Sharing our Links to the Past
by Wally and Frances Gray

#M31 KIMBERLEY, Frances Amelia (AFN:1BGK-XB)*

Born: 22 Jun 1800 St. Martins, Birmingham, Warwickshire, England
Died: 30 Aug 1847 Florence (Winter Quarters), Douglas, Nebraska
Buried: Winter Quarters.

Father: Thomas KIMBERLEY #M62 (AFN: BOP2-JJ)
Mother: Sarah HITCHENS #M63 (AFN:BOP2-KP)

Married: 26 Nov 1821 Harborne, Birmingham, Warwickshire, England to Theodore Turley #M30. They had 10 children. The children are listed at the Theodore Turley site.

*To locate person on Internet by AFN (Ancestral File Number):
Go to http:/www./familysearch.org and click Custom Search. Click Ancestral File. Scroll down to AFN. Type in the Ancestral File Number. Click Search. You may find a Pedigree Chart and a Family Group Record as well as submitters.)

Biography ( From Biography and Autobiography of Theodore Turley by Ella Mae Turley (Judd.)

As the story goes, Frances was a very brave girl who had decided she would never marry a coward. One of her suitors was on guard duty. In order to test him she got a gun, concealed herself in one of the nearby trees and fired seven shots.  She did not marry that man.

Later when she was ready to get married she called all of her suitors in and lined them up behind a curtain with their hands out. She chose Theodore's hands because they were not soft and because they showed character.

When the couple emigrated to Canada they were converted to Mormonism. She died at Winter Quarters where her husband Theodore also lost five other members of his family.

Amasa Lyman* said of her in 1839: "I boarded with Brother Theodore Turley's family. Sister Turley was most kind and unremitting in her attention to my comfort. Under her treatment I regained my health and remained until March 1839 when I went to Quincy, Illinois."

Once when the mob were stealing stock in Far West, Frances told her father to give her Old John and she climbed on him with a loaded blackwhip (handle loaded with buckshot.) She rode into the herd and got the stock and hit one of the mobbers with the blackwhip. She brought back the cows and the bull. Another time she took her father and his friends to a meeting in Nauvoo in a sleigh and on her return the buffalo robe blew up in front of the horse, causing him to run away. She jumped on the horse and brought it to a stop. A man who watched the procedure joked with Theodore and offered him a thousand dollars for Frances. Theodore was very indignant.

In our home we have a framed picture showing five generations of women leading back to the sixth generation of Frances Amelia Kimberley Turley. It is headed "The Relief Society Heritage of Christina Gray Peterson." (our daugher.) We have the photos of the five women but not of Frances. The photos are captioned, starting with Charlotte Turley Bushman (1840-1899), then Grace Bushman Lundquist (1873-1912), Elsie Lundquist McNabb (b. 1904), Frances McNabb Gray (b. 1929) and Christina Gray Peterson (b. 1957).  In the upper right corner of the picture is an area devoted to Frances Turley saying, "Frances Turley was a member of the Relief Society in Nauvoo. She and her husband Theodore Turley joined the Church in Canada in 1837. She was a very brave woman, once driving a mob in Far West away with a black whip while her husband was on a mission in England. She died in Winter Quarters as did two of her children." Frances and Wally Gray.

*Amasa Mason Lyman (AFN:IZ3-8W) married Priscilla Rebecca Turley (see Theodore Turley), daughter of Theodore and Frances Amelia Kimberley, on January 16, 1846, in Nauvoo, Illinois. He was born on March 30, 1813, at Lyman, Crafton, New Hampshire, to Roswell Lyman and Martha Mason. He was ordained an apostle on August 20, 1842, by Brigham Young at the age of 29. He was replaced in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on January 20, 1843, due to the reinstatement of Orson Pratt. He was appointed counselor to the First Presidency (Joseph Smith, Jr., president) about February 4, 1843. He retired from the First Presidency with the death of Joseph Smith on June 27, 1844. He returned to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on August 12, 1844. He was deprived of apostleship on October 6, 1867, and excommunicated on May 12, 1870. He died on Feburary 4, 1877, at Fillmore, Millard, Utah, at age 63. His blessings were restored after death. (Deseret News 1999-2000 Church Almanac, p. 54.

©1998-2006 Wallace F. and Frances M. Gray. This web page may be freely linked. To contact us send to grayfox2@cox.net