Manomas Lovina Gibson — Witness to the Cricket Plague and Miracle of the Gulls

As a young child in the Salt Lake Valley following her arrival with the 1847 pioneers, Manomas Lovina Gibson (later Andrus) was a direct participant in the desperate struggle to save the community's first crops from devastating cricket infestations. She recalled spending her summer days in the fields using a wooden mallet to smash the crickets that swarmed the valley. This period of crisis culminated in the 'Miracle of the Gulls,' where flocks of seagulls arrived to devour the crickets, an event that Latter-day Saints recognized as a divine intervention to prevent starvation. As one of the last surviving pioneers of 1847, her personal accounts of these events served as a primary witness to the providential preservation of the early settlers.