A delightful morsel from our history

I live in Davis County, Utah and get to look out at the Great Salt Lake often. One of the larger islands, Fremont is privately owned and access is closely controlled so it is doubtful I will ever be on it. A mark was left by Kit Carson when he and John C Fremont were mapping the lake, and there are a few graves of people who lived there.

This is from an oral history interview done by the Wickham family with Irene Carlson Wickham regarding her mother, Christine Octavia Christensson (I found this as one of the "memories" in Christine's familysearch.org profile.)

Gary: Who is this you’re talking about?

Irene: It's mother's uncle, my grand uncle. Grandmother’s brother. He'd run this boat over to one of the islands on the Great Salt Lake. He was a bachelor, they called him Santa Claus because he had a white beard and lots of white, curly hair. He was the ferry man; he took his boat and went from Corinne, Utah over to the island owned by a Mister Wener. These Weners that lived on this island were very wealthy and very well educated people. Mr. Wener's father bought that island for his son who had tuberculosis. He was a very well educated and in fact, he was an attorney. He married a little woman. She was about five feet tall. She was a graduate of the Sorbonne in Paris. At that time that was a very unusual education for a young girl. She came out there with him because he had tuberculosis. They were happy. They brought their family there. Mother's uncle knew they needed to have someone to help Mrs. Wener. so they sent my mother over to live with the Weners to help. She lived with the Weners for quite a few years and they educated mother because her education was limited being only twelve years old when she arrived in Salt Lake. They were very good to her. Mrs. Wener educated Mother and taught her a great many things - an appreciation of poetry and the real fine things of life.

Of course that great uncle is Charlie - Axel Backman.