Notes
Note N9825
Index
Texas, U.S., Birth Certificates, 1903-1932
Name: West Birth Date: 3 Jun 1929 Birth Place: Clarendon, Donley, Texas
Father: Lloyd F West Father Birth Place: Kaufman County, Texas Mother: Irene Flinn Mother Birth Place: Cole County, Oklahoma Mother Residence: Clarendon, Texas
Notes
Note N9826
Index
1920 United States Federal Census
Name: Hall Birdsanz [Hall Birdsong] Age: 17 Birth Year: abt 1903 Birthplace: Virginia Home in 1920: Suffolk Ward 1, Suffolk (Independent City), Virginia Street: Pinner Street
Father's Birthplace: Virginia Mother's Birthplace: Virginia Able to Speak English: Yes Attended School: yes Able to read: Yes Able to Write: Yes
Household Members (Name) Age Relationship
Thomas H Birdsanz 52 Head
Mattie Birdsanz 48 Wife
Helen Birdsanz 23 Daughter
Thomas H Birdsanz Jr 21 Son
William M Birdsanz 19 Son
Hall Birdsanz 17 Son
Frances Birdsanz 14 Daughter
Howard Birdsanz 10 Son
Mclemore Birdsanz 8 Son
Alberta Bird 21 Servant
Virginia, U.S., Death Records, 1912-2014
Name: Hall Franklin Birdsong Death Age: 70 Birth Date: 5 Oct 1902 Death Date: 15 Aug 1973 Death Place:Suffolk, Virginia Registration Date: 17 Aug 1973
Father: Thomas Henry Birdsong Mother: Martha Mclemore Birdsong Spouse: Elizabeth West Birdsong
findagrave
Hall Franklin Birdsong BIRTH 5 Oct 1902 Virginia DEATH 15 Aug 1973 (aged 70) Nansemond, Suffolk City, Virginia BURIAL Cedar Hill Cemetery Suffolk, Suffolk City, Virginia MEMORIAL ID 135243683
Parents Thomas Henry Birdsong 1867-1933 Martha Lewis McLemore Birdsong 1871-1949
Spouse Sarah Elizabeth West Birdsong 1904-1989
Children
Elizabeth Birdsong West Joyner 1931-2008
Notes
Note N9827
Index
Indiana, U.S., Marriage Index, 1800-1941
Name: Bessie G Woolpert Spouse Name: Frank A West Marriage Date: 28 Jan 1903 Marriage County: Miami Birth Date: abt 1875 Age: 28
findagrave
Bessie G Woolpert West BIRTH 1874 DEATH 1963 (aged 88-89) BURIAL Chili Community Cemetery Chili, Miami County, Indiana PLOT section 5 row 3 MEMORIAL ID 64132165
Parents David G Woolpert 1841-1914 Catharine Frances Lash Woolpert 1846-1941
Spouse Franklin Amos West 1873-1938
Siblings
Orris T Woolpert 1868-1871
Notes
Note N9828
Index
Posted 14 Feb 2015 by jmberrett30
HISTORY OF MARTHA LONA HARRIETT ELIZABETH WILKINS WEST
I was born in Victoria, Coffee County, Alabama, February 1, 1874. I was the fourth child and the first girl, so I was named for all the relatives - Martha, Lona, Harriett, and Elizabeth. My mother, Julia Ann Virginia Texas Wilkinson, was sickly and did not sit up for a half day until I was a year and a half old, and then I had another baby brother born.
I was my mother's helper; I was happy to run errands and do things for her. I had to tend babies until I was married. I heard my mother say that I had raised her family. When I look back I was always busy; there was always a job to be done. There was wool to pick and then break into coarse cards. Then it had to be carded and made into rolls and spun into thread for suits for Father and the boys. I have often carded and spun the thread that made the cloth for my own dresses, as well as the boys’ clothes. Also I made thread to crochet and sew with. When I was six, I had pieced two quilts. I also could knit my own stockings, knit for the boys, and do mending and darning. I helped make the garden.
There was very little time left to go to school. School would only be for three months out of the year and if there was anything extra to be done, it would always fall to my lot to remain home and help with it.
I was nine years old when my only sister was born. I well remember how Grandmother would come in the morning and take care of Mother and the baby and I would have to do the work, wash, and go a quarter of a mile to milk, then go that far again to the garden for the vegetables. The news went over the country what a worker I was and that I could put out as nice a washing as anybody.
As a child, I enjoyed the south. My father, John Taylor Wilkins, owned a 400 acre farm. It was delightful in the springtime or fall. There were many nuts, a fish pond, ravines, and a variety of sweet scented trees and shrubs. As a child it was a real joy to go out and pick wild fruit and nuts, especially wild blackberries and dewberries, which were very plentiful. I recall Father as he rode his horses through this lane to work, he would reach out his hand and pick the berries as he went along. He always aimed to be in the field at work at sun up. He had the reputation of being the hardest worker anyone ever saw.
As a child of nine, I recall going out to pick blackberries for Mother to make pie for dinner. When I went to pick the berries, as I put my hand out there was a snake, a Black Racer, wrapped around the tree hanging down over the bushes. This is just as plain as though it happened yesterday. I was indeed frightened, so I went over to another place to get the berries. It took me a little longer and Mother scolded me. She said I should have "taken a stick and knocked the snake down." (Imagine this for a little girl nine years old ) Dinner was a little late and I was reprimanded. As quick as I could blow the horn for dinner, I had to. Mother was always ill, and this fell to me. As early as I recollect, I believe I was eight years old when I first blew it. I could make them hear me across the 400 acre farm. I would blow about three times so they would be sure to hear. This horn was made out of a cow horn. Father was very capable at making them into good horns; it took a good deal of effort to perfect one.
I did most of the work, or so it seemed to me. Mother had help while I was younger, but after I was around nine years old I did most everything. However, Mother did have a Negro lady who helped for a couple of years, but she worked in the field mainly. Father had large corn and cotton fields. I can remember dropping the corn and cotton seeds for Father when I was a child. He also had a great amount of peanuts. We hauled them in by the wagon load like we do hay now. Father hired many Negroes as help on the farm. Two Negro families lived for years on the farm. Father built them good houses down in the field. They were in a thicket of trees and by a lovely spring of fresh water. The water tasted especially good. This was a delightful and favorite place of the family's.
Rattlesnakes were bad around this spring, also there were lots of brush and ravines, but even so, it was a favorite place. My two brothers, Cephas and James L., saw a rattlesnake one day. They chased it on their horses with poles. When they killed it, it was five feet long. They also killed its mate; it was about the same size.
It was great delight going through the fields hunting nuts. Some of them are: hazel, black English walnuts, hickory, chinquapins, and chestnuts. It was also delightful to hunt for sweet gum which grew on sweet gum trees. I did so like this gum; it never lost its flavor. It was the best gum I ever tasted. There was also lots of wild fruit, persimmons, huckleberries (these I especially like), grapes, muscadines, blackberries, dewberries, raspberries, and strawberries. Persimmons, plums, and nuts we picked in the fall, berries in the springtime.
On the farm, Father had a large bunch of sheep and goats, six or eight milk cows, one or two horses, but mostly mules. I remember one team of mules especially. This team Father was very fond of. There were three of these mules; they were very large and brownish red. One was a pretty black, so slick and shiny. We always had a good sized bunch of pigs. He butchered one for each member of the family and one for company. Father said he always tried to have everything that would grow in that country on his farm. He said he knew children would crave it and he wanted his children to have very advantage he could give them.
Father's fruit orchard was especially fine. The peaches were the best flavor I have ever eaten. The apples were so large and good. He had a good variety of fruit. He bought his trees from an agent. So many people had no fruit whatever, so this was unusual. (This is still unusual for even now, fifty years later, these same Southern people would rather grow tobacco than fruit and vegetables.) It was difficult to dry the fruit in Alabama because it rained so often; it was such wet weather. We, however, succeeded in drying enough for our own needs, namely peaches, apples, and grapes. I brought it in and put it out, so I well remember. We also had plenty of sugar cane and sweet potatoes. We made our syrup. In fact, we produced nearly everything we needed to eat and wear. We had a good variety of vegetables.
Father tanned hides and made all our shoes. Father made coffins for everybody who came for them. He never charged anybody for making them - he wanted his paid for when he died. He also had a blacksmith shop, wood shop, and a store, besides his big farm. He always had a job. He also understood herbs and grew many in his garden, and what he didn't grow he could find in his field among the shrubs.
I always appreciated Uncle Ike and Aunt Ann coming for a few days visit. He was so very clean. This lady looked after Mother and her family. She was my Grandmother's house girl. (It was my Grandmother Wilkinson who was a beautiful seamstress.) [Lona's maternal grandparents died before she was born.] Other than this old Negro couple, I did not take to the Negroes. I was frightened so of them, especially the men. They always seemed so dirty. My grandfather Archie Wilkinson, on my mother's side, the Negroes loved him. They begged my grandfather to take them back and let them work for him, as they had done before the Civil War. My grandfather was very wealthy and it was his wife who was such a nice seamstress. She had many silk dresses; she did all of this by hand. She never did house work; she had Negroes do that.
My grandmother on Father's side (Brogden) I well remember. My brother, J.L. (James "L"), is still angry at her because she spanked me. He felt she was wrong, and the last time I saw J.L. he still held this grudge. My grandmother on Father's side was an ideal to me as a child. She taught me many wonderful lessons about thrift. She took pains to show me about sewing, etc. Especially was she pleased when I learned to quilt. I remember the first three shirts I mended; I was eight years old. I felt so sorry for Mother, always being sick. My, how tickled she was when she went for these shirts and found them mended. She showed them to Grandmother and she was so pleased.
As a child, I loved this grandmother dearly. She was a widow and Father always had someone stay with her. My grandfather, her husband, had died while fighting for the south in the Civil War. Her father-in-law was also shot while fighting in the Civil War for the south. He was taken for another man, a traitor. He was in a store and they believed him to be the other man. They shot him from behind, not giving him a chance to identify himself. I thought my grandmother was the most perfect woman on the earth. It nearly killed me when I went to say good-bye before coming west. We both cried until we couldn't talk. I always went to Grandmother's on Sunday. All the children and I always looked forward to these visits. I lived from one week to the next on the anticipation of it. We were always welcome to anything she had, but we had to respect her things and keep them clean. She was very industrious, always busy spinning or weaving. I have spent many hours with her. She was a great hand to read to me. When I got so that I could read, I used to read to her. My, how she enjoyed it. She had a farm; she rented it. Often she would get four cows more than she needed. She had four children and she gave each a cow. When she saved $400, she gave each child $100 each. I recall this grandmother went visiting her folks one summer. When she came back her well was dry. Her best clothes were dirty and she came to our place and washed and starched them. I well remember ironing them to the best of my ability and taking them to her. My, she was pleased. She gave me a lovely breast pin and ear rings. My, but they were fancy and was I proud.
When I was three years old, I remember churning. We churned every morning so we could have the buttermilk and butter for dinner. It was a tall wooden cedar churn with an up and down dasher. Father had made it; he made all our buckets and utensils. I churned from then on. Mother had a little table in the corner of the kitchen and put the churn on this table so I could manage to keep my baby brothers out of it, especially D.E. (Doctor Ephraim).
I learned to knit by the time I was five. I had three pairs of stockings knit for myself by the time I was five years old. I loved to knit. I sat up nights to knit and weave and spin. I have sat up many a time until one o'clock in the morning knitting, etc. We always figured this was our night time work. I recall going to bed, then getting up and sitting by the window and knitting by the light of the moon. I would knit until I dropped some stitches, then I had to stop and go to bed.
We were always up early, usually by four o'clock in the morning. I never could lay down during the day. My, I got awfully tired, but seeing Father work hard, and such long hours, gave me encouragement to keep going. It was a disgrace to sleep in the day time. If we ever got to go to a party at night, we had to get up earlier the next morning. There was no mercy on the fellow who went out nights.
I was about eight years old when I first went to school. It was only for three months of the year. I went to Chestnut Grove School. It was here that I met Henna Dalton, Theo's mother. Theo and I went to school together. Mrs. Dalton's visit to my home in 1938 brought back many fond memories. She remembered Mother and said how good she was to her - the apples, etc. I was very good in reading and spelling. I was generally at the head of the class. I used to go at the foot of the class each Monday morning, but it was no time until I was up to the head again. There were my four brothers and I that went to school together. We took one large dinner pail for us all. I did so want my lunch to myself so I could eat with the other girls.
I well remember when a small child of ten, a man coming to the house. He asked Father if he could pray with the family. Father called us all together; there were only ten of us. The man had us kneel in a circle and he prayed for us. My mother said this was the most wonderful prayer she ever heard. He talked to Father and Mother quite awhile and told them a lot of good things. Among other things, he mentioned "true messengers" were going to visit Father from a church being organized over in Utah. He told Father they were sending out men two by two. He told Father that they would come and see him before long and all of our family would join and immigrate to the Rocky Mountains. Father and Mother didn't know who he was. When he went to leave he disappeared after he went out the door. We have all been impressed with the feeling that he was one of the three Nephites.
About a year later Father was coming home from town (Troy, Alabama), when he saw a man walking along the road. He asked the man to ride. Brother William Thompson (from Scipio, Utah) was his name. He gave Father a tract - "A Friendly Discussion" by Ben E. Rich. This was around the first part of January. Brother Thompson was on his way to Mac Cunningham’s. Father invited him to come and visit him. Father read the tract before he went to bed. He read it again the next morning and then he sent for Grandmother (Father's mother) and Mother and the children, and read it to us. It was Sunday, and Father had Grandmother Wilkins stay for dinner and they talked all day about Mormonism. I remember Father saying it was music to his ears and the greatest thrill of his life. Father hadn't ever joined any other church. He was converted immediately. [Roy recalls hearing his grandfather bear testimony to this many times, both at testimony meetings and at home in friendly conversation. - G.D. West]
As near as I remember, it was March 3, 1885 when the missionaries first came. It is just as fresh in my memory as though it were today. I can see them coming down the road on the way to the front gate. I was standing at the gate. [Roy visited the old house in 1920 and this gate was still standing. - G.D. West] They asked me where Mr. Wilkins was. I told them he was cleaning brush and trees from new ground with the boys. They had come twenty miles that day and had had nothing to eat. Their names were William Thompson and William H. Wilson. Father soon came home and he took them in the front room. The boys did the chores. These missionaries surely did look different than anyone else I had ever seen, that is why I was out by the gate looking at them as they came down the road. Father, Mother, and J.L. were baptized on April 4th as members of the Church. Cephas and I were baptized on September 4, 1884. Father was the only one to take the elders in and give them a meal and let them sleep all night. They never did get so they could talk to our neighbors that were at school or anywhere.
We were badly treated by all our friends. They were so bitter they did not want us to go to school. No one would sit by us. It was a great trial during those two years for the people were so prejudiced. Father was put in as head of the branch. The missionaries began to counsel him how we should live - having the blessing on the food and family prayers, etc. Father told Earl he had to pray before he could eat. He felt pretty badly, but he tried. We all felt sorry for him. Father said we were going to have family prayers and that everyone was going to have their turn. I decided that I had better practice up. I went out in the woods about a half mile. I had just got started when Father called me. I got up and answered, then I had to start all over again. I kind of went over it so I felt I might make out if he called on me. Then I came to the house and gave account of myself and where I had been, but I didn't tell Father what I had been doing.
Two years after Father was baptized we moved to Manassa, Colorado. After we had been here for a short time we went to Sanford. Father had to sell and auction off everything so that we could move. We didn't get much for it - people knew they would get it anyway for we were going west. Mother's estate property of 1200 acres was sold at 50 cents and 75 cents an acre. The first 40 acres were sold to a Negro. He paid for it in the fall. He was the first to pay us, even before the white men. Father was only able to get four or five hundred dollars out of all his farm of 400 acres. Our fine milk cows only brought us $8 or $10. We also had to sell our other animals - sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, turkeys, peacocks, and guinea hens. Even though this was a severe trial and sacrifice, yet Father didn't seem to mind. He was overjoyed with his membership in the church. It took about two years to get rid of everything so we could leave - we could only take our clothes and bedding. We sure had a hard time with a big family.
When we arrived in Sanford, Father had $2700 in cash. He had received quite a bit out of his crops, furniture and home. At the time we came west, the elders came to Father and borrowed $350 for Mac Cunningham and his wife and six children to come west on. Father never did get his money back. Mr. Cunningham borrowed more money when they got to Colorado. He promised to pay it back. Father got up in the middle of the night to get the money the second time, but the Cunningham's never returned any of it.
We met at Chattanooga, Tennessee and a company of 150 was formed. Of this, only three families remained in the Church. The rest became discouraged and returned. John Wilkins and John Wilson, who was my uncle, were two of the families. The Dempsey family was the other one to remain. Jack Dempsey is a descendant of this family. The night before we left Victoria (20 miles from Troy) a mob was formed. They didn't do us any harm, but stirred up a lot of excitement shooting, etc. They wanted the elders who were with us. The mob took a suit of underwear, tied it across the road, and shot it full of holes. This was their brag of what they would do if they could get the elders. It was said that Father's two brothers were head of the mob. They were bitter toward the elders for taking Father away. Father met them at the gate with a gun and told them if they came in they wouldn't go back through. The guns were shooting and the dogs were barking all night. Mother was in the back room praying.
It was November 20, 1888 when we left. We took the train at Troy. It took us all day to go from our home to Troy. That night nineteen of us slept in one bed on the floor of a warehouse. We slept in our clothes. I recall how our bustles were a nuisance for sleeping. We took the train at Troy for Colorado. We were five days and nights on the train making this trip. My baby brother W.F. (William Franklin) was three months old. He took a bad cold the day of the auction - it was raining. He was screaming and crying so hard when the morning came for us to leave. He was sick all the way and for three years after. Abscessed ears were the trouble. Finally his name was sent to the Salt Lake Temple and he was told he would get well, which he did some time later.
The elders advised Father to buy 50 acres of ground in Sanford which he did, and we stayed there for five years. Father built us a house. He went in the hills at this bitter cold season of the year to get logs from the mountains. I was a Sunday School teacher while here. It was here that I met Erastus. I was out gathering donations for the Sunday School Christmas tree when I went to Erastus' home with Florence Funk. This is the first time I saw him. This was at Sanford, Colorado. I didn't see him anymore until we were all called to Beulah, New Mexico. The church, under President Woodruff, called twelve families to go to New Mexico. Father's name was called; also Erastus' mother and sisters were included in these twelve families.
Erastus and I went together nearly a year. We were engaged in April 1893 and planned to be married in the temple the following April. Father didn't approve of my marriage. Many others didn't think Erastus was good enough for me and they tried to break us up. The crops were so poor, and we lived so far from the temple and it took so much money, so we were married on Christmas Day 1893 by Ashel Fuller, the Bishop of the Beulah Ward, New Mexico. We stayed here three years and then went back to Manassa, Colorado. We were honorably released from our call to New Mexico two years after we were married, but we stayed one year longer before going to Colorado. I still taught in the Sunday School in Beulah.
Ralph was born in Beulah, New Mexico, October 7, 1894. We stayed in Manassa about six more months, then Erastus went to Old Mexico and bought a good home and land. I stayed with Father for six months, then Erastus met me in June in Diaz, Old Mexico. Here Erastus worked on the railroad helping to build a branch line from EI Paso to Dublin, Old Mexico. We stayed here one year and then went to Duncan, Arizona later called the Franklin Ward. We were in Duncan about six years. It was at this time that John Henry Smith and Apostle John Taylor came and organized the Franklin Ward. They sealed three couples that night and we were one of the couples. They sealed us for "time and eternity" in a little room of the home where they held church. Roy was born here and also Florence. I was desperately ill with both births. I had child bed fever and no doctor. The only help I had was a Mexican midwife. They felt she saved my life, along with prayer.
I was secretary and treasurer of the Young Ladies here. Erastus was in everything, including the Sunday School and the Mutual. He served on the committee to handle the church's money and affairs here in Duncan.
We now came to Emmett, Idaho. We had been living alone until now. John and Mother (Erastus's mother) were here on a fruit orchard with Erastus' sister and husband. His sister died and her husband took his family and went to Springville, Utah. John needed help, so Erastus gave up his land and came to work with John at Emmett. He came March 3, 1902. I stayed until October conference of the same year in order to dispose of the property. We picked up the measles in our move and all three of the children were very ill. We barely got to Emmett. Ralph was blind for several days. We left Emmett in 1911. I still continued to pray about going to the temple. After we had been there in Emmett a year my brother, Earl, wrote me to meet him in Salt Lake City at October conference to go to the temple, so we all could be sealed to Father and Mother and do our work too. I prayed while walking through the orchard.
While asleep that night an angel visited me three times. He said he had a blessing for Erastus and our family. I can see it all just as plain as though it just happened. Circumstances were such that it looked as though we could not go. I told Erastus about this. He got up before daylight and walked six miles to the bishop's place for the recommend. The stake president lived in Oregon, so far away that Erastus was unable to get it signed that day. He phoned to the stake president but was unable to get him. He waited all day but could not contact him. He was very disappointed as he came home that night. A letter was then sent to the stake president. An answer came to us on Thursday, telling us we could get our recommend signed at the Lion's House by the stake president. We made the last excursion train on Saturday night. We didn't have a minute to spare in order to make the train. We took the three children with us. We took the children to the temple and had them sealed to us (the third time we were married) as though it had never been done before. We also had the sealing done for Father and Mother.
The farm at Emmett was beautiful. There were 40 acres of fruit and berries on the one side of the Payette River and 160 acres on the other. We had a beautiful grove of trees. It was the most choice place at Emmett. It was because of water trouble that we had to move. It was while here at Emmett that Metta was born. I had a good doctor and got along very much better than any time before.
We left Emmett and went to Bliss Farm at Bliss, Idaho. We were here a year and lost $7000 on this deal as we had paid this much money into it. We were certainly bilked. We left and traded our farm at Emmett for a hardware store in Payette. We paid $16,000 for this store. We then traded the store for a farm of 320 acres in Lost River. We lived at Lost River for twelve years. We did a great deal here. Erastus was bishop of the Darlington Ward. I was president of the Relief Society. We all did more here in the church than anywhere else. The children were very active. Ralph went to the army - he volunteered. Roy here offered to go on a mission. I felt badly about Ralph's going, but I had a warning it was right to be loyal to our government. After this I felt better and I was comforted. We stayed here twelve years. We had to move because the water was taken away from us. A dam was built above our farm and it dried up our crops. We lost a great deal on the investment.
We then went to Rupert and stayed one year. We got 80 acres for $1200. We sold it for $6000. We then went to Montana and stayed for three years. We didn't buy any place in Montana. Then we came to Paul, Idaho, bought 40 acres and made a new start. We had $600 to pay down. When we thrashed our grain, we paid this. This experience was a real trial for we started from the bottom again. Our chickens and our turkeys were our main income. We stayed here eight years, then sold it to Bishop Greene for $3500 and bought the place in Burley. Our home is paid for now.
Compiled by Geneva Day West - May 11, 1947
Reviewed and retyped by Elaine West Jensen - February 11, 1997 (Includes additions dictated by Martha Lona and recorded by Mrs. Ken Blubaugh)
Geneanet Community Trees Index
Name: Martha Lona Harriett Elizabeth Wilkins Birth Date: 1 févr. 1874 Birth Place: Victoria, Coffee, Alabama Death Date: 13 déc. 1964 Death Place: Rupert, Minidoka, ID, Idaho
Father: John Taylor Wilkins Mother: Julia Ann Virginia Texas Wilkinson
Spouse: Erastus Horace West
Child:
Meta V West
Ralph West
Roy A West
