Item Detail
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Gay, Tirzah Farr
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1852-1946
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MSS 1464
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Tirzah Farr Gay was born on May 3, 1852 at Farr's Fort, Utah to Lorin Farr and Nancy B. Chase. When Tirzah was six years old, the family went to stay by Utah Lake in Provo because of the threat of Johnstons Army. In September of 1867, Tirzah went with her father to Idaho to visit the largest settlements and dedicate recently erected meetinghouses. Tirzah was sealed to John Franklin Gay on January 19,1869 in the Salt Lake Temple. Their first child was born in September of 1869, but died eleven months later. On September 9, 1871 another child was born, but died two days later. Their third child, Nancy Pearl was born in 1873, and in 1875 their fourth child Julia Etta was born. The fifth child, Newton Albert, was born on April 1, 1879. A sixth child was born December 12, 1882, but died at seven months later of spiral meningitis. Their seventh child, Olive Gertrude, was born June 22, 1884 and the eighth child, Florence, was born September 24, 1886. The last child, Lorin Eugene, was born on June 15, 1891. In the fall of 1897, John and Tirzah Gay went on a trip to Chicago to visit her sister. In the spring of 1904 Tirzah went with her father to Atlanta, Georgia to visit her sister whose husband was President of the Southern States Mission and the St. Louis Fair. The family made a six-week vacation to California in 1910. Tirzah became one of the charter members of Daughters of the Pioneers [DUP] in 1913. In December of 1921, John Gay passed away of pneumonia. Tirzah and her daughter Etta moved to California for a short time and Tirzah was stricken with arthritis and was bedridden for a little over a year. For Tirzah's seventy-ninth birthday the entire family got together to celebrate. On Mother's Day of 1939 one hundred and fifty guests came to celebrate Tirzah and her influence. Tirzah Farr Gay died October 23, 1946.
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Part of the Mary Ellen Stoddard Smith collection and located in the twentieth-ninth folder of the collection. Julia Etta Gay Shupe wrote this eight-page typescript biography. The manuscript describes that Tirzah came from a patriotic American family, some of whom fought in the American Revolution. It continues by describing the conversion of her parents to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. One of Tirzah's earliest memories is of the Indians coming to visit her parent's home. When the family moved south because of the threat of Johnston's Army, Tirzah considered it a great adventure. The manuscript also discusses Tirzah using the family's sewing machine to make over four thousand bags for flour for her father's railroad work. The family also made many trips to California. Tirzah's family celebrated her birthday each year, and one year President Heber J. Grant took her on an automobile ride and on another year her nephew, President George Albert Smith sent her a plant. Julia describes Tirzah as a very active person and had a fantastic memory. The second part of the collection is a three-page copy of Benjamin L. Rich's remarks at Tirzah's funeral. Little information is given on her personal life that was not given in the previous part, but he describes the major historical events that Tirzah lived through the Civil War, the Spanish American War, World War I, and World War II. Benjamin stated that she was honest, thrifty, frugal, temperate, and obeyed all the laws of God and man.