BORN JULY 19, 1887

DIED DECEMBER 2, 1971

Photo of Eva Clegg July 1967

I, Eva Nancy Criddle Clegg, was born in Syracuse, Davis Co. Utah, on July 19, 1887. I was  the third child of John and Sarah Ellen Bennett Criddle. Nora Azellia born Dec. 30, 1883, Lonetta born Sept. 17, 1885, then me. Lorin born Sept. 28, 1889, John Edwin – Jan. 8, 1892, Sadie Elizabeth Nov. 2, 1893, Ervin George Nov. 8, 1895, Lillie Orissa Nov. 11, 1897, James Alvin March 1, 1900, Vinnie Arvilla Feb. 11, 1903. Nora died in March, 1887 before I was born. She was injured at birth.

I attended the dedication of the Salt Lake Temple in April of 1893. Father and Mother went one day and Lonetta and I went with our Sunday School teachers and class the next day. Mother put our names on us so if  we got lost. I remember the winding stairs and President Wilfor Woodruff and all shouting Hosannas.

I went to Sunday School and Primary in Syracuse and school for two years. We had only 40 acres of ground and it was close to the lake. The alkali was coming up on the ground so bad, father decided to use his homestead right. So he came north, went as far as McCammon and decided to come back to Downey where he filed on 160 acres in 1894.

There was W.A. Hyde’s store with the post office and the Depot. The W.A. Hydes and Whitakers were the only family in Downey at the time Father came up and got logs out and built a one room log home. We never moved up till May 2, 1895. Father had brought the furniture, chickens and livestock up a week or so before Mother and us children came. Uncle George Bennett took us to Ogden to catch the train. We arrived in Downey at midnight. Father and Uncle Rass Christensen met us at the Depot. It rained on us going to Ogden and ruined mine and Lonetta’s new hats – and was raining when we got in Downey. We went out to Uncle Rass and Aunt Melvina’s that night in a covered wagon and stayed for a few days while Father put the roof on the house, which consisted of slabs and winney edge covered with dirt. We lived in it a while with just dirt floors. There were big logs across the top with no ceiling.  

You can imagine how crowded we were with Father, Mother, and five children in the one room. Then Ervin was bon there in the fall, making eight in all.

I was eight years old in July after coming to Downey. I was baptized in the Marsh Creek south of Downey by Father. Fast meetings were held on Thursdays A.M. at the homes. I was confirmed by Nathan Coffin at his home the same day.

The ground was covered with sage brush which had to be cleared. Father would plow by a hand plow daytime and we children Nettie, Lorin, and I would pull or grub and pile the sage brush. Then Father would burn it at night.

We went to Cambridge to church, sometimes in a hay rack in the summertime. 

It was hard work washing on the washboard and ironing with stove irons. Nettie or I would stay out of school one day a week. Sometimes to help mother with the wash, sometimes I had to hang it out after dark. 

I went to Cambridge School after we moved to Downey where I graduated from the 8th grade along with Frank and Charley Laurensen. The others in the class had dropped out. The school house I went too was a large room with curtains to draw between the four lower grades and four upper grades – used for church and all entertainments. It had a belfry on top and a large bell that they rang at 8:30, and 9:00, at recess, and at noon. We would always listen for the 8:30 bell at home about two miles away.

After living in the log room for two years, Father built a new home, consisting of a bedroom, kitchen, and pantry. Later on he added to it in 1905, which made a nice home but not bathrooms, toilet or sinks, just cold water from a pump drawn by a dog wheel. The dog was put in the wheel and locked in and as he would walk ahead it would draw the water.

Nettie, Lorin, and I would often ride horseback to go to dances in Cambridge. 

I was secretary in the Primary when Emma Hyde was president. I worked at the telephone office receiving $16.00 a month after graduating from school, Then I worked at Hyde’s store, also Lars Johnson’s store at another time getting $1.00 a day. I have worked for $1.50 and $2.50 a week. Also I washed for people for $1.00 a day.

I was married to Byrd Clegg on April 7, 1910. It was no fun for us to go buggy riding as we had to do as I got sea sick so easily.

After we were married, we moved over on a homestead of 160 acres south of Downey where we had one room sixteen by twenty which seemed pretty good. I helped build the chimney after we were married. It seemed like the ground was no good. The crops either burned up or the grasshoppers took it.

In 1912 we bought ten acres in Downey where we built a home and moved there when Arvilla was a baby. Clifford was nearly four years old.

In the summertime we would move back to the ranch for some years. We had Leona while moving back and forth, but times were so hard farming with horses and hauling water up the hill for a mile. So we decided to give it up. So we stayed in Downey for good. Myrl and Bertha were born there. We then had five children, Clifford, and Arvilla were born at Mother’s. And Leona, Myrl, and Bertha at home.

I was chosen Assistant Sunday School Secretary in Cambridge. And when the ward was made in Downey, June 1907, I was Secretary in Sunday School from 1907 to 1910. Also Stake Sunday School Secretary for a while and Stake Religion Secretary for some time before marriage. I was 1st counselor in M.I.A when the first M.I.A. was organized in Downey, along with Ida Hyde (later Johnson) and Mabel Koford. In 1916, I was sustained as Secretary in the Downey Ward Relief Society, an office I held for twenty years, being released in 1937. Then I was Relief Society visiting teacher for 20 years.

At present I’m 76 years old, have five children, 22 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren. I have been a widow for 21 years and two grandsons have been on missions, one returned and one in Austria now.

Written in March – 1964 by Eva Nancy Criddle Clegg in her own handwriting. Typed by Ronda H. Crowther, a granddaughter, July 1993