Roots and Branches: The Largest Stone on the Highest Hill

Soren Jensen's Plot in the Blair Cemetery

Soren Jensen was born August 3, 1842 in Vejle, Denmark. He emigrated to the United States in 1864, eventually making his way to Omaha, Nebraska, where he was employed by the Union Pacific Railroad. While there, he met Anne Sine Petersen, who had emigrated from Denmark with her parents in 1860. They stayed in Omaha until after their first child, Anna, was born. Soren decided to take up farming and so the little family moved north to Lincoln Township in Washington County, Nebraska.

Soren and Anne Sine Jensen's Grave Marker in Blair Cemetery

On January 5th, 1888, a local newspaper, The Pilot, printed the following, "Soren Jensen has just purchased another 120 acres of land. This he told The Pilot now gives him eleven 80-acre farms, one for each of his children. When Soren settled out here, he had few neighbors, and those he had regarded him as a green Scandanavian. But he has since bought them all out and now owns the land that was theirs when he went there. It took pluck and hard knocks to do it but he settled there with determination to succeed."

A Close-Up of the Inscription

I'd love to have known this man. How did his pluck and drive to succeed translate to his personality? I think there had to be a healthy sense of humor and a well developed sense of irony in this man. I'd guess that he was quite competitive as well. No one puts Jensen in a corner! Not only did the orphan boy from Denmark buy out his neighbors' farms, he also bought the best plot in Blair Cemetery. Soren Jensen and his wife Anne Sine are buried on a hill near a bluff, with an amazing view of the surrounding countryside. The stone marking their family plot was imported from Denmark. It is (or at least it was at its time of erection) the largest marker in the cemetery. A person will never have trouble finding Soren's last resting place!