Mætte’s husband

Born 16 December 1825, Skjold, Bjerre, Vejle, Denmark. Died: Jan 29 1915, Maharahara, Tararua, Manawatu-Wanganui, New Zealand (89 yrs)

He had a peg leg due to his leg being amputated because of Gangrene.

Account by his grandson, Melville Jacobsen in 1990:

He was apparently working on a sawmill skid loading logs. They were jacking it up and the log undercut the jack and rolled back and squashed his leg all the way up to there. It was somewhere near Palmerston North.

Some silly doctor said it would come right but it was squashed flat. The bones were pulverised. The pain was shocking. Gangrene set in.

Naturally. A doctor from Wellington came up for a certain period of time. It was Palmerston North. I don’t think it was Dannevirke. I don’t know whether they took Grandpa to Palmerston North or whether he came to Dannevirke. But the doctor said: “It will have to be amputated. It will kill you.”

So he said he would have to take Soren to Wellington and he didn’t have a nurse.

No I vill not go to Wellington. Do it here.

Dr “I don’t have any anaesthetics”

Vat you vant that rubbish for? Do it here. You cut it off.

So he lay down on the table and hung on to the side and the Dr took his leg off.

So that was the sort of bloke he was. If it had to be done it had to be done. Well it saved his life. Then he had an old peg leg. He hobbled round on his peg leg.

I remember, as a kid we’d drag the peg leg away and poor old Grandpa couldn’t get on. {Chuckles}. Poor old Grandpa would get wild.”

Mætte’s father

Mikkel  died due to being hit by a train in Denmark.

Born:   Dec 14 1800 Nyk. Mors, Denmark.   Died:   Aug 18 1878 (at age 77), Skovby, Skanderborg, Denmark

Newspaper 19th & 21st August 1878.  (translated from Danish)

Hidden by the Railroad

Yesterday an awful accident happened when the train passed Skovby og Hammerum

An old man called Mikkel Sveigaard (shoemaker) passed the railroad and he was hidden by the train and his body was crushed and he died immediately at place.

August 21st. 1878 further news:

Concerning the awful accident on the Silkeborg-Herning railroad this Sunday

Some news about the incident has now reached us.

When the train from Ikast to Herning passed Skovby at the middle of the day the old deaf smallholder Mikkel Sveigaard who lived in a house some hundred feet from the railway, was passing the railway- tracks with his wheelbarrow to get some heather, he was hit by the train and his head and one arm parted from his body.

The man was poor and he leaves a wife and several adult children

Note: The Silkeborg-Herning railway line first opened on 28 August 1877