By Guenavere A. Sandberg (printed in the Deseret News, Dec. 22, 2004)

This is the Christmas my mother remembered best. She is gone now, and I retell the story in her memory.

The year was 1918.  It was winter.  Alice Wilson was barely 16 years old, and the Christmas season found her lying isolated in an upstairs bedroom, seriously ill with a combination of Spanish flu and pneumonia.  Weeks earlier, the dreaded flu epidemic had invaded Hillsdale, and throughout the town many were stricken. Several new graves had already been hacked out of the frozen hilltop.

The family watched Alice’s condition worsen, and they despaired.  Near the end of November, her father had ridden horseback 16 miles through the snow to Panguitch and back to summon Dr. Bigelow. But pneumonia in addition to flu?  Alas, all the doctor could do was shake his head and prescribe a sweat bath.  Pneumonia vaccine and flu shots were yet to be discovered.  For the most part, in Hillsdale 1918, prayer and home remedies were not supplemented with pills. 

In addition to Alice’s illness, another severe heartache beset the family. Alice’s older brother was serving in the Army in France and Belgium.  The family knew his assignment was driving a mule cart to string telephone wires along the front-line trenches.  Since early October they had heard nothing from him.  Although the armistice had been signed, no word came to Hillsdale from their son in Europe.

Many prayers were offered in Hillsdale that Christmas season, and much faith went into the meager preparations. For Alice’s family, Christmas Eve was a number on the calendar and perhaps a church program for the little ones.  Perhaps not. Many public gatherings were canceled that year.  There may have been modest gifts; Alice remembered nothing of Christmas Eve but phantoms on the bedroom wall that danced in her delirium, adding to the blur of fever and pain.

On the afternoon of Christmas Day, she was sleeping fitfully when the bedroom door opened. A very tall, husky man wearing the uniform of his country, with boots, leather leggings and a wide brimmed hat, stood in the doorway.  A broad smile crossed his face, and isolation or not, her brother took the sick young girl into his arms and hugged her heartily.  He was back from Belgium.  The family had not received a letter because their soldier son was on a troop ship headed home.  Home to Hillsdale.

After the smiles and tears and hugs, out of his uniform pocket big brother Alvin took a small piece of fresh fruit.  An apricot.  A fresh apricot in the winter in Hillsdale was a miracle to be marveled at and admired.  In  1918, cabbage and potatoes from the root cellar were the fresh foods of winter.  

Only one apricot came home with the war-weary soldier, and it became Alice’s Christmas gift.  She was given one half of the precious fruit to eat, and the other half was placed under a glass by her bedside “to look at”, she said.

And look at it she did, daily for several months until she was well.  One spring afternoon she sat out in the front yard, under a pine tree, and ate the dried-up second half of the miracle apricot while the warm sunshine nourished her returning strength.

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Alice was the daughter of George H. Wilson and Hillsdale is located by Highway 89, alongside the Sevier River between Panguitch and Hatch. Once nearly 300 people lived in HIllsdale. Most of them were Wilsons and Johnsons: my mother’s family and many assorted aunts, uncles, and cousins.  Then the people, the Wilsons and Johnsons and others, all moved away.

Today, the town site is marked by a few old houses, scattered ranches, a rejuvenation effort and a cemetery surrounded by a white wood fence. The rip-sawed log house where my mother grew up, with its interior walls of split river willows covered with homemade plaster, still stands. Water still runs in the ditch in front of the house where the George H. Wilson family drew wash water and dipped drinking water if the well went dry.

Jeanne’s Family History notes:  

Remember the “Miracle of the Great Hailstorm”, witnessed by my Grandpa Sixtus E. Johnson  (The Heritage They Left Us, pg 54).  In that story, George D. Wilson used the power of the Priesthood to stop a hailstorm from destroying his crops.  

George D. Wilson married Mary Julia Johnson, sister to Sixtus E. Johnson.  Guenevere, the author of the apricot story (above) was the great-granddaughter of George D. Wilson, making her my second cousin.     

MANNA WEED

It was a lifesaver, it was tasty, and it grew like, well, like a weed.

This is based on a true story from my ancestor, Walter Cox.

Herding sheep was not Walt Cox’s idea of fun. Every time he walked down this dusty road to help his father, it seemed to get longer. Daydreaming as he walked, Walt found himself wandering near temple hill, looking for something new.

He heard a low rumbling noise and looked around, but it wasn’t a thundercloud or an approaching wagon. Walt realized that it was his stomach. Again. Times were hard in Manti, Utah, because crops were not producing. Walt found himself talking aloud even though no one was around to hear.

“I’m sick of living on bread crumbs,” he said.

Walt tried to forget his hunger pains and began racing along the hill. He noticed a patch of green plants growing at the base of the temple hill. They looked different than anything he had seen before, so he carried an armful home to his mother.

Surprised to see Walt coming home so soon after she had sent him to help his father, Pamela arose to see what he had in his arms.

“What have you gotten into now, Walt?”

Without saying a word, Walt handed her the green plants.

Careful experimentation showed that the plants had a delicious flavor, and when eaten, produced no ill effects. They found the greens superior to any they had tasted before. Pamela kissed Walt on the cheek and then sent him off to spread the news to their neighbors about the amazing discovery Walt had made at the base of the temple hill.

Every day the greens were carefully cut to the ground. Each morning they had grown enough for another day’s cutting, and the people gave thanks to the Lord for the “manna weed.” Everyone was surprised to find that during the long season, the greens never made anyone sick, and no one really seemed to tire of their flavor.

The next spring, when the gardens produced abundantly, the greens stopped growing in their spot on temple hill.

(By Erin Christison, “Manna Weed,” New Era, April 1996, p.7)

*Jeanne’s notes: Walter Cox was the son of Orville Sutherland Cox, my great grandfather.