Tora Thurston

by Morris Ashcroft Thurston

Tora (Thore) Thurston (Torstensen) was born 20 July 1819 in Aarvelta, Veggli, Buskerud, Norway. In 1839 he immigrated to America and, after working for a time in Chicago, settled in a Norwegian colony in the Fox River Valley, Illinois. He joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1842 and moved to Nauvoo, Illinois. He married Lodisa Marsh in in 1846 at Nauvoo and migrated west with the Mormon pioneers. They were among the founding settlers of Ephraim, Utah. He married Margaret Ann Hansen in 1855 and Anna Barker Anderson in 1858. Includes ancestry of Tora Thurston to the 1300s and descendants in Utah, Idaho, California and elsewhere.