Johanne Marie (Larsen) Walsted of Aalborg, Denmark was sixty-three years old when she immigrated to America in the spring of 1900.¹ She traveled alone; her husband of thirty-two years had passed away the year before,² and most of her children had already left Denmark for brighter opportunities in Iowa and Wisconsin. They had paid for her passage aboard the Norge, and she carried fifteen dollars.³

Grave of Johanna M. Walsted, 1836-1914, Graceland Cemetery, Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa; image date 2001, privately held by Melanie Frick.

Johanne was christened on 28 September 1836 in Bolle, Nordjylland, Denmark, the daughter of Lars Jensen Bak and Ane Cathrine Christensdatter.⁴ At the age of thirty, she married Christian Jens Jacobsen Walsted,⁵ a widower with two young children, Jens Jacob and Lars Marinus Walsted. The couple went on to have seven more children together: Jensine Kathrine, Eskild, Lars Peter, Mandrup, Anna Kathrine, Ellen Eskelline, and Jens Jacob Walsted.⁶ All but two of the children, the elder Jens Jacob and Eskild, survived to adulthood.⁷ Christian was a shoemaker, and eventually moved with his family from rural Dronninglund to the city of Aalborg,⁸ where he died in 1899.⁹

By the time Johanne made her journey to America, six of her seven surviving children and step-children awaited her arrival. Only her youngest son remained in Denmark; he was to follow two years later.¹⁰ In the years to come, Johanne moved between the homes of her children, some of whom she hadn’t seen in more than a decade. She was enumerated in the 1900 U.S. census less than two months after her arrival in the country, at which time she resided with a daughter in Iowa;¹¹ she later joined another daughter in Oklahoma City.¹²

Johanne’s health may have been poor in her later years; a notation on the ship manifest suggests that she had a deformity of some kind,¹³ and her death record stated that she suffered from senility.¹⁴ Johanne Marie (Larsen) Walsted died at the age of seventy-eight on 3 November 1914 in Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa. Services were held at the Danish Lutheran Church, and she was buried at Graceland Cemetery.¹⁴

SOURCES
¹ “New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957” digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 10 February 2014), manifest, S.S. Norge, Copenhagen, Denmark to New York, arriving 1 May 1900, Johanne Walsted; citing National Archives microfilm T715, roll 119.
² Abbey of Our Lady Parish (Aalborg, Denmark), Christian Jens Jacobsen Valsted (1899).
³ “New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957” digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 10 February 2014), manifest, S.S. Norge, Copenhagen, Denmark to New York, arriving 1 May 1900, Johanne Walsted.
⁴ “Denmark, Baptisms, 1618-1923,” index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org : accessed 10 February 2014), entry for Johanne Marie Larsen, 29 September 1836.
⁵ “Denmark, Marriages, 1635-1916,” index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org : accessed 10 February 2014), entry for Christian Jens Jakobsen and Johanne Marie Larsen, 17 February 1867.
⁶ Dronninglund Parish (Dronninglund, Denmark), Jens Jacob Valsted (1867), and Dronninglund Parish (Dronninglund, Denmark), Eskild Valsted (1873).
⁷ 1880 Danish census, database, Dansk Demografisk Database (http://ddd.dda.dk : accessed 10 February 2014), entry for Johanne Mari Walsted, Bolle, Dronninglund, Hjorring, Denmark.
⁸ 1890 Danish census, database, Dansk Demografisk Database (http://ddd.dda.dk : accessed 10 February 2014), entry for Johanne Marie Valsted, Aalborg, Fleskum, Aalborg, Denmark.
⁹ Abbey of Our Lady Parish (Aalborg, Denmark), Christian Jens Jacobsen Valsted (1899).
¹⁰ “New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957” digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 10 February 2014), manifest, S.S. Saxonia, Liverpool, England, to Boston, arriving 31 July 1902, Jens Jacob Walsted; citing National Archives microfilm T938, roll 52.
¹¹ 1900 U.S. census, Pottawattamie County, Iowa, population schedule, Rockford, enumeration district (ED) 126, sheet 11-A, p. 77 (stamped), dwelling 208, family 209, Johanna Walsted; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 10 February 2014), citing National Archives microfilm publication T623, roll 455.
¹² 1910 U.S. census, Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, population schedule, Oklahoma City Ward 7, enumeration district (ED) 209, sheet 18-B, p. 6293 (handwritten), dwelling 260, family 270, Johanna Walstead; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 10 February 2014), citing National Archives microfilm publication T624, roll 1266.
¹³ “New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957” digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 10 February 2014), manifest, S.S. Norge, Copenhagen, Denmark to New York, arriving 1 May 1900, Johanne Walsted.
¹⁴ Sioux City, Iowa, Death Record Book F: 1913-1915, Johanna Walsted, 3 November 1914.
¹⁵ “Walsted,” obituary, Sioux City (Iowa) Journal, 5 November 1914, p. 16, col. 1.