(an autobiography in her own words)

I came from a family of twelve children. I was the oldest. My father came with a trade from Sweden. When he established a home in St. John, Idaho he set up his shoe shop. Our big room served several purposes, that of a shoe shop, kitchen, and study room. Here he made shoes for the family and repaired shoes for the public. This trade along with farming and cattle raising provided us with a livelihood. 

The Indians used to visit and camp near my father’s homestead for about two weeks at a time each year. They would turn their ponies out into the field to graze while they gathered apples and plums that were left on the ground. The Indians weren’t always peaceful. They would go from house to house in their war paint and feathers making their demands. One time they came and demanded grandpa Josephson to fix a broken mirror. He was able to fix it, and we were relieved when the Indians went on their way. Sometimes we would visit a friendly camp with them sitting around the fire in their wigwams talking, listening, and laughing. Then making remarks about the pale faces.

My mother was the first school teacher in St. John. She also helped to provide for the family by spinning and weaving wool into cloth to furnish us with clothes, bedding, etc. All of our stockings were knit from yarn made from wool that was cleaned, sheared, dyed, and prepared ready for use. We were all going to the same district school in different classes. We would study at night around our kitchen table. It was my job to see that they all got their lessons. 

We were fortunate enough to have a church school in Malad called M.S. Academy. I attended this institution for two years and taught in the Academy to pay for my tuition. This prepared me for teaching in the district school of St. John. I taught one year there prior to my marriage to Henry Arbon Goodliffe whom I met two years before at Snowville. 

There were ten children born to us. My children are married now and I have, at present, twenty-seven grandchildren and eleven great grandchildren. I can look back on my life and be filled with happy memories.

As to my interests and hobbies, for years I have been a collector of poems, news items, pictures and anything of interest that connected the past with the present. My home has been filled with music for my children have been blessed with musical talents. Often in the evening you could hear the piano and the rest of the family sing in harmony. I have done some paintings and made flowers into plaquest. While living in Stone, Idaho, I held the job of Post Mistress until we left Stone, Idaho. 

I have lived in St. John; Stone, Idaho; Snowville, Utah; Alberta, Canada; Rexburg, and Preston, Idaho. In each of these places I have made many friends. I am now seventy-four years old. I feel my life is full and far from being ended. As long as the Lord gives me health and strength there are many things yet for me to do.

In the later days she was permitted to visit with all she desired, such as married children, sisters, and brothers. At one time while visiting a brother they went out riding horses and gathered wild berries and while gathering the berries they had three big black bears chase them. Mother must have been in her late fifties or sixties , but could ride a horse sideways as well as any of them for this is the way she learned while a girl. 

One time while visiting Florence at Rupert, Idaho she had a chance to take an airplane from Burley to Rexburg. While visiting Ellen and family they took her to see the Great Hoover Dam while under construction which was a wonderful sight. They drove through three states to get to the Colorado River where the dam is located, dividing Nevada and Arizona. I really don’t think there was a thing she missed. She was talking of the hills, shrubs, the different trees and cactus in the Nevada desert, a trip enjoyed by all.

She died at her home August 5, 1955 at the age of eighty-one having lived a full life in a new home which had been built for her by her three youngest children. She was a wonderful and precious mother that we can be proud of. Before her death and while living at Preston, Idaho she wrote a poem and I can picture her writing these lines. First there might be a frown across her face, and then she might raise a hand to rub her forehead because she is deep in thought, then comes a twinkle in her eyes and a smile crosses her face because the right thoughts have come to mind, and she starts to put them down on paper before they pass on. She mentions she was thankful for the blessing of a clean lineage which has been handed down from parents and grandparents. She advises us to live good clean lives and be faithful to the end.

My Birthright

By Anna Jane Josephson Goodliffe

As I lay one glorious night thinking seriously concerning the wonders about me and delving into the endless deep blue above, where twinkled far more stars that I could count, a testimony was born to me of a Divine Providence governing, creating, and shaping all these–and even the wondrous earth upon which I had made my bed that particular evening. I marveled, thrilled and worshiped in the very depths of my soul the maker and giver of all things. Words faileth to express how plain it was to me that power greater than man’s truly existed.

Sometime later while reading the Pearl of Great Price, I was impressed with what Moses was ordered to write at the time he was caught up into an exceedingly high mountain, and the Glory of God was upon him. Therefore, Moses could endure his presence and obey his word; writing down what was told him concerning Heaven and Earth; writing down that all was spiritually before they were naturally upon the face of the earth, even all the children of men, etc. This proves to me that I dwelt in his presence and was taught by him and fulfilled obligations while there; satisfactorily there by keeping my first estate, and was privileged to come to earth in a mortal tabernacle of flesh and blood.

President Wilford Woodruff once said, “The Lord has chosen a small number of choice spirit sons and daughters out of all the creations of God who are to inherit this earth and have been kept in the spirit world for 6000 years to come forth in the last days to stand in flesh in this last dispensation of the fulness of times to organize the kingdom of God upon the earth to build it up and defend it and receive the eternal and everlasting Priesthood.”

President Young gave like testimony saying how those spirits were making their appearance among this people and of whom the Lord will make a Royal Priesthood; a peculiar people that he can own, bless, talk with, and associate with. How I pray in my soul that it was for this reason that I was born in the Gospel Dispensation, having been reserved in training there until a day came in earth’s history when the very staunchest and bravest would be needed.

I learned that my earthly parents are of highly favored lineage. Therefore my heritage is one of the very greatest in all the world, and by living a clean and virtuous life, I can pass on to my posterity clean bodies from the choicest blood in the land. I received above all a testimony that God lives and that this is his work to bring to pass immortality and eternal life of man.

As I am yet in the midst of life’s mission earning today the blessings I am hereafter to inherit; in this day of opportunity striving for the greatest prize ever offered to any person in all the world, I cleave to my Heavenly Father and thank him for the keys he has given that I might succeed through prayer and works to attain that degree of Glory that will take me back into his presence and eternal life.

Copied from her writing by Ellen Ann Goodliffe Terry (a daughter)