Part 1 1805 - 1831 Youth

Part 2 1831 - 1847 Army

Part 3 1847 Courtship & Marriage

Part 4 1847 - 1852 Marriage, Baptism and the End of a Career

Part 5 1853 - 1855 Isle of Malta mission

Part 6 1855 - Going to Zion

Part 7 1855 - 1857 Hard times

Part 8 1857 - 1860 (?) Johnson's army and back to Rush Valley

Part 9 1866 - 1867 Patriarchal blessings, Mission call and departure

Part 10 1867 Journey to the British mission

Part 11 1867 - Mission

Part 12 1868 - Mission

Part 13 1868 - Return Home

Part 14 1868 - 1888 Bishop, Storekeeper, and Iindians - oh my

Part 15 As seen by others

Part 16 1880 -1888 The culmination of a lifetime

Part 17 1888 -1891 Patriarch and Death

Part 18 Miscellaneous

Their hearts were full of gratitude and thanks. They were heartily glad to behold the "chief city of the Saints of God. " George was not long in making agreement with that unique man, Porter Rockwell, to go with some of the others of their company to Rush Valley, there to work for him for board and house room for him and his family.

[Editor's note - This map shows the relative positions of these Central Utah sites.]

This proved to be a bitter cold, hard winter for the Burridges. They suffered for food and clothing.

Early in March, 1856, he was called by the Council of Brigham Young to move from Rush Valley to Tooele for protection from the Indians who were becoming very troublesome.

George almost died this the first spring in Zion, for want of food. One day they carried him home from the fields because of the lack of food. He was hired to work for a man in Tooele. The man told him to come in for breakfast, they had been working since daybreak, but he was given no breakfast. At dinner time the man went away and ate his own dinner but there was none for George. Before the day was over George fainted from hunger.

There was no soap to be bought so the people made what they needed. One of the ingredients for making soap was lye. They also had to make that. George would go three miles out of town to the south and burn grease wood. Then he would gather up the ashes and take them back home to leach them. This meant boiling the ashes then pouring the liquid through straw and a straining can into a vessel below, the end product was lye for soap making.

George,as has been said, was very industrious and made many useful things. The following are some things he made. Bone combs to get the tangles out of hair and leave it smooth and shiny. Shoes with leather soles, held together with small wooden pegs made of hard dried maple. First the maple was sawed into thin bits and these were cut or split into small pegs by hand. George also raised broom corn and made brooms to sweep floors, wooden or dirt. He also made rakes to rake the hay in the fields.

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On the sixth of March he and Mr. Rockwell agreed to break their agreement and George decided to remain in Tooele. He strolled about the town and picked a lot he would like to own. He bought it from Mr. Eli B. Kelsey for a coat and vest its value being set at sixty dollars. This was a city lot and a garden lot was also needed so he bought a poor one from John Gallispie for a good frock coat. It was so sandy they could raise nothing on it.

Flour and all kinds of provisions were very scarce, and many times they were hungry and cold. They were thankful for the Spring that brought up the nettles, pigweeds and dandelions which meant food of a sort until harvest time.

Hannah and George took to gleaning in the fields to supply their family's needs and stored some to last until the next spring. In all, they gleaned thirty bushels of that blessed wheat.

During this time of poverty their fourth child was born.

[Editor's note - This was Annie Jane Burridge, who would live just over a year]

In February of 1857 he succeeded in getting a yearling heifer from old Mrs. Telsey for $20. One-half to be paid in gold and the other ten dollars to be worked out at two dollars a day.

April 20, 1857, George received the next advancement in the Priesthood being ordained to Forty-third Quorum of Seventies under the hands of Benjamin Clapp.

A few days later he accompanied a group to Salt Lake City to work on the Cottonwood Canal to pay on his tithing.

Family Newsletter
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