Eliza Ann Riley
Contributed By: Garth Gooch · 20 February 2013 ·
I was born August 12, 1869 in Bountiful, Utah (the same year the railroad was completed in Ogden, Utah in May) in a one room log house with a dirt roof, The day of my birth it rained so hard that they had to put a pan on the bed to keep my mother and me dry. That day mother had the threshers and they had to eat outside in the shade of a tree. As long as William Parkings lived he teased me about driving the threshers out of the house the day I came to town.
When I was five years old my parents moved to Salt Lake City, Utah. Father worked in the Valley House washing dishes. The Valley house was something like a hotel. We lived in Salt Lake City for a year and while living there I was sick with whooping cough and have been afflicted with a bronchial cough ever since. When I was six years old we moved back to Bountiful. While we were living in Bountiful I was sick with Scarlet Fever. I went to school for three months in Bountiful and was taught by Sister Alice Farnum. The school was held in one of the rooms of her home. We wrote mostly on slate with slate pencils. There was a long table which we used when we had to use paper for writing material. School cost 25 cents a week and was paid each Monday morning.
When I was seven years old we moved back to Salt Lake City where father went to work in Henry Dinwoody’s Furniture store. He worked there for 21 years. I continued school in Salt Lake City but because of my mother’s poor health I advanced only to the third reader. During my childhood I was sick with measles and diphtheria. When I had diphtheria I almost lost my speech and my eyesight and because of these difficulties I messed nearly two years of school.
When I was 14 I was caring for my sister, Emma in Bountiful and one day when I was walking past Tolman’s house Wallace and Cyrus Tolman were cutting wood on the other side of the fence. Wallace started to talk with me by Cy interrupted him saying, “Shut up, you don’t know her.” For some time after that I thought Wallace was quite all right but one night, sometime later, one of my girlfriends and I were standing in front of my sister’s place, Cy and another young fellow came along and after talking for a while we decided to draw cuts to see whether we went with the boys or if they went with us. My friend and I won and the boys took us to Bliss Hall where a group of men were gathered. On the way to the hall Cy gave me a picture of he and his brother, Wall. .Upon arriving at the hall and seeing that only men were inside we left the boys and ran down the street toward home. Cy lived in bountiful and while he was courting me, he rode a horse to Salt Lake and took me to the circus. After the circus he asked me if he could call on me again. Our courtship was in the budding stage. One time when Cy called don me in Salt Lake City I was standing on the stove blackening the stove pipe. He came in, stood by the door, and watched without saying a word. When I saw him I jumped off the stove, disappeared into the bedroom. I was wearing a house dress and had a towel tied around my head.
I was only allowed dot stay up ’till 9:30 unless I was at a dance then I could stay up until 11:00. I’ve sneaked out the back door of the house several times when I’ve been to a party so they wouldn’t know I was leaving and gone home. Father was always waiting for me to come in. I lived int he 17th Ward from the time I was six until I was 17. House #333.
Cy and I were sweethearts for two years. On September 16, 1886 we went to Logan and were married in the Logan Temple. Apostle Marinus W. Marrill performed the ceremony.
My mother was very sick and for one and on-half years before she died. She had three paralytical strokes and afflicted with heart trouble and dropsy. She passed away soon after her third stroke when my first baby, Sarah Lovenia (Winnie) was about two months.
We lived in Bountiful for seven years. My first tow children were born while we were living in Bountiful and the first home in which I lived was a two story concrete building with four rooms and a pantry. My husband built this home the summer before we were married.
I drove a one horse buggy from Bountiful to Chesterfield. We were on the ride eight days. We arrived in Chesterfield on Sarah Lovenia’s sixth birthday, August 27, 1893. My son Fred was born the following October, making it all the more difficult. I have had ten babies, and never had a doctor for any of them. I was cared for by a mid-wife. Sister Anna Wilhelmina Peterson moved into our town before Olester was born. She cared for me. He was an eight month baby. He turned so blue she though there was no hope of saving him. I asked Cy to bless him and give him a name. He asked, “What shall I name him?” Sarah Lovenia said Olester. This was the name of a former sweetheart who had been accidently shot in the leg. Poison set in and he died. Then when Leonard was born this same mid-wife brought him into this world. His was a breech birth and Cy administered to me. I was very ill. Sister Peterson came and cared for him until I was well enough to take over. Cy blessed with the power of healing and was called on real often.I did all of my own sewing as well as sewing for several other women of the community in which I lived.
Retta Tolman, my sister-in-law, would often buy materials for the girls’ dresses and the boys shirts, then give me half of it for doing the sewing. I knitted mittens, socks and stockings for both families. We had long cold winters with lots of know but we had good times at parties in various organization. I was a Relief Society Visiting Teacher and worked on the Stake Relief Society Board with Stake President Mary Call. I was MIA Counselor to Vinnie Nelson for seven years and when released they presented me with a silver cup and saucer. I was Relief Society Counselor to Columbia Loveland and later served as Relief Society President for nine years. During that time we prepared all the bodies of the dead for burial and worked with Bishop Carlos Loveland. During this time I attended women in the birth of about 40 babies without the help of a physician. Nine of them were my own grandchildren. I also helped the doctors with about 70 children, 29 of whom were grandchildren. We usually had fruit cake or something on hand so the doctors could have a snack before returning home. Even though I helped with one hundred and ten babies, only one of them died and that was a premature birth. Several of these babies were born in my home.
I paid tithing with butter and eggs. At first we would take it to the bishop, then later we took it to the store where the Ward Clerk would give us credit for it as tithing. The Ward Clerk was the owner of the store. We gave flour or potatoes or some other produce, each month when the deacons made their call for fast offerings. When the Relief Society needed extra funds they would call on all the women in the ward to save their Sunday’s eggs. For Relief Society donations we would give a spool of thread, a bar of soap, eggs, a dime, or most anything of that nature that could be used. The Relief Society Teachers took a basket along with them when they made their visits. The first donation I ever made was a bar of soap and a spool of thread.
The conditions were quite different then. There were no modern homes. They had to draw and carry the water from the well, then boil it on a wood or coal stove and add lysol or carbolic acid to sterilize the instruments; the scissors, basins, hands, etc. I doctored pneumonia with mustard poultices and by a hot bath in a wash boiler with mustard added and a wool blanket over it to hold in the steam. She also used onion poultices on the bottom of their feet to draw the fever out.
When Eldon was about one year old I was called out and was gone all night and part of the day. Elnora went home to care for him and the rest of the family. That was when Eldon was weaned. I went from one home to another during the flu epidemic of 1918 and 1919. It was a terrible thing to his our little community. Many lives were lost, especially young mothers. Schools, churches and everything were closed down. The funeral s were held in the open, usually in the church year. They cared for the dead by sitting up all night to keep ice packs on the face and jars of ice around the body, changing them often. I watched and nursed many children during and after operations.
I also worked in the Religion Class in Chesterfield with Alice Anderson. In Bancroft I was counselor in the Relief Society, to Barbara Eliason and also to Jennie S. Golbert. When I was released they gave me a combination book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price with my name engraved on the cover in gold. I worked on the Idaho Stake Board of Relief Society for several years. When Myrintha and Al were married in 1925, my husband and I went to California with them. We stopped in Los Angeles and witnessed their marriage then went to San Francisco. From San Francisco we crossed the bay to Alameda where my sister, Clara, was living. This trip lasted about 10 days and we had a very enjoyable time.
In October of 1935, my husband I moved to Logan to work in the temple, which I have so enjoyed. I performed 462 endowments for the dead during the first two years we were in Logan. (I have now done over 3100). On September 16, 1936 my husband and I commemorated our Golden wedding with our children and grandchildren and their wives and husbands. We attended one of the sessions of the temple on that day and were proud to have our ten children with us. There were 22 of our family in that session. After that we returned to the Girls Camp in Logan Canyon where we spend an enjoyable evening with 66 of our posterity. Other relatives and some close friends joined us and a hot dinner was served to 88. A fine program was rendered. We spend three days at this gathering, had our meals all planned, played games, etc.
We held these reunions each year until the Second World War when gas was so hard to get and many of the boys were in the Armed Forces. Father though it best to postpone them. Then father passed away the 20 of October 1942 at Soda Springs Hospital and was buried in the Bountiful Cemetery.
I lived with Eldon until he married then I had two rooms at William’s home for a while, then moved back to Bancroft in 1946 and lived in tow rooms at Leonar’s home for six years. This same year I received the Good Neighbor Award.
On my 80th birthday, my children held open house for me at Olester’s home at Bancroft. One hundred and seven friends called. That evening we all met at the school building where a banquet was swerved to 168 of my posterity including on great, great grandson age one year, and other relatives and friends. We enjoyed a nice program and the young folks enjoyed roller-skating. Next day we met at Lava Hot Springs, where swimming was the recreation and all enjoyed a nice lunch, barbeque the main dish. Each of my ten children presented me with eight dollars all wrapped in a gift package, a dollar for each of my eighty years. I feel I just can’t thank folks enough for kind words and deeds.
William died August 5, 1951, of cancer.
In September 1952, at age 83, I broke up housekeeping, divided my belongings, moved what I needed to Pleasant View and am living with my daughter, Sarah Lovenia. Here I lived for five years and then moved back to Leonard’s where I had my own room, eating with the family when I was there, but spent much of my time with others of the family.
Eldon died October 6, 1952.
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