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Valborg Rasmussen Wheelwright

Valborg’s father died at sea when she was very young leaving her mother with four children. Some years later missionaries came to their town in Denmark and began teaching the people. One day some friends invited Valborg to attend Sunday School classes with them. From the first meeting, Valborg could not get enough. “I wanted to go again and again,” she said. “It brought a whole new life to me.”

Then one beautiful Easter Sunday the missionaries invited her to go to Zion with them. Valborg said, “I felt this was a direct call from God to be gathered with his people…. I was determined to persuade Mother to let me go.”

Her mother however was adamant. Valborg was not going to America.

“I had a hard task ahead of me,” Valborg continued. “I begged Mother every day and tried to make her see how important it was that I go…. I would listen to no argument from her…. I’d make her come and kneel down with me each morning before she went to work. I had really never had anything so important to pray about before as this object now in view…. I constantly asked my Heavenly Father to help Mother see the truthfulness of the gospel.”

In time her mother, yet unconverted, relented and agreed to let her go. The neighbors were aghast. They who had cared nothing for the needs of this struggling family before now suddenly deemed Valborg’s departure a matter of great interest. Much persecution followed, even from their extended family.

Finally the day of departure came. With a wicker basket full of her belongings in one hand, and a small caged canary in the other, Valborg kissed her mother goodbye and set out alone for the docks. As she stood before the ship’s gangplank, she comprehended the decision now before her. “I was still with my mother,” she said. “I still could stay with her. But I would not falter now; only a coward turns back.….I swung myself up the gangplank.”

The ship began to move out into the harbor. Valborg clutched the ship’s rail “I stood my ground without a tear,” she said, “until I saw a sweet, tear-stained face come into view. It was my mother. As she squeezed through the crowds, the heat and confusion almost overcame me. I remember whispering through the dark and the stillness, “Oh God, be with us that we may meet again in that land out West, as thou hast promised those who are faithful.”

Seasick and homesick, Valborg journeyed alone from Denmark to Utah. The year was 1888 and Valborg Rasmussen was thirteen years old. No matter who you are, faith brings conversion and conversion brings courage–at any age.