By Eunice Isabell John Griffiths 

In a little old one room log house on the morning of Feb. &, 1877 in Woodruff, Idaho, Ida Paulina Ward the sixth child of George Ward and Eunice Alice Nicholas was born.  She was a very outgoing good natured child from the time she was born. 

When Ida became the age for going to school very little schooling was available.  So much hard work was needed around the farm and house and her hands aided in this responsibility. Only two months in the summer and a few in the winter was there any schooling available.  So most of her education was received through the home. 

Their only way of travel at this time was in a Spring Wagon, horseback or in a sleigh in the winter months.  So when her dating years arrived they would travel by these methods to East Portage, where dances were held.  Once in a while they would go up to Henderson Creek to Mrs. Moons.  Mother, being a very sensitive child, always wanted to please everyone and never wanted to be scolded, so when Daddy would keep her out later than she should be, to prevent a scolding from her father, Daddy would help her crawl through a little bedroom window into the house. 

Ida Ward married William Henry John quite young at the age of sixteen on December 12, 1893 at home.  She was later endowed and sealed in the Logan Temple on December 20, 1893. 

On July 9, 1894 a baby girl came to bless their home.  I was named Eunice Isabell John.  I was a very sickly child and had to be carried on a pillow for quite some time.  They did not think I would live, so very soon after the birth Grandfather George Ward gave me my name and a blessing.  When I was a year old my Grandmother told me I could set down very easily in my fathers #7 size shoe box.  I remember going to Grandmother Ward’s house every Sunday to visit but do not ever remember attending church.  Daddy and Mother  had a wagon with a spring seat that took a little of the jar of roughness.  Daddy’s horses’ names were Fox and Prince, and I remember Daddy letting me sit on his lap and drive them sometimes. 

On January 10, 1898 a baby boy was born, named William Thomas John.  My mother died of a heart attack at the age of 21.  I well remember the day she died.  I was alone with her.  We had all been out planting the garden and Daddy had just barely left to go up in the field west of the house to turn the water.  Mother was sitting in her old rocking chair, which we still have in the family, I wanted her to help me unbutton my panties.  She said “I can’t .  Go get your daddy”.  I went outside, and stood by the house and called him but he was too far away to hear me.  Then I  

returned back again into the house and once again I was told to “Go get your Daddy”.  This time I went out a little farther from the house and stood crying and calling to Daddy.  Cousin George M. Ward was coming down the road on a horse from the canyon west of our house when he heard me, he stopped and told Daddy he had better come to the house, he could hear me calling him, Father came running, by the time daddy reached the house and we went in Mother had made it to the bed.  I can hear him now saying “Ida, please speak to me.  He said it several times but she never did answer him.  She was dead.  She was buried at Portage, Utah.   

Grandfather and Grandmother Ward took me home with them to live right after the funeral.