Zalia Louise Virgin Brown is the daughter of Amos Moses Virgin and Sarah Francis Merkley Virgin. Amos M. Virgin was born January 23, 1854 in Morston, Mortain, England. He came to Utah with his Mother and one brother with the handcart company in the fall of 1862. Sarah Francis "Fannie" Merkley, daughter of Christopher Merkley and Xarissa Fairbanks Merkley, was born in Salt Lake City Utah. May 19 1857

Zalia Louise Virgin Brown was born November 20 1894, in St. Charles, Bear Lake County, Idaho. When I was about five years of age my Father moved to Salem, Idaho with his family. At age six I started school. We lived on the line between Hibbard and Salem. Later I went to Sugar Salem Grade School. I was baptized into the L,D.S. church at the age of eight in the slew at Salem, Idaho. We attended church in Salem Ward. I and my younger brother and sisters attended Religion Class.

When fourteen years of age I joined the Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Association. We had to go more than three miles to meetings. We always had a team of horses and buggy or sleigh to travel back and forth. I learned to harness and drive the horses and to ride horseback while quite young.

My older brother George died on August 19, 1903 when I was small, so my sisters and I had to help my father with the chores and farm work. There were no school buses at that time so we walked to school until the snow got too deep to walk. Then we had a team and sleigh to drive.

I worked out one summer when I was 13 years old doing housework and helped to make soap by keeping a fire under the soap kettle and watching to see that it did not boil over. I worked for $1.50 a week. My Father and Mother had only moderate means to provide for their family, but they always encouraged their children to take advantage of what opportunities that we had for an education. We were also taught to be thrifty and honest and to do anything that we were asked to do in the church. Also to fast and pray and to have faith in the Lord.

I married Augustus Mark Brown, Sept. 4, 1912 in the Salt Lake Temple. We went to Rexburg Idaho to live in a two-room house of our own. That fall my husband went to work at the Sugar Factory at Sugar City. The next spring 1913 we moved to my Father's farm. My husband helped my Father on his farm. At that time I joined the Relief Society and went teaching with my sister Alice Xarissa Virgin Hansen. On October 3, 1913 our first baby was born, which we named Harlin Lorain Brown. He lived only twenty days and died of phenomena.

That same fall we moved to Sugar City where Gus worked at the Sugar Factory. July 1914 we took up a Dry Farm, at Dubois Idaho about 55 miles from Rexburg. In the fall we moved to Sugar City where Gus worked at the Sugar Factory. That winter we sold our home to buy a team and some farming implements. That next spring we moved to the Dry Farm, and planted about forty acres of wheat. It was a dry summer and the crops were a failure, so again we moved to Sugar City where Gus worked again at the sugar Factory until January.

We moved back to Rexburg. Again the next spring we went back to the Dry Farm. We moved back and forth from the Dry Farm to where Gus could work at the factory until the spring of 1921 we moved back to my Father's farm where Gus worked that summer.

On July 6, 1920 we had another baby that only lived four days. We named this baby Ivan Brown. We had three living children, Amos Brown, Alice Brown, and Harlo Brown. In the fall as usual we moved to Rexburg.

The next spring we sold our home and went back to Dubois, but again the crops were a failure. 'We went back, to Salem where our fourth child Norman Brown was born on the first of August 1922. That fall we again moved to Sugar City. In the spring of 1923 we moved to Canyon Creek, Idaho to work for Mr. Browning. It was a nice place and the crops was good but that fall we moved to Rexburg again.

In December of that year my husband's Uncle Harry Brown wrote and asked Gus if he would come to Utah to work for him on a fruit farm. We was glad to come and have a steady job and place where we wouldn't have to move around any more, We was then living in a two room house with four children. Norman being born August 1, 1922. The two older children were going to school Rexburg. We had very little put away to live on. We had to buy clothes for ourselves and the children, an empty coal bin, no job and only $70.00.

We arrived in Ogden January 1924. My husband started working at his new job. It sure seemed good to not move two or three times a year. Later we bought this home. The children started school in Riverdale, Weber County, Utah on January 8, 1924. We joined the Riverdale. L.D S. ward where we found the people very friendly, While in Riverdale I served as Bee Keeper in the mutual for two years. As visiting teacher in the Relief Society and as class leader in the Social Science Department.

In 1932 I was set apart as President of the mutual and served in this position until 1936, when I was put in as president of the Relief Society. This position I served for four years and eleven months. The Lake View ward was organized, and we were among the ones who were put in that ward. Since then I served as the Beekeeper, Relief Teacher and as Teacher in the Theology Department. I was also Captain of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneer, five years, being the first captain the Lake View camp had been known as Camp 52.

After we moved to Utah we had two other boys named Leland Brown and Marvin Brown.

October 1952 my husband fell from a scaffold while building a home and broke his back. In January 1953, he lost his eyesight caused by the previous accident.

To her children she was always the perfect mother. To her husband she was the perfect companion. After his accident she was his eyes constantly. She had arthritis the last six years of her life. She died of cancer of the bone marrow September 16, 1964, at the Ogden Dee Memorial Hospital. She was buried Sept 16 1964 in the Ogden City Cemetery, she was survived by her six children her husband and four Sisters. 26 grandchildren send 4 great grandchildren.

PAF - Archer files = Daniel Brown + Elizabeth Stephens > Willis Brown + Jane Williams > Willis Brown Jr. + Alice Matilda Dinsdale > Augustus Mark Brown.

PAF - Archer files = Captain James Brown is the brother of Daniel Brown they married the Stephens sister, Martha and Elizabeth : Daniel Brown + Elizabeth Stephens > Willis Brown + Jane Williams > Willis Brown Jr. + Alice Matilda Dinsdale > Augustus Mark Brown + Zalia Louise Virgin < Amos Moses Virgin + Sarah Frances "Fannie" Merkley.

http://mygenerations.org/brown/augustusmarkbrown.html Courtesy of Paul Brown ReadBofm@yahoo.com