Agnes Ann Morgan-Life Story

Agnes Ann Morgan

1831-1915

     Agnes Ann Morgan is sort of a double relative.  She was the daughter of Daniel Morgan and Agnes Beveridge, who are my 3rd Great Grandparents.  She married Edward Banks Neilson who is the son Edward Neilson and Catherine Banks who are also my 3rd Great Grandparents.  Edward's sister, my 2nd Great Grandmother,Martha Matilda McGill Neilson married Agnes brother, my 2nd Great Grandfather, William Morgan.  Now that probably has everyone totally confused but they were not related, they just married a brother and sister from the same family.

     Agnes was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, to a hard working coal miners family.  Life was not easy for her.  She was always thrifty, a trait she learned through suffering hunger and pain.  When she was just a young girl she had to work in the coal mines.  She used to have to go to work holding her empty stomach with both hands.

     The story is told of another time during her youth when a link of chain fell on her back penetrating her body and coming out through one of her breasts.  She lay as though she were dead.  The family prepared her body for burial, thinking she was dead.  There were no undertakers to embalm her or any doctor to render aid or sign a death certificate, so the family dressed her in her burial clothes.  They placed her on a slab in a quiet room planning on burying her the next day.

     One of the member of her family went into the room to say her last goodbye.  As she stood there by Agnes, she thought she saw Agnes' body tremor.  Then she saw an eyelash quiver.  She ran from the room to summon aid for Agnes.  When the rest of the family returned to the room, sure enough, Agnes was alive!  For days she hovered between life and death.  Slowly but surely, the chain link passed through her body and came out the right breast.  Those two scars she carried with her all the rest of her life.

     She married Edward Banks Nelson in Dunferline, Scotland, 6 March 1849.  Edward was already a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Agnes was baptized into the Church just a few days after their marriage. 

     According to her granddaughter, Stella Ruby Foster, Agnes was "gentle, meek, mild and a very loveable person.  She was thrifty to the point of being stingy.  Every inch of her, every hair in her head was SCOTCH.  It grew out of poverty and deprivation of a life time."

     Again taken from this granddaughter's account: "She was a kind loving mother and wife.  Very industrious.  No one in all the family had a lazy bone in their body.  Many lovely quilts were the product of her time and energy.  She had many proverbs she liked to quote. 'An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.'

'A woman can throw more out the window with a spoon than a man can shovel in with a shovel.' 'Pride goeth before the fall.'  She was very superstitious.  'Never walk under a ladder.' 'A baby under a year old must never look in a looking glass.' 'Look at a new moon over your right shoulder.' "  I heard my own Mother say these very same things.  Maybe it was the Scottish coming out in her too.

     Agnes was a midwife in Utah and delivered many babies.  She was honest hard-working, and obeyed the commandments.  Agnes lived several years after her husband.  She died 16 March 1915 in Garfield, Sierra, New Mexico.

Agnes Ann Morgan