Manomas Lovina Gibson — Witness to the Miracle of the Gulls

As a five-year-old child living in the Salt Lake Valley, Manomas Lovina Gibson (later Andrus) was a direct participant and witness to the cricket infestation of 1848 and 1849. She recalled the community's desperate struggle to save their first crops, describing how she and other children spent their summer days using wooden mallets to smash the 'Mormon crickets' that covered the ground. The account, preserved in her biographical records and Daughters of Utah Pioneers (DUP) histories, highlights the providential arrival of seagulls that descended upon the fields to devour the pests. This event was recognized by Manomas and the early Saints as a divine intervention that prevented the colony from facing total starvation during their first years in the West.