Anne Sophie Danielsen (b. Larsen) (1858-1934)

Skilled healer who the community turned to. She helped many people. In her youth she developed a passion for Faroese medicinal plants. Her expertise included excising tumours and boils, as well as treating septicaemia and gangrene.

Anna Sofíe Danielsen and her children Lisa and Johan. Source: The National Museum of the Faroe Islands

‘Frú Danielsen is dead!’

The news spread like wildfire early one Thursday morning in Tórshavn.

‘Frú Danielsen’, it sufficed, everyone knew her, nobody asked: “Who is she?” Her standing and the high regard she was held in was evident from all the flags that were lowered to half mast already early in the day.’

These were the opening lines of Anna Sofia’s obituary in the paper Tingakrossur on 30th May 1934. For a generation the advice was always: ’Go see Frú Danielsen.’ She worked as a ‘home doctor’, meaning a skilled practitioner of traditional medicine without formal qualifications, and the community would seek out her treatments for all manner of ailments. She helped hundreds of people. The Tingakrossur obituary mentions her unique skills:

‘She cured countless terrible tumours and boils, she performed many a complex operation with great success. She helped innumerable people with septicaemia, and countless others have her to thank for a life with all their limbs intact. And untold were the illnesses and ailments she knew a remedy for.’

She was buried near her father, Johan Larsen (1831-1890). In old Fru Evensen from Tórshavn’s memoirs it is explained that Anna Sofía’s father too was a heimadoktari:

‘As a child, she would eavesdrop at her father’s door while he saw patients in order to catch what remedies he prescribed. She already had the interest back then. Later she would read in old books and recipes, gather herbs and boil them, and she would always have jars of various things standing around. Her most fervent wish was simply to help her fellow man.”

Her husband, Christian Cornelius Danielsen (1849-1935), is buried next to her. He became Director of the Savings Bank in 1911 and served as postmaster from 1908 to 1917. On Anna Sofía’s other side two of their grandchildren are buried.

Sources:

Anna Evensen “Fra Færøerne” (typed manuscript).

Christian Cornelius Danielsen. F. 27 Septbr. 1847, d. 14. Juni 1935. In: Dagblaðið 22^nd June 1935. Tórshavn.

Háberg, Hjørdis. Minnisbrot. 2006. Viborg.

Rasmussen, Joen A. Anna Sofie Danielsen f. Larsen. Fødd 17. august 1858 Deyð 24. mai 1934. In: Tingakrossur 30^th May 1934. Tórshavn.

Suðuroy Parish Register. Births girls 1858, p. 210.