AMOS MOSES VIRGIN

Introduction: Amos Moses Virgin was my grandfather, the father of Sarah Frances Virgin, who married James Frederick Shirley, father of my father, Ross Shirley. The following history was given me at a Virgin Family Reunion.

Amos Moses Virgin, son of George Thompson and Mary Ann Barker Virgin (see the blog "October Fires" with their history), was born in Marston, England, on January 23, 1854. After his father was accidentally killed being crushed between two cars when the wrong signal was given, his mother was faced with supporting two sons and a baby daughter. Mary Ann Barker had the great desire to go to Zion. On May 14, 1862, she with her two sons, Amos Moses and Nephi Charles, and Mercy Ann, a baby, left England. They with eight hundred Saints on board the "William Tappscott" set sail.

Amos Moses Virgin was now eight years of age, his brother, Nephi Charles, was under six. Even at this young age they with their mother and baby sister walked almost the entire distance across the plains. They traveled with the Horton D. Haight Company. At times Amos and Nephi would get so tired they lagged behind. One time they became so tired they lagged quite a ways behind and would have been lost or devoured by the wolves if the provisions wagon had not stopped and picked them up. His baby sister, Mercy Ann, had died on the plains near the Utah-Wyoming boarder October 6, 1862 (see the accompanying blog, October Fires).

They arrived in Salt Lake Valley October 19, 1862. Amos Moses and his family lived in Grantsville, Utah, with some relatives. Two years later they moved to St. Charles, Idaho, in Bear Lake Valley to make their home in October 1864.

Although Amos Moses was but ten years of age, he did everything possible to earn a living for his mother and brother. This was a hard task during the early years of the valley as homesteads were being made. Becoming a fisher and hunter, Amos Moses also became an expert trapper and shipped furs to an eastern market. He made his own snowshoes to run his traps. He also loved boating, swimming, skating, and sports of all kinds.

They were very poor. His mother, Mary Ann, was forced to glean wheat fields while Amos and Nephi fished and trapped. When Amos and Nephi were looking after their traps at the mouth of the creek that emptied into Bear Lake, their feet and clothing would get so cold and wet that they would take off their socks and wade in the icy water and then put their socks back on. They often laid on the ice where they were fishing until their clothing would dry in the sun. They often became snow blind caused by the glare of the sun on the ice and water.

On September 27, 1875, Amos Moses married Sarah Francis Merkley, daughter of Christopher and Xarissa Fairbanks Merkley. Making their home in St. Charles, Idaho, near Bear Lake, Amos Moses and Sarah Francis were blessed with ten children: Sarah Francis, Alice Xarissa, Linda Rose, Mary Ann, George Amos, Eugenie, Jessie, Zalia Louise, Alicia Naomi, and Heber Harold.

Amos Moses loved music. He played the violin and sang in the choir. He loved to dance and called for dances. During the time of his stay in St. Charles, he was a teacher in the Sunday School and also a ward teacher. On July 18, 1886, Amos Moses Virgin was ordained a Seventy by C. D. Fulstead. Also during this time a daughter, Linda Rose, was buried in St. Charles.

One Sunday Brother Floyd told Amos' mother that he was going to Salt Lake City on Monday. He said he would bring her some chairs if Amos would catch one hundred pounds of fish to send. After Sacrament Meeting Amos and his mother went to the creek where he caught nine fish. His mother said this was enough so she took them to the house and dressed them. -They weighed one hundred pounds. Floyd took the fish to Salt Lake City, sold them and brought home the chairs.

One time when Amos had saved five dollars for some needed shoes, they asked for money to build the Logan Temple. He gave the five dollars for the temple and pulled the old shoes together with wire and then went to the logging camp in Logan Canyon to help get logs to build the temple

In August Amos Moses Virgin and his wife Sarah Francis moved to Salem, Idaho, with their four daughters and two sons to be nearer to their two oldest daughters who had married and moved there. There he bought a farm and in the Snake River Valley pioneered again. He worked in the office of the Church while he served as a ward teacher.

After he had converted James Inman, his wife and two sons while ward teaching, they joined the Church. Amos Moses was blessed with the gift of healing and was called many times to administer to the sick. His examples and precepts were always worthy of a Latter-Day Saint. He was ordained a High Priest on May 1, 1909, by George A. Pinnock. His family is a credit and honor to him and his wife.

Sarah Francis Merkley Virgin died at Fish-Haven December 17, 1939, and was buried in St. Charles, Idaho. Amos Moses Virgin died at the home of his youngest daughter, Alicia V. Howell, in Fish Haven, Idaho, on October 12, 1942. He was buried by his wife and daughter in St. Charles, Idaho.

The above was a history passed to me at a Virgin Family Reunion. The following are story was given me by my father, Ross, and Aunt Ada Moss.

Sarah Francis and James Frederick Shirley had borrowed $400 from Amos. Each time James would go to their home to make a payment, their younger son would take it and say he would give it to his parents. Amos and his wife later came to James and Sarah and asked for the money. All of it had already been paid back, but they said they had not received anything and that they were going to lose the farm in Salem. There was no money to give. My father told me how sad it was to see them leave the the house and walk down the road with their bags packed, homeless. They lost the farm and moved Fish Haven, where they both finished out their lives. Later, a son was on a hunting trip when he was getting out of the automobile with his rifle and was accidentally shot and killed.

My father said that when he knew Amos Moses, his grandfather did not have a tooth in his head, but his gums were hardened by years of use. He had a flat metal knife that was rather broad that he always used to eat with. He would use the edge to cut the food, then scrape it up with the flat side. He ate everything that way. My father said there was a poem they used to say about the entire process:

I eat my peas with honey.

I've done so all my life.

It makes them taste quite funny,

But it keeps them on my knife.

*For additional information on Amos Moses and the ship they sailed on, go to http://www.ancientfaces.com/research/photo/389722

Once Flooded, Twice Shy

Because the Teton Dam disaster was such a big event, not many people know that 14 years earlier we were flooded in Sugar City. There had been lots of ice in the North Fork of the Teton. The weather turned warm and the ice began to flow. This is an aerial shot of Sugar City during that flood. It was taken February 12, 1962. It is looking to the north. If you follow the road going to the left of the railroad, you can almost see the very edge of Ross Shirley's yard. It is just outside the picture to the left. The railroad track acted like a dam, keeping much of the water on the east side, but we still had our share come our way. The picture was taken by the Corp of Engineers and says it was taken at the height of the flood.

I remember Dad saying that we were not going to evacuate. The Corp of Engineers were up by the bridge near the old overpass north of Sugar City using dynamite to dislodge the ice dam. Some concerned citizens of Sugar City decided that the ice jamming under another downstream bridge east of our house needed to be blasted, so they took it upon themselves to blow it up with dynamite. The Corp of Engineers wanted them arrested because it damaged the nearby railroad tracks. I remember hearing the sound from our house.

I remember the water coming through Dalling's field toward our house. Being 10 years old I thought only of how fun it would be. I had built a snow fort in the front yard of our house. I had the idea that if I built it big enough and packed it hard enough it would keep the water out. I watched with excitement as the water moved through the field from the east moving slowly but steadily. It entered the yard and made rather quick work of all my efforts.

Dad sandbagged the basement were the coal furnace was and with the help of some boards and cinderblocks built a suspended bridge from the front step out to the road. The water stayed for several days. My brothers, Neal and Dale, would go upstairs with the 22 and by looking through the scope they could see mice clinging to anything that floated. They would aim carefully and then look for the splash of the bullet in order to adjust the aim. Sometimes they were successful and spared the mice a slow death of drowning in favor of a much quicker firing squad.

Neal said that they dumped a huge load of sand in our driveway for us to use. Then the Corp went north of our house and cut a opening through Uncle Fred's ditch to let the water go through. Neal spent much of the next summer working for Fred rebuilding that ditch.

Oddly enough, it was because of this flood that many, including myself, did not take it seriously when we heard that the Teton Dam broke 14 years later. After all, we had been flooded before, and "how different could this be?" We found out, all too soon.

Very Few Good Men

Margie Ward was a young woman working in Ogden at the Utah Army Depot prior to World War II. She worked in the Personnel Department in the payroll division. Working in the depot was Sarah Lund, a sister of Ross Shirley. She was also a neighbor of Margie's. They became good friends. When Ross came home on furlough prior to going overseas Sarah set them up on a date. There was mutual interest from the beginning.

After getting a description of where she worked, I did a search and this may be the building where she worked. At least it is in Weber County and used to be an Army Depot. If not, just imagine....

Margie said that there was a real shortage of young men during this time due to the war. Smith, her brother, had joined the Marines, and another brother, Paul, was in the Navy. She and a group of friends would often go to Salt Lake City to see a movie or to hear the Tabernacle Choir. They also hiked up to Tipanogos.

Margie and Ross wrote to each other during the war. When it was over Ross made a visit to see her in Ogden and she made another up to Salem to see him. Ross had saved enough money to pay the entire purchase price for a home a mile east of the Salem church and just west of Sugar City. Margie had found at least one "very good man."

Shirley at War

Ross Shirley was working at Lockheed in California shortly before World War II broke out. He was involved in building the P-38. It was a very secret project and he told me that the specifications for the plane that are now available on the internet were classified information. He said the plane was nicknamed "Whistling Death" because of the sound it made when flying. He worked on the plane from the wings back, installing the two booms and the tail section.

When Pearl Harbor was bombed he went down to sign up in the Navy and the lines were very long. They told him they would make him 2nd Class and he would work on an aircraft carrier because he knew about working on planes. He told them he wanted 1st class and they told him the offer they had made was good, but Dad turned it down. They wrote back later to see if he had changed his mind and he wrote back and told them they should change theirs.

He heard that the Army Air Corp was looking for pilots, so he and Uncle Otto went to Pocatello to apply. Otto was 10 lbs. too heavy, so he was rejected and Dad was accepted, but they told him to go home until another school could be opened. After several months, Otto went in to reapply, was accepted, and while there he was given the place of someone who had dropped out. Dad inquired and was told they were discontinuing the schools, so he was given an honorable discharge for six months service without ever serving.

He went from there to Catalina and signed up with an attachment to the Army that trained people to work as engineers onboard ship. He went to Florida and graduated, then was stationed in New Orleans living in a second floor apartment on Burbon Street because there were no other facilities for servicemen. He said that after a short time they moved out because the night life was too noisy.

The Army was short of transport ships, so they were stationed there for months doing nothing except reporting once a day. He was making $500 a month while the enlisted men were getting $50 to $75. "Believe it or not I got tired of doing nothing."

He then heard he could get a commission in the Army as a 2nd Lieutenant, so he went to Camp Gordon Johnson in Florida. He was trained as an engineer working on transport ships. He was then sent to Ogden where Aunt Sally and Uncle Howard Lund set him up with young Margie Shirley. He had one date with her before going overseas. Stay tuned for more on the life and times of the Shirley Tribe.

October Fires

Mary Ann Barker Virgin was born in 1831 in Marston, England, the fifth of thirteen children. As a child she learned to make Valenciennes lace and helped support the family. At one time she was given the honor of making lace sleeves for a dress for Queen Victoria (picture right). After she married George Thompson Virgin in 1854, they heard two Mormon missionaries preaching. They prayed to know if their message was true and after getting an answer, they joined the church.

No sooner had they joined than they were persecuted severely. He was fired from his job and as soon as any other employers knew he was a Mormon, he was let go. They had to move to find work but he was fired again when they found out about him. Mary Ann worked all night making lace to feed the family. Sanitation was primitive at that time and people dumped sewage in the streets. Neighbors often dumped their chamber pots out the second story windows onto them as they passed below.

George finally found work at a railroad. They planned to use the Perpetual Immigration Fund to go to America. On the night of Dec. 29, Mary Ann had a dream in which she saw the broken and crushed body of her husband.

George had been working in Birmingham, England, in a tunnel where there were two tracks. Warnings were to be given, but none was made. He waited to see which track it was on, then stepped aside as the train went by. He kept working when he realized a train was coming from the other way, but with no lights, and again no warning. Thinking it had to be another train on the other track, he stepped right in front of the original train as it was backing through the tunnel. He died from his injuries and Mary Ann never saw him alive again.

The minister told Mary Ann that if she would come back to their church and forget Mormonism, and sing in the choir, he would see to it that her sons had an education and she would be well taken care of. Instead she drew on the funds she had been paying into the Perpetual Immigration Fund and together with young Amos Moses, (Ross Shirley's grandfather) Nephi and the baby, sailed for America on the ship "William Tapscott" in May of 1862. On board ship was Elder Francis M. Lyman and other church authorities returning home.

Amos Moses said that he only remembered riding in a wagon once while crossing the plains. He was trying to carry his little brother, Nephi, across a river when a man in a wagon came up next to them and they got onto the wagon. Mary Ann carried the baby, Murcy Ann in her arms across the plains.

Somewhere near the present-day Wyoming-Utah line, a fever broke out. A young man, named Ephriam Barton, noticed that Mary Ann was sick and not able to take care of the baby. He volunteered to care for and carry the baby. Within a short time, both he and the baby became ill and died the same day, October 6, 1862. A hymn was sung, a prayer offered, a few words of comfort spoken as the two were placed in the same grave, the baby placed in the arms of young Ephraim. A fire was lighted over the grave to keep animals away and the grave was covered with rocks. They moved forward through the cold October chill, arriving thirteen days later, at the end of the month, in the Salt Lake Valley.

How does one go from making lace for Queen Victoria to having raw sewage dumped on them in the streets, losing a husband in a train accident, and burying a baby in the cold October ground and still keep the faith? Mary Ann never denied her testimony. She was sealed to her husband on another, much different October of 1867. Oddly enough it was yet another October when the children were sealed to the parents in 1884, and the family was complete. The Queen's lace-maker passed away in Salem, Idaho, on January 14, 1922 and is buried in the Sugar City Cemetery. She was ever a faithful Latter-day Saint, having worked for a number of years in the Relief Society and also a teacher in Sunday School. She loved to testify of the truthfulness of the Gospel and of the goodness of the Lord. That is the description of a true Queen.

Monkey Business

Ester Maria Bubb was a little girl living in Uitenhage, South Africa in the late 1830's (she grew up to become Ross Shirley's Grandmother). So, what does a little girl born of English parents in South Africa do for fun?

I was often told by older aunts and uncles that the kids would get a jar just big enough for the smaller monkeys to put their hand inside. Then they would set the trap by tying down the jar, taking the lid off, and putting candy inside. Then they would hide and wait for the fun to begin.

Yes, "Out of Africa" the Shirley ingenuity was born.

Coat of Arms

Family history seems to be a topic that puts most people to sleep. However, having noticed all the activity that these blogs seem to have, I thought it would be more fun if we used a blog to share all the stories I have collected about the people that made us possible. Let's start with the family crest, as in the example shown here.

After thorough research, I discovered that there is yet another, more recent coat of arms that has its roots dating back to 1872. Yes, it seems that the family has had an obsession with squirrels for over 130 years. When you think of the quickness and super-mobility of the squirrel, it should not be surprising that this noble animal was chosen to represent the family. In fact, one family line in particular was motivated by the "Glaucomys Sciuridae" or "Flying Squirrel" to obtain pilot licenses. You may notice other squirrel-like behaviors in present members of the clan.