Virginia Kirkman Nielson, a native of Twin Falls, Idaho, and resident of Ephraim, Utah, since 1933, turned 100 years old July 19.
She is the daughter of Laurence Gomer and Nellie Marquardson
Kirkman. Laurence was the first stake president in Twin Falls and was
also called to be a stake patriarch, and Nellie was the first stake
Relief Society president there.
On July 26, 1919, a hot summer day 90 years ago, the first Twin
Falls Stake was organized in her family's one-room playhouse, which was
painted to match their home.
"The brethren were drinking lemonade with ice tinkling in their
glasses and fans whirring in our house when one of them suggested they
adjourn to the 'summer house' outside. There the stake had its earliest
beginnings, and father was assigned its president," Virginia wrote in
her personal history.
"Mormons were a minor group [in Twin Falls] and were ridiculed to a
certain extent, rather ignored in city business." Virginia recalls. "My
best friends were Catholics who attended Sunday movies and had parties
on Sunday, but I didn't participate in these."
Virginia recalls a number of general authorities who stayed in their home when coming to speak at church, including President Heber J. Grant, Elder Melvin J. Ballard and Elder James E. Talmage.
Later, as a well respected nurse at LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City,
she tended to Elder Ballard following an appendectomy. Other notable
patients she tended to include Emma Ray McKay, who was the wife of President David O. McKay, Patriarch Hyrum Gibbs Smith, Elder James E. Talmage and Salt Lake City Mayor Lewis Marcus.
Virginia is still quite alert in her old age. She lives in the
majestic Victorian home to which, as a young bride, her husband Glen
brought her home.
"I had a wonderful early life, midlife, and old age," she says. "I couldn't ask for more."