Plaques chronicle the history of Ephraim. One at the Pioneer Cemetery north of town describes the massacre of early settlers. Another recounts the signing of the Indian treaty under a tree at Pioneer Park. Another tells how the Central Utah Art Center on Main Street used to serve as the Relief Society granary.

The woman behind the plaques and many other historic landmarks in Ephraim is 91-year-old Virginia Nielson. A resident for 68 years, she knows the city better than anyone.

She was a registered nurse at LDS Hospital when she met Glen Nielson. He was her patient. In 1933 they married and moved to his hometown.

The bride expected to give up her nursing career and devote herself to raising a family, but she found her medical skills were in demand. Ephraim had no nurse, no hospital, just two old doctors. Her first patient was a woman left with an infection after giving birth. “We didn’t have penicillin back then.” Mrs. Nielson says. “About all we could offer were consoling words and blessings.” The patient lived, and thereafter Mrs. Nielson found herself on call day and night.

Over the past seven decades she has seen many changes. “I was brought up in Twin Falls, Idaho where my family had a modern, comfortable home,” she says. “When I first came to Ephraim, most houses didn’t have plumbing. People got water out of the ditches—some of them still did that! They put ditchwater in a big container, such as a milk can, and let the sediment settle out.”

Shortly after moving to Ephraim, she and her husband bought a mansion that was built in 1895 by Soren Johnson. It had belonged to Glen’s parents since 1905. “They were living in a remodeled chicken coop before that,” Mrs. Nielson says.

One day she noticed an elderly man walking up and down the sidewalk in front of her home. “He kept looking and looking. Finally I went outside and asked, ‘Are you interested in this house?’ He said, ‘Oh, yes! I built it for my family, and I had to see it again.’ So I brought him inside and let him look around. He patted the woodwork. He was so glad that the home was being living in by a family who appreciated it.” A model of craftsmanship, the mansion is on the Scandinavian Heritage Festival bus tour route, the very bus tour the Mrs. Nielson used to guide.

Beginning with the first festival in the 1970s, she drove visitors around in her car, pointing out places and telling their history. Eventually the city leased a bus and hired a bus driver for Mrs. Nielson.

The cabins at Pioneer Park? She had them moved there. She saved the Bailey cabin from certain destruction. Seeing a demolition crew going to work, she drove over and honked her horn until someone came to her car. “Did you want this cabin?” the man asked. Mrs. Nielson said, “Yes, of course I do! What do you think I’m here for!” So the cabin was put on rollers and, under her direction, a cement pad was poured for it at the park. She and her friend Arlea Howell furnished the cabins with period artifacts—cradle, washtub and washboard, spinning wheel.

Mrs. Nielson is a proud member of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers. In fact she is the descendant of not one but two handcart company pioneers. Her grandfather, John Kirkman, was eight years old in 1856 when the ill-fated Martin Handcart Company crossed the plains.

The company started west late in the season. They packed their belongings in poorly constructed handcarts made of unseasoned wood. There were delays along the way. Rations ran short. Handcarts broke down. Still the pioneers pressed on.

Winter moved in before they could reach Utah. Snow buried the wheels of their handcarts making a last push impossible. The martin and the Willie Companies were stranded in Wyoming. The pioneers pitched camp and waited. By the time a rescue party found them, many had perished.

Mrs. Nielson’s great-grandfather, great-grandmother, and their six children were among those rescued. Four days later, however, the father and baby Peter died. John Kirkman, one of the sons, is Mrs. Nielson’s grandfather. He married Ann Elizabeth Jones, who came to Utah with the later Christiansen Handcart Company. Mrs. Nielson recalls that her grandfather never would talk about the Mormon Trail. And her grandmother would never go to a parade because inevitably the handcarts were rolled out, reminding her of hardship.

On her 89th birthday, Mrs. Nielson visited Martin’s Cove, Wyoming. A museum commemorates the handcart companies. Mrs. Neilson pushed a handcart as far as she could down a path and then walked down a steep trail to what was once the pioneers’ camp. “ I was so thrilled to be there. The Martin Handcart Company tragedy is the most fascinating story in the world.”

Today Mrs. Nielson has plans for more plaques. She wants to get one for “the Big Fort” that once encompassed 17 acres of town. She wants one to mark the spot beside the creek where Ephraim’s first family, the Behunins, resided in a dugout. As much as Mrs. Nielson has done to preserve Ephraim’s history, she says there’s more she still needs to do.