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“The Important Fact Is That I Always Felt Danish”: Preserving Ethnic Memory In Virginia Sorensen’S Mormon Novels, Sarah C. Reed

The Bridge

American author Virginia Sorensen (1912–91) grew up a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Manti, Utah, in Sanpete Valley, a place known as “Little Denmark” because it was a major center for the Danish immigrant community in Utah. In 1956 she described her hometown like this: even now if you go to see the fine white Mormon Temple that dominates the landscape night and day you will likely be shown about the grounds by somebody with a Danish name, perhaps even with a Danish accent. he will tell you about the famous spiral staircases in …