Archives West Finding Aid

Frederick Isaac Sorensen was born February 24, 1840 in Soro, Denmark. Isaac and his brother Peter arrived in Mendon, Utah in 1859, two years prior to the arrival of the entire Sorensen family, and began settlement of the region. He married Mary Kristine Jacobsen (Poulsen) in 1869 with whom he had eleven children. Isaac was later called to serve in the LDS church Scandinavian mission in 1879. Isaac wrote poetry and many songs as well as his most prominent work, History of Mendon: A Pioneer Chronicle of a Mormon Settlement. Isaac died November 7, 1922.

Alma N. Sorensen, the fifth son of Isaac Sorensen, was born March 3, 1879 in Mendon, Utah. A.N. was one of the first three students from Mendon to earn an eighth grade diploma, and belonged to the Mendon band and the Mandolin and Guitar Club. He entered the Brigham Young College in Logan in 1897 but left after one year and spent two years laboring on the farm and railroad. From 1901 to 1904, he served an LDS mission in the southern United States. He returned to school in 1904 and obtained his bachelors degree in 1909 from the Brigham Young College. He attended Harvard from 1910-11 and again in 1915-1916, graduating with a masters degree in English. He married Lavinia Hughes in 1917 and had one child, Wendell, before Lavinia's death in 1920. He married Mary Carlisle in 1924, with whom he had six children: Mary Jean, Robert N., David C., Philip E., John Mark, and Anne. Their son David died tragically on October 15, 1944, at the age of 15 of an undiagnosed heart condition. A.N. joined the Utah Agricultural College (hereafter known as Utah State University) staff in 1926 after serving as head of the English department at Brigham Young College for fifteen years. A.N. was a professor of English at Utah State University for twenty-three years. He served as chairman of the Utah State College Athletic Council and president of both the Rocky Mountain Conference and the Big Seven Circuit. He died December 11, 1958.

Mary Carlisle, wife of Alma N. Sorensen, was born in Logan, Utah on December 26, 1894. In 1918 she married Walter Farrell Barber. He died only five months later of the Spanish influenza that had swept throughout the country. Widowed, Mary gave birth to her first son, Walter Carlisle. She married Alma in 1924. She was a teacher at Brigham Young College for several years during the 1920s and a prominent civic worker. She was a member of the founding board of the Sunshine Terrace Foundation and an active member of Utah State University's Women's Faculty League for many years. Mary died May 26, 1962.

John E. Carlisle, the father of Mary Carlisle, was born March 4, 1858 in Salt Lake City, Utah. He married Clara Melissa Crandall in 1892 and died March 27, 1936 in Logan, Utah.

Robert N. (Bob) Sorensen, son of A.N. Sorensen, distinguished himself as an editor, writer and cartoonist while attending Utah State University. He majored in journalism, was a feature editor for Student Life, edited the Scribble magazine and helped organize the USAC Radio Guild. Following graduation, Robert began a five-year Air Force career. The papers comprising the Robert N. Sorensen series are heavily focused towards his military career. He began basic pilot training in Waco and advanced training in Lubbock, both in Texas. After a year in pilot training, he was assigned to The Strategic Air Command (SAC) at Randolph AFB, San Antonio, Texas for transition into the B-29 bomber. After completing combat crew training in March l952, Bob and his crew were ordered to Yokota AFB near Tokyo, Japan where they flew 27 missions against targets in North Korea during the Korean War. Following his time overseas, Bob was sent to Barksdale AFB near Shreveport, Louisiana, where he completed his Air Force tour as a copilot flying SAC's then fastest jet bomber, the B-47. After his Air Force service, Bob entered graduate school at Northwestern University and earned his MS degree in journalism in 1956. In l955, he married Noel Naylor of Shreveport, Louisiana, with whom he has three children: Robert Scott, Jeffrey Lloyd and Steven Mark, and four grandchildren. Bob's first employment was with Boeing Airplane Company as a flight handbook editor, after which he served in various public relations and advertising capacities with a number of companies before establishing his own advertising agency in Dallas, Texas, in 1976 which he operated for almost 20 years.

Philip E. Sorensen, son of Alma N. Sorensen, received his bachelor's and master's degrees at USU in l954 and 1957. He received the USU College Award at the time of his graduation in 1954 on the basis of his scholarship and many student activities including the USU Student Council, USU radio station KVSC, and dramatic arts. He received his Ph.D. degree in Economics from the University of California in Berkeley in 1965 and went on to a 45-year career of teaching and research at the University of California in Santa Barbara, Florida State University in Tallahassee, and a number of other universities in the U. S. and overseas. He was a recognized expert in natural resource economics (mainly offshore oil production and oil spill analysis) and in antitrust economics. He presented testimony in many state and government hearings and received a special commendation from Florida's governor and cabinet in 1976. He married Joyce Strand in Great Falls, Montana, in 1957. He and Joyce have three children: Eric, Thomas and Mary, and six grandchildren.

John Mark Sorensen, youngest son of Alma N. Sorensen, earned his Bachelors and Masters degrees in English at Utah State University in 1956 and 1961. He later received a Master of Library Science degree at Brigham Young University. He taught English at USU and served for many years as Arts and Humanities librarian at the Merrill Library.