By Elea Maria Folkman Browning Webb

Born 1842 Gotland, Sweden

Died 1899 Plain City, Utah

My Mother

Maxemelian Maria Olivia Lindvall was the daughter of Lars Fredrick Christiansson Lindvall and Anna Gertrud Kulin.  Mother came to America on the ship "John Bright" in 1868.  She came across the plains in Captain Hortin D. Haitts' Company, leaving Laramie, Wyoming 27 July and arriving in Salt Lake City 24 August 1868.  She baked all the bread for the emigrants across the plains, and walked the entire distance.  She worked hard and endured much hardship as other Pioneer women did.  She was the first of her family to join the Church.  Because of her Mormon belief, the Preacher and her relatives with whom she lived treated her very cruelly.  Her parents died when she was very young.

In 1868, upon her arrival in Salt Lake City she was invited by my Father and his second wife to their home in Plain City.  Here she remained one year and then was married to my Father, making her home in Plain City.  She was an artist at the spinning wheel and loom.  She made beautiful dress goods, yarn sheets, blankets and shawls.  She knit a pair of stockings that took first place at the Worlds' Fair in Chicago.  An ardent lover of flowers was my Mother.  She beautified her home within and without with a great variety of flowers.  To see her flowers was to remember them.  She had explicit faith in the gospel and taught her children to have the same.  No sacrifice for her children or her religion was too great for her to make.  She was always faithful, cheerful, humble, and industrious.  Much Temple work is credited to her.  Her home was open to emigrants and friends.  Many enjoyed her hospitality.  She was the Mother of seven children:  Elea, Caroline, Christiane (Annie), Elizabeth, Joseph, Louis and Lowisa.  She died at the age of 57 years a faithful Latter-Day-Saint, and a true Mother.  Blessed be her memory.

Written by her eldest child

For the Daughters of the Pioneers application.

A Tribute to a Swedish Mother

By Elea Maria Folkman

Many years ago in Gotland, Sweden, a child was born to Mr. and Mrs. Lars Lingvall by the name of Maria Lingvall.  Her father was a farmer.  Her mother was a lover of flowers and had many.  The Bible was their textbook in school which she knew very well, but wasn't satisfied with their interpretation.  When she heard an Elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints preach, she was converted at once.  She joined the Church and came to America and married a man by the name of Christoffer Folkman of Ogden, Utah.  She became the mother of six children, which she loved and watched very closely.  I can remember each night she would tuck us in bed before she retired.  The last words she would say were "Gud valsigna mina barn."  This is "God bless my children."  She was an artist in cooking, also flowers.  She had many hundred varieties.  She loved a flower as a gift more than any other gift.  She was humble and prayerful.  She was a heavenly saint.  My father was, also.  They taught us by example.  Her children are all kindly saints.  May I live to be worthy of her companionship in heaven, and be a tribute to my children.  May every Sunday be Mother's Day.