I know very little about my grandparents. All I know about my father's father (Knut Johan Beckstrand) is that he was a soldier. While at war, their ship was captured and he and five others got on a life boat and escaped. They sailed around for five days without food or water before they were rescued. My father's mother (Ingerd Jacobsdotter) was very religious. She would take a child in each hand and drag them through the snow up to her knees to go to church. My mother's father (Nels Pedersen Andersen Rau) was a sailor. At one time, his boat sank with him seven miles from shore. He swam to shore and went home wearing only his underclothes. He was finally drowned or lost at sea. The family lived a good deal of the time along the seashore where fishing was good.

My father and mother joined the church in Denmark. They emigrated to Utah in the spring of 1861. They were married in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City in 1862. My brother, Charles John Beckstrand, was born 11 August 1863 in Salt Lake City. I was born 27 January 1867 in Deseret, Millard County. When I was two years old, we moved to Oak City (Oak Creek as it was then called), Millard County. It was here that my father died on 7 December 1883. We lived in Oak Creek for twenty-two years. Then we moved to Circleville, Piute County. We lived there for five years.

I was married to Ida Lovisa Anderson on 13 December 1893, in the Manti Temple. Our first child, Della, was born in Circleville on 25 October 1894. Then we moved to Lund, Idaho, near Bancroft. We stayed there six weeks and returned to Millard County in Utah--to Fool Creek. We stayed there for two years. Vernard was born there on 8 January 1897. Then we went to Santaquin, Utah County, where Lillian (13 October 1898) and Ida (12 January 1901) were born. We stayed there for four years. We then moved to Louisville and Rigby in Idaho. We lived on the "burns" for five years where Elmer (16 April 1904) and Leonard (2 March 1906) were born. My mother died on 6 October 1904 and was buried in Shelton, Idaho. We moved into town (Rigby) where Olive (29 March 1909) was born. From there we moved to Shelley, Idaho.

Nels Peter Conrad died on 23 May 1933, at Shelley, Bingham County, Idaho and was buried in Shelley.