Virginia Adair Chilson
A lot of people call Virginia Adair Chilson names like: fearless, courageous, brave, resourceful and those are all true too but the word "amazing" is what comes to my mind. At the age of 12 she was the total caretaker of her little 8 months old sister. Her mother was blind by that time and her father had just experienced the life altering episode of having a leg removed after a logging accident. They lived in, Cottonwoord, a small town in northern Arizona. One hot summer in 1940, Virginia showed all of the grownups in her life what one little determined girl could do.
Doctors didn't know how to treat her mothers' eye disease. Her father, Guy, was instructed to take Irene, to Mesa to the doctors there for the only methods known at that time to help relieve eye pain, removal of all of her teeth! A hundred miles away, they left Virginia with her little sister, Peggy, in the care of her aunt Lena and uncle Chess who had their hands full with five boys of their own. Virginia immediately knew that her aunt wasn't good at taking care of babies when she found Peggy sitting in the dirt and eating figs she had been given to suck on. For a baby still on a bottle, this is not healthy. Peggy got sick. While her aunt and uncle were at church, Virginia took her little sister to a friends' mother who was a nurse. The nurse quickly took Peggy and her to the doctor. Peggy had a severe case of diarrhea. The kind doctor gave Virginia medicine for Peggy. Right then, Virginia made her mind up, she wasn't staying with Uncle Chess and Aunt Lena anymore. When the family got home from church Virginia told her Uncle Chess she wanted him to take her to her mother's sister, Pat's house, in Jerome, Az., a mining town.
This move would soon be a problem for Virginia and Peggy too. Virginia didn't understand that Pat was a newly wed and really didn't want kids around. She wouldn't be of any help to them either. All during this time, Virginia did all of the feeding, changing and washing diapers by hand for Peggy. The mining town was on a steep hill. Carrying a baby upstairs and downstairs required sure footing for a young girl and she never went anywhere without her sister. Once again, Virginia took things into her own hands. She wrote to a friend 60 miles away asking if she could bring her little sister to their house in the mountains where it was cooler. Riding a mail truck by herself with a baby over bumpy dirt roads in the heat didn't seem like a big thing for her to do. She just knew she wasn't going to let anything happen to her little sister and wasn't going let anyone who didn't know what they were doing take care of her either.
After months of being away from their parents, they were finally reunited as a family. Their home was a small cabin by the railroad tracks in Mesa. Even though life was a struggle, their family was content because they were, at least, together. Irene would always sing to her girls and tell them stories. Determined to help earn money, Virginia rode a borrowed bike several miles to a farm in Lehi, Az. and asked if she could pick cotton. It wasn't easy work. She had to tie a rope around her waist that was attached to a long white sack and put the cotton in it. The bag would drag along behind her becoming more and more heavy with the cotton she picked. The thorns on the cotton, would tear the tender young skin on her fingers, she wanted to cry but she kept on working telling herself, "I can do this and I will make it."
Throughout her life, Virginia has always shown these same characteristics of love, service and sacrifice. As a mother, she was like a "mother bear with her cubs". You didn't mess with her kids.
For her eightieth birthday party, friends and families from all over the country wrote tribute letters describing how Virginia was always the one who would show up when they needed help and how she could always make them laugh.
We are proud of you mom. You are a great example to all who know you. We love you.