.
Her daughter reported that her mother never saw the distance to far, the road too muddy, or the wind to cold, or the pay to small, for her to leave her nice warm bed and go out to help those who needed her. She assisted the living and helped lay out the dead. Payment when made was often produce, but if in money the price for delivering a baby was generally five dollars. ‘Taken in part from Larry Christiansen’s notes. The life of Elmelia Maria Petersen Jensen by Olga Hansen and Maybelle Pike ‘
My mother-in-law Alice Anderson Griffin told me that Sister Jensen attended her son Harlow’s birth. Sister Jensen taught Harlow how to nurse and came every day for a week to take care of Alice and Harlow.