Ancestors Who Converted to the Gospel 1876-1938

Here are the last of our ancestors who joined the church.

Ann Waldron

Thomas Salt and Ann Waldron (1881)

Ann Waldron was born in Wiltshire, England in 1843 on a prosperous family farm. When she was 14 her father died, and she was sent to live with an aunt and uncle. She worked at her uncle’s store until she married Thomas Salt in 1864. Thomas was a carpenter and joiner and was a religious young man. Soon after the marriage he had an accident and became temporarily disabled.  Anne did sewing to help support the family until he recovered. 

In 1881 they joined the church in England. After they joined the church they ran the mission home for a while until they immigrated to Utah in the 1890s.  Ann had 11 children by Thomas, but six of them died in childhood. They settled in Hooper, Utah.  William died not long after in 1896, and Ann married Charles Singleton in 1904. 

Andries Rogharr and Grietje Kater (1887)

Andries Rogharr and Grietje 

Andries was born in 1849 in Groningen, Netherlands.  He was a skipper by trade and owned his own cargo ship. When he was 28 he married Grietje Kater. Her father was also a skipper, and the couple lived on Andries ship for the first years of their marriage.  They joined the church in 1887 and immigrated to the US in 1895. In 1897 Andries returned to the Netherlands as a missionary.  Later he became disaffected with the church and he and Grietje moved back to the Netherlands in 1912, but most of their children stayed in Utah. 

Pieter Roelofs Zondervan, Grietje Pieters Slot (1889)

I did not find very much information about this couple beyond the very basics.  Pieter was born in Dronrip, Netherlands in 1846. Family search lists his occupation as skipper. His first wife was Aaltje Hendriks Pool.  They married in 1872 and had two children together, but Aaltje died delivering their second child in 1875. He married Grietje Pieters Slot the next year. They had twelve children, all born in the Netherlands, two of which died in infancy. They may have immigrated to the US in 1907, and by 1810 were living in Ogden.  Pieter died in 1916 in Ogden.  Grietje was called Grace in the US and died in 1929. 

Blanche Irene Alsop (1938)

Blanche Irene Alsop

Blanche Irene is our most recent first convert to the church. There is a nice 27-page biography about her on Family Search written by her son, Bartell W. Cardon Jr.. Here are a few basic facts.

Blanche was born in 1900, in Marion Iowa. She grew up on an 80 acre farm with a strict mother and an affectionate father. She went to a one-room school house until high school. During high school she met her first husband, Ralph Collins.  They dated until he left to serve in WWI.  When he returned they were married. They lived happily for a while Ralph had problems with infidelity and after several years they divorced. In 1929 she met Bartell Wilson Cardon, and they were married in Denver in 1931. Within a year, they had their first child, Bartell Junior. It was difficult for Bartell Sr. to make enough money for them to live on, so they moved to Utah in 1933. Bartell’s father introduced her to the church, and she was baptized in 1938. Her marriage to Bartell eventually ended, but she stayed true to her new religion and raised her two sons in the gospel.