It Happened 160 Years Ago Today

That's right. 160 years ago today was the "Miracle of the Gulls." A few years ago, I put on a pioneer bonnet and told this story to the children in our Primary organization at church. You see, when the Mormon pioneers settled in Utah in the mid 1800's they planted crops. The crops were attacked by large crickets. As the story goes, the pioneers prayed to God that he would save them. If their crops failed, the pioneers would starve. Soon flocks of seagulls came and ate the crickets and theryby saved the crops. That's the story in a nutshell. But this is how it went when I told it to our Primary.

I told the children that the crickets attacked the crops and they were so worried. I asked them, "What do you think they should do?" One little boy raised his hand and said, "Call the bug man!"

I related this story to a friend who's parents had served a mission in Vietnam. They told this same story to a little Primary organization there. The children there could not believe the pioneers would pray to God and ask them to save the crops. You see, in Vietnam, crickets are food. They saw the crickets as more of a blessing!

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In 1848 when the Miracles of the Gulls took place, my ancestors were still in England trying to earn enough money to get to America. Thomas Midgley, a shoemaker in Yorkshire, England, joined the Mormon church with his wife and 7 children. He and one of his sons went ahead of the family to Utah. His wife and the rest of the family came later. His wife died along the trail and his oldest daughter Ann (my great-great grandmother) had to bury her along the Platte River in Wyoming. She and her little brothers and sisters made the trek alone without any parents.

Thomas Midgley continued his business as a shoemaker in Nephi, Utah, south of Salt Lake City, until his death in 1870. His daughter Ann was a weaver and quilter. I wrote about her here: Why I Quilt.

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Quilt Progress: Here's the sampler quilt I'm working on. I'm just getting my strength back after my bad cold. It's getting done, slowly, but surely.

Have a great day!

Preparing For The Unexpected...

...or how to flood your backyard in 2 seconds flat!

Living here in earthquake country we try to be prepared for the unexpected (ie. earthquakes.) Ok, I must admit I haven't been very good at earthquake preparedness. I did buy some 72-hour kits about a year ago, and I did go camping last year, so I think I have some new flashlights somewhere. Anyway, my church is really encouraging us to be prepared for disasters. For some really good info, go here: Family Home Storage. So we bought the water barrels you see in the pictures with the BabyBoy. They needed to be cleaned out and refilled. So we put the BabyBoy in charge of that. Of course, he can have some fun with it too!

A question I have is: Do we have to do this everytime we want a drink of water during a disaster? I think we need a Plan B and a pump, right? I better look into that.

Another question is: Can I include mascara and lipstick in my disaster kit? Without those 2 items I look like a disaster!

Side Note: Daugther #2 had an "adventure" yesterday where she learned that she must have a Plan B to get home from downtown LA if the trains aren't running. Read about it here: Train Accident.

Why I Quilt.

I have been a quilter for 25 years now. My mother didn't quilt. No one in my family did. I wondered where I got this passion for quilting. A few years ago I discovered that it had been running through my veins all along.

The image of my great-great-grandmother hangs in my quilt studio. It is on her wedding day in 1859. Ann Midgley, born in 1826 in Almondbury, Yorkshire, England. She crossed the Atlantic Ocean with her mother and younger brothers and sisters in 1855, then they crossed the plains to Salt Lake in 1855. They were to meet up with their father and a brother who were already there. Her mother, Ellen became ill along the trail and died. Ann, then took the responsibility of caring for her younger brothers and sisters until they reached Utah. One of the younger children recounted later about how distraught the children were that there mother was gone. They would cry and cry in the night and Ann tried to keep them comforted.

Shortly after arriving in Utah, Ann was married to Matthew McCune. When polygamy among the Mormons ended, their marriage was dissolved and so Ann was left to raise her children in a little home in Nephi, Utah alone. (Note: her husband kept the younger wife...typical!) I'm sure Matthew helped to sustain her financially, but in order to supplement her income, Ann was a weaver and quilter.

Now, in those days, didn't women quilt out of necessity? In the days of Ann Midgley, a census record typically listed a woman's occupation as "keeping house." Well, I saw a copy of a census record listing Ann Midgley as a divorced woman, occupation "quilter."

Ann never remarried. She spent the rest of her life in Nephi, Utah. In 1902 at the age of 76, she helped raise her daughter Grace Palmer's four children. (that's another story for another day!) In 1911, at the age of 84, she died from complications of a broken hip she sustained while putting a quilt in a frame.

I have been to Nephi, Utah (a town south of Salt Lake City) to take a picture of her headstone. She is buried there in the city cemetery next to two small children she lost in the early years of her marriage to Matthew McCune. She raised three children to adulthood, one being my great grandfather.

Jean Wilcox Hibben said, "We are a compilation of our experiences and associations, as well as our biological connections. When we understand our ancestors, we can better understand ourselves."

Now I understand why I quilt.

(another day I'll share the story of finding an Ann Midgley quilt! It now hangs in a Pioneer Museum in Utah!)