Morse Code Girls

Sarah Alydia Terry Winsor (1857-1950), my great-great-grandmother, as remembered by her niece Orilla W. Hafen in 1961:

Aunt Lydia was one of the girl telegraph operators of pioneer days. The Deseret Telegraph line was extended from St. George to the mining camps of Pioche and Ely, Nevada in 1872, and it was found necessary to open an office in Hebron.

Daniel Tyler was called from Beaver to care for the Hebron office and to teach a school in telegraph for those who cared to learn. Mr. Tyler made wooden keys for the class of four which included Jeter Snow, Zera P. Terry, Sarah Crosby and Alydia Terry, the latter being sixteen years old. The instruction carried over a period of three months from January to March, 1872. She was then placed in charge of the Hebron office where she served for several months. She was then transferred to the office in Panaca, Nevada, and at the age of nineteen went to take care of the office at Pipe Springs, on the border of Utah and Arizona.

She traveled to Pipe Springe in the carriage of A. Milton Musser who was the superintendent of the Deseret Telegraph Line. President Brigham Young was traveling with them. They went by way of Toquerville, Virgin, Rockville, then across by the Cane beds and camped one night at the Canaan Ranch. The people came out en masse to meet President Young’s party, and they held meetings with them.

It was while working at Pipe Springs Telegraph Office that Alydia met Anson Perry Winsor, Jr., a stalwart young cattleman of that place. Her fancy was taken first with the fine way he handled his horses and the way he carried himself when riding, also of the truthful way he told her of his faults. The Winsor family at that time lived in the old fort at Pipe Springs, the fort being known as “Winsor Castle,” since it was built by the Winsors. This name still stays with the old fort.

Lydia and Anson Perry Jr. had little in the way of social activities, but they did enjoy long horseback rides together during the long summer of 1876. They were invited by the Kanab Telegraph Operator (Ella Stewart Udall) to attend the 24th of July celebration in Kanab. They rode horseback the distance of 16 miles and had a good time.

In the fall of 1876 Father Winsor was called back to St. George to be an ordinance worker in the St. George Temple, and to assist in the final preparations of the Temple for its dedication and opening. So, it was no longer necessary for the telegraph operator to remain at Winsor Castle. She came to St. George with the Winsor family, and on March 9, 1877 she and young Anson Perry Winsor, Jr. were married in the St. George Temple by Apostle Wilford Woodruff.

After their marriage the young Winsors moved to Hebron, 1878, and Lydia took over the office there. Finally in 1888 the office was moved into her home, and she was operator for four years until 1892 when they moved to St. George. She taught a class in telegraphy. Among those she trained, was Alma A. Nelson, who became a first-class operator of that day and was employed for years in the general office in Salt Lake City.

From a history of the above-mentioned Ella Stewart Udall:

In the spring of 1870, President Young called Levi Stewart to take his family and livestock and move to southern Utah, where he was to preside as Kanab’s first bishop. The “call” was accepted without question. Before they left Salt Lake, President Young requested that one of the girls stop off in Toquerville, a small town en route, and learn telegraphy, thereby preparing to be an operator at the new Deseret Telegraph Line out of Kanab. Ella, then fifteen years of age, was chosen as the one for the job. In six weeks time, under the fine tutelage of Sarah Ann Spilsbury, in whose home she lived, Ella mastered the Morse Code which she never forgot to the day of her death. Her first assignment, in December 1871, was on a branch line ending at Pipe Springs in Arizona. This is now a National Monument. It was the first telegraph office in Arizona Territory. Later as operator at Kanab, Ella sent out over the wires to Washington, D.C., the reports of Major John Wesley Powell’s Grand Canyon expedition.

Sarah Alydia and Anson Perry Winsor with their oldest children in 1886. The babe on his mother’s lap, Joseph Smith Winsor, would die at 21-months age and three months later my great-grandfather would be born. The smaller standing boy is Luther Murkins Winsor, who you can read about at Keepapitchinin.