Eliza Ann Barnes Wilding born 21 August 1890 at Downey, Bannock Co., Idaho (Woodland Ward) went to school in District 12 of Bannock So. from the first through the eighth grade which was as much schooling as I got. I went to tend babies for people when I was seven years old and as I got old enough to help with the work I helped the same people at heading and threshing time. At first sometimes they would give me 25 cents a week and sometimes 50 cents and when I got to be a little more help I got $1.00 and so on until I got $4.00 a week before I got married. I also worked in the telephone office at Downey - it wasn't like the telephone offices now. It was just a little witch board not more than 18 inches square. And I worked in the store of Wm A. Hyde & Co. which was a store that had all the goods needed in a community - from groceries to horse shoes, and all the clerks worked in all departments. We would sell groceries, bacon, butter etc. then dress goods - silks etc. or hardware or anything called for and there wasn't even a place to wash our hands from the time we left home until we got back. But we enjoyed the work and the company of the good people we worked with. Some of them were Geo. T. Hyde, John S. Hyde, Swen J. Johnson and Fred Bowers and the wives of these men would come in and we all enjoyed the work very much. Then I worked at the hotel in Downey several times when they needed extra help. The hotel was owned and operated by Mr. & Mrs. Wm Lawrenson. I liked that work but didn't do any work I liked so well as the store. My first boy friend was when I was 15 years old, he was an Englishman with black hair and my mother liked black hair so he was alright but he went away and I quit writing to him and she didn't like that. But I got a date to go to a dance with another fellow and mother said I couldn't go he was no good and I hated to fool him when he came so I asked her why he was not good she said "well his father owed your father eleven dollars and never paid it and he is dead now he never will get it. I didn't like that and she got disgusted with me and said go and stay I don't care if you never come back. So I went but I told him not to come back because mother didn't want me to go with home, so he said "well I'll come up to Downey to the next dance and if you can you come too and we will meet there." So that is what we did then he went away and we wrote to each other and he took me home from a dance once when he happened to be there and I got my last letter from him the day I got my diamond ring from the man I married. He also married a good girl and has a family and so have I.
I married Joseph A. Wilding on October 19, 1909 at Pocatello, Idaho and went to the Salt Lake Temple November 10, 1909. We went to Salt Lake to live that winter but was only there two months and that was enough town life for me so we came back and stayed with my folks part of the time and with Joe's brother Heber part of the time and in April we moved into our own house on his homestead. We only had the house partly built, we had part of the floor down, it was a two room house but we didn't have any lining or petition in it and no doors nor windows and I had material to make my first baby clothes so I tacked some on the windows and we hung a wagon cover up to the door and lived that way until we could get it finished. We lived there nine years but it was not a good dry farm and we had no water for it so we moved to Rexburg on the 11 November 1918. We lived there until spring then bought a place at Archer and lived there one year, then sold that and went back to Rexburg. We moved from there to Milo Idaho on March 7, 1921. We bought the place by the Milo Church known as the Bybee place and we found out we couldn't make out on it so we rented it for a while then we moved on to Parley J. Davis' place and rented there for a few years and did pretty good there then Mr. Davis got a new renter and we bought the Al White place and are still living here and trying to keep up our payments. We have had 10 children. (listed in Joseph Abraham Wilding history)
[The pictures above were taken of Joseph Abraham and Eliza Ann in 1909 the year they got married. Joseph age 33 and Eliza Ann age 19.]
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