LIFE HIGHLIGHTS ON JUDITH SAREPTA AULT WOODS, PARENTS JOHN WESLEY AULT AND JUDITH ELIZABETH WESTBROOK: Written in 1950 by Judith Sarepta Ault (Woods)
I was born February 13, 1882 at Bear, Ark. My mother nearly died at my birth from 15 hard fits. They kept me alive on one teacup of milk per day with sugar and whiskey. They used a goose quill wrapped in clean rags and a bottle. My birth took place at Bear Town Ark. Montgomery County now Garland. At three months they quit giving me the bottle and I drank out of a cup. They then decided to wean me from whiskey and had to taper off, just a little less at a time. The first clear memory I have was a visit to grandpa Westbrook's. We rode in a wagon and I was three years old. I remember the dresses sisters Abba and Jemima wore. The dresses were cream colored with wheat heads and Cheet heads (Cheet is a small grain of no value) and cockrel blooms of purple. I remember a man wading a stream of water and carrying his shoes. The next thing I remember was when Brother Guy was born. They woke us up and took us to George Ryans. There was a brother Josh, Calib, Adah, and myself. I was 3 at the time.
My first school was a Prescription School. The teacher was Mrs. Dea Ryan. She taught all sizes and as I was only 6 she would send me out to play with her son Frank who was too young to learn. My brothers and sisters told my pa and he whipped me. They children all said I got a frankin. Dad said he was paying for her to teach me and not to baby tend. We sure enjoyed our going to school as we worked if not in school.
My second school teacher was Miss Hulda Tucker and I liked her very much. The schoolhouse was an old log house that wasn't used for a dwelling because it was too run down. Miss Tucker got a fever and chills so our schooling was cut short.
The next school my brother Arthur Ault taught. The teachers taught from First Readers till the fourth. Three months was the limit of our schools and some times there would be three years before we would get to school again.
We worked during spring, planting and hoeing crops. We girls helped gather them in early summer and fall. I sawed and piled logs and burned them, dug sprouts and cut cotton stalks and corn to prepare the ground for planting. I would pull fodder and help bring it in and gather corn and pick cotton in the fall of the year. One year we picked cotton bare footed when the ice was frozen up out of the ground and wouldn't melt all day. I wasn't half as sorry for myself as I was for sister Adah as she seemed to be colder than I and I loved her more than I did anyone else. She was one year 9 months older than I and wasn't strong.
Brother Calib and I were chums. We played while we worked but sister Adah wouldn't stop----just worked right on.
One thing made a lasting impression on my mind---Brother Samuel P. Ault's illness and death. He had Tiphoid fever and it ran through our family. I was 6 years old at the time, 1888. We lived near Cedar Glades, Ark. and that is where brother Sam was buried along with a brother-in-law who also died of Typhoid. Pa. Ma and I were the only ones who didn't get sick.
One winter sister Adah and I went bare footed all winter but the older children had shoes as they had to do most all the work. Pa had an abcess on his liver and was sick all fall and winter. Don't get the idea that my parents were mean to us for they were the best parents who ever lived and did all in their power to take care of us. I don't ever remember that I ever went hungry. Sis Adah and I herded the sheep in lambing season (there wasn't any stock law and everything ran outside) and the hogs were bad to eat the lambs. We would get quite cold sometimes but we had good warm clothes as lambing season comes eary in the spring before it warms up.
My fourth school was taught by Miss Mary Smith who was a very fine teacher and taught all of her pupils the best she could. She was just 17 years old but taught all sizes as usual. She taught 3 months and I was 10 years old at the time. When school let out I had won the most head marks of my spelling class and got the prize. I was happy and kept the china cup long after I was married. Joe used it for a shaving cup.
It was while Miss Mary Smith was teaching that brother Guy died (that had been his first school) and also my little nephew John Ault. They had what was called at that time "bloody fluxs".
The following winter sister Jemima got married.
My fifth school was taught by Miss Mary Smith and it was in the winter. She was to have taught five months but two boys got to fighting so she was asked to quit. Our schooling was again cut short.
Our Sundays were spent with the Thornton children, either at their place or at papas. We would go fishing or bathing (if no boys were around). Sometimes we had others to play with but not while we were small. Our pastimes were climbing trees, picking berries and gathering nuts in season.
When we tended any church we went to Cedar Glades but that wasn't often. I met my brothers wife-to-be, Lizzie Elder, when I was 6 and she was 7. (Note: Caleb Orin's wife) We met at meeting one Sunday and we are still good friends now in 1950.
My parents were good christian people and they raised us to love the Lord. I don't know when I learned to pray or talk with God when in times of troubles but as a child I had my prayers answered. But I didn't always do as I was taught. At one time when all the other children were away at boarding school, Caleb and I were left home. We took the horses to the pasture and then went over to grandpa Thornton's field and got a watermelon and ate it. That was a heavy load on my mind for several years.
The first time I saw my husband, I was eight and he was sixteen.
My first truly beau was Henry Stucksbury. I was thirteen and he was twenty-five and so very handsome, Dark and a black mustache. He had been a coal miner in Tennessee and had one short leg, but my could he dance and sing. I went with Henry for six to eight months then met Boss Martin, a short blond, who I thought was the only one for awhile. Well, there were so many boys in my life space won't permit me naming them all. Well, Hugh, then Fred and several others who were engaged to get married three or four times before finally getting married.
I met Joseph C. Woods on a blind date when I was fourteen and we would go steady then break up then make up again. I was baptized in the Protestant Methodist church when fifteen and that rather put a damper on my dancing. I fell by the wayside, as the preacher put it, and I kept on dancing. They never turned me out of the church so I guess they still have my name on their rolls. I didn't know what they believed in and I still don't. Well after four years of courtship I finally married Joseph C. Woods on February 24, 1900.
We moved into a small house on a big farm where we raised cotton, corn, potatoes, and some garden. We were very poor as far as worldly goods were concerned but oh, so rich in Love and Respect.
That fall I donated 40 acres of land from the state. We sawed trees and Joe hawled them to the mill, made into lumber and Joe and my brothers made us a small house. We had a well drilled, build a chimney and fireplace and moved in our home right out in the woods. We cleared land nights and Joe worked days. We made a pole pen to store our corn and Joe split rails and made a lot (as the southerners called it) for our horse, cow, and chickens. On December 25th. 1900 my first son was born, just ten months of marriage. We named him John Theodore, but he lived only three days.
April 9, 1900 sister Adah's baby was born but Adah died. That was a great blow to me as she married the same year I did. She gave me the baby and I started letting it nurse but my father said I would have to live with him and ma if I kept the baby so I told him I couldn't do that as part of our chickens had gone wild while I was helping nurse Adah. Mother, then, kept the baby but it only lived eight months. It was just like loosing my own baby again.
My second child was born January 12, 1902. We named him Julion Bartholemew but since then he has had his name changed by law to Robert Julian.
Our third child, a girl, named Maryen Carra was born November 23, 1903. She lived till January 1, 1904. Our fourth child was born January 28, 1905 and lived 13 years.
August 1, 1904 I was baptized in the L.D.S. Church and confirmed the same day along with Sister Morina Ault, brother Caleb and his wife and cousin Sidney Ault and his wife. My father had joined the L.D.S. Church two years before. From then on our friends, or the ones we thought were our friends began to find fault with us.
Our fifth child, Caleb Orrin, was born October 15, 1906. He lived to be thirty eight.
We build a small but nice house to hold our meetings in. We had a Sunday School going for some time. My dad was superintendant, I was his counselor, sister Rena was Secretary, brother Caleb was teacher and my mother was teacher of the small children. We had our S.S. at my father's home till we made our church house.
Our sixth child was born May 9, 1908 and was the only child blessed in our church house before it was destroyed by fire on the night of July 24, 1908. It was then our enemys started in ernest to do us harm and we got a written notice to get out in one month. My father talked to Mr. Thornton, the father of some of the men who helped burn our church, and as my father was fairly well to do, he made this offer: We either buy their property or they buy our's. They wouldn't buy ours nor sell theirs so we had to take what we could and leave.
Joe and I had fourty acres plus six we had bought, with two orchards about 1 1/2 acres or more in garden, a three room house, large smoke house, large crib and four stalls. The crib was to store grain and had a lot of hay in it at the time. We sold the land and the hay for $139.00. We also had two good milk cows and calves, one springing heifer, chickens, hogs, a span of mules and wagon and many tools and house things. Most of this we had to sell on credit.
We traveled by train to Blackfoot, Idaho and had $43.00 and four children all under seven. But God Blessed us and my husband found work and we didn't suffer. The Saints of Blackfoot did all they could to help us and gave us clothes and we got along fine.
Before the winter was out, Joe contracted mumps and was sick for a long time. What saved the day that time was that Joe was working at the sugar factory and got medical aid. I did work for a Sister Brawley. She paid me 10 cents an hour and gave the three children and me dinners. (the other child was in school) I also did quilting for Mrs. Brawley.
Pa bought five acres of land, of which he gave us 1/2 acre and we built a two room house, that way we didn't have to pay rent., But, the following summer Joe got a job on a ranch for $40.00 per month with chickens, cow and a house furnished so we rented out our house. We had a free garden and I was able to do lots if work and having the "know how", we did well. This job was at Springfield, Idaho and when school started we moved back to Blackfoot, Idaho. Joe did tree topping and baled hay in the winter and I baked bread and sold it.
Our seventh child was born in July of 1920 and we named her Ida Vera Lou. That fall we sold our home and moved to Kelsey, Texas, a Mormon settlement, and lived there 18 months. We bought a farm, two mules and a wagon and made a crop.
When we sold our farm and cow and mules and wagon and rented a house where we staid the winter, through the birth of our eighth child on December 25, 1911. In February we started back to Idaho and arrived in Burley, staid a few days, then went to Blackfoot, Idaho. There we rented a house and Joe went to work. My husband had lots of friends and it wasn't hard for him to get work. I believe it was March 16th. we moved and right away Vera got sick. The Doctor didn't know what was wrong and she died. She was buried at Blackfoot cemetery, I believe on March 30, 1912. It was very sad but we tried to live our religion and if you'll always say " let God's will be done," God will help you.
I forgot to say Joe had joined the church before we left for Kelsey, Texas.
Joe and I bought nine city lots from Orrin Wilde. There were two chicken coups, good large ones. We moved two rooms up on front of the lot and cleaned them and moved in so we wouldn't have to pay rent. The next September we dug a basement 15'X30" and built a house. I helped and people would stare at me but I didn't mind as I knew we would have a good home. The next spring we got a job on a ranch and rented our house. Joe made $50.00 per month. We had a house and got some chickens to go with the ones we had and had a cow. We bought a horse and buggy and paid #25.00 down. When Joe got his check I would go to town and pay our tithe which was $5.00 and $25.00 on the horse and buggy and that left us $20.00 to live on. We had plenty to get by on as we had all the fruit we could use, a garden and had milk and eggs. Joe contracted to do the hard work on eleven acres of sugar beets and the man let him off to go do the work. When it made it too hard for him I would take the horse and buggy and pile the children in and go do the work on the beets myself. I had five children living at the time.
The next year Joe leased a farm near Donaldson Lake, Idaho from Mr. G. Stowell for five years. We moved to Springfield on Mr. Stowell's place. It was a 50-50 basis. He furnished five cows and four mares. We were to get half increase and he was to furnish all the tools. It was there our ninth child was born, named Marie Elizabeth. Mr. Stowell came while I was still in bed and started grumbling and never stopped till we left the ranch. We had only been there one year.
We moved back in our house and staid until November 23, 1915. It was there that our tenth child was born June 6, 1915. (Named Jessie Charlotte) We sold out and moved to Arizona in a covered wagon. We got to Lehi either on the 18th. or 19th. of January, 1916.
We rented a farm church property and everyone said we wouldn't make our seed back. We put in canteloups, cotton, corn and watermelon and garden and God blessed us! We had arrived at Lehi with $500.00 and we cleared $1600.00. God was truly with us.
We bought a place that was run down, 40 acres and it was cheap. Joe, our largest boy and I all worked on it grubbing mesquits, and that was a big job. We made good crops and had the good will of the Indians who came to work for us when they wouldn't work for anyone else. Joe paid them fair wages and we gave the Lord his tenth.
We lost Jessie and stephen, one from pneumonia from a backset of small pox. Jessie, first, on January 3rd. 1918 then Stephen some day in June from scarlett fever. We said "Let God's will be done", it was hard but God knows best.
We sold our Lehi ranch and bought a sixty acre place on Tampe Canal with no house. We moved in tents and build us a four room house. I forgot that on October 21, 1918 our twin sons were born, Joseph Karl and James Charles. In April we all had the flu and down at once. We lost little Joseph April 21, 1919. We were saddened again.
In September we sold our home and bought a the White Wing Poultry Ranch at Mesa Arizona. On May 30, 1920 our thirteenth child was born, Ruth Irene. In 1920 a slump came in cotton. If we had sold our place in the spring of 1921 we would have had $20,000.00 but didn't. We rented our place and moved to Goodyear to make a crop. We planted alfalfa and cotton and April 1922 our fourteenth child Samuel Paul was born on the Allen Ranch near Goodyear, Ariz. We had the misfortune of losing our horse, named Flag, so in the fall we sold everything and left Arizona and moved to Home Gardens, California.
We bought two city lots, built a house and Joe did carpentering. He was run over by an auto and crippled in 1923. It was then we commenced working in the fruit on Dinuba, Calif. Then we sold our place in Home Gardens, Calif. and went back to Mesa and made a crop. In 1925 we came back to Dinuba, to pick grapes then went to Twin Falls, Idaho and staid there five months then back to Home Gardens, Calif.
We bought property and built a seven room house. Then in 1929 we let the home go in on a forty acre place in Tulare, Calif. We made two crops and lost the ranch. We moved to Corcoran, Calif. in 1932 then sold the teams and went to following the fruit of a summer. We made one more trip to Arizona then came back and followed the fruit again. We went to oregon from September to February and came back to Visalia.
We bought five acres on 8th. Avenue North, let it go back and moved to Hall Avenue, then in February 13 bought the property we are now in and have lived here ever since, it now being 1950. Joe passed away October 16, 1947.
Judith Saripta Ault Woods
Grave located @ G.P.S.: N 36 20 292
W 119 18 379
I was born February 13, 1882 at Bear, Ark. My mother nearly died at my birth from 15 hard fits. They kept me alive on one teacup of milk per day with sugar and whiskey. They used a goose quill wrapped in clean rags and a bottle. My birth took place at Bear Town Ark. Montgomery County now Garland. At three months they quit giving me the bottle and I drank out of a cup. They then decided to wean me from whiskey and had to taper off, just a little less at a time. The first clear memory I have was a visit to grandpa Westbrook's. We rode in a wagon and I was three years old. I remember the dresses sisters Abba and Jemima wore. The dresses were cream colored with wheat heads and Cheet heads (Cheet is a small grain of no value) and cockrel blooms of purple. I remember a man wading a stream of water and carrying his shoes. The next thing I remember was when Brother Guy was born. They woke us up and took us to George Ryans. There was a brother Josh, Calib, Adah, and myself. I was 3 at the time.
My first school was a Prescription School. The teacher was Mrs. Dea Ryan. She taught all sizes and as I was only 6 she would send me out to play with her son Frank who was too young to learn. My brothers and sisters told my pa and he whipped me. They children all said I got a frankin. Dad said he was paying for her to teach me and not to baby tend. We sure enjoyed our going to school as we worked if not in school.
My second school teacher was Miss Hulda Tucker and I liked her very much. The schoolhouse was an old log house that wasn't used for a dwelling because it was too run down. Miss Tucker got a fever and chills so our schooling was cut short.
The next school my brother Arthur Ault taught. The teachers taught from First Readers till the fourth. Three months was the limit of our schools and some times there would be three years before we would get to school again.
We worked during spring, planting and hoeing crops. We girls helped gather them in early summer and fall. I sawed and piled logs and burned them, dug sprouts and cut cotton stalks and corn to prepare the ground for planting. I would pull fodder and help bring it in and gather corn and pick cotton in the fall of the year. One year we picked cotton bare footed when the ice was frozen up out of the ground and wouldn't melt all day. I wasn't half as sorry for myself as I was for sister Adah as she seemed to be colder than I and I loved her more than I did anyone else. She was one year 9 months older than I and wasn't strong.
Brother Calib and I were chums. We played while we worked but sister Adah wouldn't stop----just worked right on.
One thing made a lasting impression on my mind---Brother Samuel P. Ault's illness and death. He had Tiphoid fever and it ran through our family. I was 6 years old at the time, 1888. We lived near Cedar Glades, Ark. and that is where brother Sam was buried along with a brother-in-law who also died of Typhoid. Pa. Ma and I were the only ones who didn't get sick.
One winter sister Adah and I went bare footed all winter but the older children had shoes as they had to do most all the work. Pa had an abcess on his liver and was sick all fall and winter. Don't get the idea that my parents were mean to us for they were the best parents who ever lived and did all in their power to take care of us. I don't ever remember that I ever went hungry. Sis Adah and I herded the sheep in lambing season (there wasn't any stock law and everything ran outside) and the hogs were bad to eat the lambs. We would get quite cold sometimes but we had good warm clothes as lambing season comes eary in the spring before it warms up.
My fourth school was taught by Miss Mary Smith who was a very fine teacher and taught all of her pupils the best she could. She was just 17 years old but taught all sizes as usual. She taught 3 months and I was 10 years old at the time. When school let out I had won the most head marks of my spelling class and got the prize. I was happy and kept the china cup long after I was married. Joe used it for a shaving cup.
It was while Miss Mary Smith was teaching that brother Guy died (that had been his first school) and also my little nephew John Ault. They had what was called at that time "bloody fluxs".
The following winter sister Jemima got married.
My fifth school was taught by Miss Mary Smith and it was in the winter. She was to have taught five months but two boys got to fighting so she was asked to quit. Our schooling was again cut short.
Our Sundays were spent with the Thornton children, either at their place or at papas. We would go fishing or bathing (if no boys were around). Sometimes we had others to play with but not while we were small. Our pastimes were climbing trees, picking berries and gathering nuts in season.
When we tended any church we went to Cedar Glades but that wasn't often. I met my brothers wife-to-be, Lizzie Elder, when I was 6 and she was 7. (Note: Caleb Orin's wife) We met at meeting one Sunday and we are still good friends now in 1950.
My parents were good christian people and they raised us to love the Lord. I don't know when I learned to pray or talk with God when in times of troubles but as a child I had my prayers answered. But I didn't always do as I was taught. At one time when all the other children were away at boarding school, Caleb and I were left home. We took the horses to the pasture and then went over to grandpa Thornton's field and got a watermelon and ate it. That was a heavy load on my mind for several years.
The first time I saw my husband, I was eight and he was sixteen.
My first truly beau was Henry Stucksbury. I was thirteen and he was twenty-five and so very handsome, Dark and a black mustache. He had been a coal miner in Tennessee and had one short leg, but my could he dance and sing. I went with Henry for six to eight months then met Boss Martin, a short blond, who I thought was the only one for awhile. Well, there were so many boys in my life space won't permit me naming them all. Well, Hugh, then Fred and several others who were engaged to get married three or four times before finally getting married.
I met Joseph C. Woods on a blind date when I was fourteen and we would go steady then break up then make up again. I was baptized in the Protestant Methodist church when fifteen and that rather put a damper on my dancing. I fell by the wayside, as the preacher put it, and I kept on dancing. They never turned me out of the church so I guess they still have my name on their rolls. I didn't know what they believed in and I still don't. Well after four years of courtship I finally married Joseph C. Woods on February 24, 1900.
We moved into a small house on a big farm where we raised cotton, corn, potatoes, and some garden. We were very poor as far as worldly goods were concerned but oh, so rich in Love and Respect.
That fall I donated 40 acres of land from the state. We sawed trees and Joe hawled them to the mill, made into lumber and Joe and my brothers made us a small house. We had a well drilled, build a chimney and fireplace and moved in our home right out in the woods. We cleared land nights and Joe worked days. We made a pole pen to store our corn and Joe split rails and made a lot (as the southerners called it) for our horse, cow, and chickens. On December 25th. 1900 my first son was born, just ten months of marriage. We named him John Theodore, but he lived only three days.
April 9, 1900 sister Adah's baby was born but Adah died. That was a great blow to me as she married the same year I did. She gave me the baby and I started letting it nurse but my father said I would have to live with him and ma if I kept the baby so I told him I couldn't do that as part of our chickens had gone wild while I was helping nurse Adah. Mother, then, kept the baby but it only lived eight months. It was just like loosing my own baby again.
My second child was born January 12, 1902. We named him Julion Bartholemew but since then he has had his name changed by law to Robert Julian.
Our third child, a girl, named Maryen Carra was born November 23, 1903. She lived till January 1, 1904. Our fourth child was born January 28, 1905 and lived 13 years.
August 1, 1904 I was baptized in the L.D.S. Church and confirmed the same day along with Sister Morina Ault, brother Caleb and his wife and cousin Sidney Ault and his wife. My father had joined the L.D.S. Church two years before. From then on our friends, or the ones we thought were our friends began to find fault with us.
Our fifth child, Caleb Orrin, was born October 15, 1906. He lived to be thirty eight.
We build a small but nice house to hold our meetings in. We had a Sunday School going for some time. My dad was superintendant, I was his counselor, sister Rena was Secretary, brother Caleb was teacher and my mother was teacher of the small children. We had our S.S. at my father's home till we made our church house.
Our sixth child was born May 9, 1908 and was the only child blessed in our church house before it was destroyed by fire on the night of July 24, 1908. It was then our enemys started in ernest to do us harm and we got a written notice to get out in one month. My father talked to Mr. Thornton, the father of some of the men who helped burn our church, and as my father was fairly well to do, he made this offer: We either buy their property or they buy our's. They wouldn't buy ours nor sell theirs so we had to take what we could and leave.
Joe and I had fourty acres plus six we had bought, with two orchards about 1 1/2 acres or more in garden, a three room house, large smoke house, large crib and four stalls. The crib was to store grain and had a lot of hay in it at the time. We sold the land and the hay for $139.00. We also had two good milk cows and calves, one springing heifer, chickens, hogs, a span of mules and wagon and many tools and house things. Most of this we had to sell on credit.
We traveled by train to Blackfoot, Idaho and had $43.00 and four children all under seven. But God Blessed us and my husband found work and we didn't suffer. The Saints of Blackfoot did all they could to help us and gave us clothes and we got along fine.
Before the winter was out, Joe contracted mumps and was sick for a long time. What saved the day that time was that Joe was working at the sugar factory and got medical aid. I did work for a Sister Brawley. She paid me 10 cents an hour and gave the three children and me dinners. (the other child was in school) I also did quilting for Mrs. Brawley.
Pa bought five acres of land, of which he gave us 1/2 acre and we built a two room house, that way we didn't have to pay rent., But, the following summer Joe got a job on a ranch for $40.00 per month with chickens, cow and a house furnished so we rented out our house. We had a free garden and I was able to do lots if work and having the "know how", we did well. This job was at Springfield, Idaho and when school started we moved back to Blackfoot, Idaho. Joe did tree topping and baled hay in the winter and I baked bread and sold it.
Our seventh child was born in July of 1920 and we named her Ida Vera Lou. That fall we sold our home and moved to Kelsey, Texas, a Mormon settlement, and lived there 18 months. We bought a farm, two mules and a wagon and made a crop.
When we sold our farm and cow and mules and wagon and rented a house where we staid the winter, through the birth of our eighth child on December 25, 1911. In February we started back to Idaho and arrived in Burley, staid a few days, then went to Blackfoot, Idaho. There we rented a house and Joe went to work. My husband had lots of friends and it wasn't hard for him to get work. I believe it was March 16th. we moved and right away Vera got sick. The Doctor didn't know what was wrong and she died. She was buried at Blackfoot cemetery, I believe on March 30, 1912. It was very sad but we tried to live our religion and if you'll always say " let God's will be done," God will help you.
I forgot to say Joe had joined the church before we left for Kelsey, Texas.
Joe and I bought nine city lots from Orrin Wilde. There were two chicken coups, good large ones. We moved two rooms up on front of the lot and cleaned them and moved in so we wouldn't have to pay rent. The next September we dug a basement 15'X30" and built a house. I helped and people would stare at me but I didn't mind as I knew we would have a good home. The next spring we got a job on a ranch and rented our house. Joe made $50.00 per month. We had a house and got some chickens to go with the ones we had and had a cow. We bought a horse and buggy and paid #25.00 down. When Joe got his check I would go to town and pay our tithe which was $5.00 and $25.00 on the horse and buggy and that left us $20.00 to live on. We had plenty to get by on as we had all the fruit we could use, a garden and had milk and eggs. Joe contracted to do the hard work on eleven acres of sugar beets and the man let him off to go do the work. When it made it too hard for him I would take the horse and buggy and pile the children in and go do the work on the beets myself. I had five children living at the time.
The next year Joe leased a farm near Donaldson Lake, Idaho from Mr. G. Stowell for five years. We moved to Springfield on Mr. Stowell's place. It was a 50-50 basis. He furnished five cows and four mares. We were to get half increase and he was to furnish all the tools. It was there our ninth child was born, named Marie Elizabeth. Mr. Stowell came while I was still in bed and started grumbling and never stopped till we left the ranch. We had only been there one year.
We moved back in our house and staid until November 23, 1915. It was there that our tenth child was born June 6, 1915. (Named Jessie Charlotte) We sold out and moved to Arizona in a covered wagon. We got to Lehi either on the 18th. or 19th. of January, 1916.
We rented a farm church property and everyone said we wouldn't make our seed back. We put in canteloups, cotton, corn and watermelon and garden and God blessed us! We had arrived at Lehi with $500.00 and we cleared $1600.00. God was truly with us.
We bought a place that was run down, 40 acres and it was cheap. Joe, our largest boy and I all worked on it grubbing mesquits, and that was a big job. We made good crops and had the good will of the Indians who came to work for us when they wouldn't work for anyone else. Joe paid them fair wages and we gave the Lord his tenth.
We lost Jessie and stephen, one from pneumonia from a backset of small pox. Jessie, first, on January 3rd. 1918 then Stephen some day in June from scarlett fever. We said "Let God's will be done", it was hard but God knows best.
We sold our Lehi ranch and bought a sixty acre place on Tampe Canal with no house. We moved in tents and build us a four room house. I forgot that on October 21, 1918 our twin sons were born, Joseph Karl and James Charles. In April we all had the flu and down at once. We lost little Joseph April 21, 1919. We were saddened again.
In September we sold our home and bought a the White Wing Poultry Ranch at Mesa Arizona. On May 30, 1920 our thirteenth child was born, Ruth Irene. In 1920 a slump came in cotton. If we had sold our place in the spring of 1921 we would have had $20,000.00 but didn't. We rented our place and moved to Goodyear to make a crop. We planted alfalfa and cotton and April 1922 our fourteenth child Samuel Paul was born on the Allen Ranch near Goodyear, Ariz. We had the misfortune of losing our horse, named Flag, so in the fall we sold everything and left Arizona and moved to Home Gardens, California.
We bought two city lots, built a house and Joe did carpentering. He was run over by an auto and crippled in 1923. It was then we commenced working in the fruit on Dinuba, Calif. Then we sold our place in Home Gardens, Calif. and went back to Mesa and made a crop. In 1925 we came back to Dinuba, to pick grapes then went to Twin Falls, Idaho and staid there five months then back to Home Gardens, Calif.
We bought property and built a seven room house. Then in 1929 we let the home go in on a forty acre place in Tulare, Calif. We made two crops and lost the ranch. We moved to Corcoran, Calif. in 1932 then sold the teams and went to following the fruit of a summer. We made one more trip to Arizona then came back and followed the fruit again. We went to oregon from September to February and came back to Visalia.
We bought five acres on 8th. Avenue North, let it go back and moved to Hall Avenue, then in February 13 bought the property we are now in and have lived here ever since, it now being 1950. Joe passed away October 16, 1947.
Judith Saripta Ault Woods
Grave located @ G.P.S.: N 36 20 292
W 119 18 379
LIFE HIGHLIGHTS ON JUDITH SAREPTA AULT WOODS, PARENTS JOHN WESLEY AULT AND JUDITH ELIZABETH WESTBROOK: Written in 1950 by Judith Sarepta Ault (Woods)
I was born February 13, 1882 at Bear, Ark. My mother nearly died at my birth from 15 hard fits. They kept me alive on one teacup of milk per day with sugar and whiskey. They used a goose quill wrapped in clean rags and a bottle. My birth took place at Bear Town Ark. Montgomery County now Garland. At three months they quit giving me the bottle and I drank out of a cup. They then decided to wean me from whiskey and had to taper off, just a little less at a time. The first clear memory I have was a visit to grandpa Westbrook's. We rode in a wagon and I was three years old. I remember the dresses sisters Abba and Jemima wore. The dresses were cream colored with wheat heads and Cheet heads (Cheet is a small grain of no value) and cockrel blooms of purple. I remember a man wading a stream of water and carrying his shoes. The next thing I remember was when Brother Guy was born. They woke us up and took us to George Ryans. There was a brother Josh, Calib, Adah, and myself. I was 3 at the time.
My first school was a Prescription School. The teacher was Mrs. Dea Ryan. She taught all sizes and as I was only 6 she would send me out to play with her son Frank who was too young to learn. My brothers and sisters told my pa and he whipped me. They children all said I got a frankin. Dad said he was paying for her to teach me and not to baby tend. We sure enjoyed our going to school as we worked if not in school.
My second school teacher was Miss Hulda Tucker and I liked her very much. The schoolhouse was an old log house that wasn't used for a dwelling because it was too run down. Miss Tucker got a fever and chills so our schooling was cut short.
The next school my brother Arthur Ault taught. The teachers taught from First Readers till the fourth. Three months was the limit of our schools and some times there would be three years before we would get to school again.
We worked during spring, planting and hoeing crops. We girls helped gather them in early summer and fall. I sawed and piled logs and burned them, dug sprouts and cut cotton stalks and corn to prepare the ground for planting. I would pull fodder and help bring it in and gather corn and pick cotton in the fall of the year. One year we picked cotton bare footed when the ice was frozen up out of the ground and wouldn't melt all day. I wasn't half as sorry for myself as I was for sister Adah as she seemed to be colder than I and I loved her more than I did anyone else. She was one year 9 months older than I and wasn't strong.
Brother Calib and I were chums. We played while we worked but sister Adah wouldn't stop----just worked right on.
One thing made a lasting impression on my mind---Brother Samuel P. Ault's illness and death. He had Tiphoid fever and it ran through our family. I was 6 years old at the time, 1888. We lived near Cedar Glades, Ark. and that is where brother Sam was buried along with a brother-in-law who also died of Typhoid. Pa. Ma and I were the only ones who didn't get sick.
One winter sister Adah and I went bare footed all winter but the older children had shoes as they had to do most all the work. Pa had an abcess on his liver and was sick all fall and winter. Don't get the idea that my parents were mean to us for they were the best parents who ever lived and did all in their power to take care of us. I don't ever remember that I ever went hungry. Sis Adah and I herded the sheep in lambing season (there wasn't any stock law and everything ran outside) and the hogs were bad to eat the lambs. We would get quite cold sometimes but we had good warm clothes as lambing season comes eary in the spring before it warms up.
My fourth school was taught by Miss Mary Smith who was a very fine teacher and taught all of her pupils the best she could. She was just 17 years old but taught all sizes as usual. She taught 3 months and I was 10 years old at the time. When school let out I had won the most head marks of my spelling class and got the prize. I was happy and kept the china cup long after I was married. Joe used it for a shaving cup.
It was while Miss Mary Smith was teaching that brother Guy died (that had been his first school) and also my little nephew John Ault. They had what was called at that time "bloody fluxs".
The following winter sister Jemima got married.
My fifth school was taught by Miss Mary Smith and it was in the winter. She was to have taught five months but two boys got to fighting so she was asked to quit. Our schooling was again cut short.
Our Sundays were spent with the Thornton children, either at their place or at papas. We would go fishing or bathing (if no boys were around). Sometimes we had others to play with but not while we were small. Our pastimes were climbing trees, picking berries and gathering nuts in season.
When we tended any church we went to Cedar Glades but that wasn't often. I met my brothers wife-to-be, Lizzie Elder, when I was 6 and she was 7. (Note: Caleb Orin's wife) We met at meeting one Sunday and we are still good friends now in 1950.
My parents were good christian people and they raised us to love the Lord. I don't know when I learned to pray or talk with God when in times of troubles but as a child I had my prayers answered. But I didn't always do as I was taught. At one time when all the other children were away at boarding school, Caleb and I were left home. We took the horses to the pasture and then went over to grandpa Thornton's field and got a watermelon and ate it. That was a heavy load on my mind for several years.
The first time I saw my husband, I was eight and he was sixteen.
My first truly beau was Henry Stucksbury. I was thirteen and he was twenty-five and so very handsome, Dark and a black mustache. He had been a coal miner in Tennessee and had one short leg, but my could he dance and sing. I went with Henry for six to eight months then met Boss Martin, a short blond, who I thought was the only one for awhile. Well, there were so many boys in my life space won't permit me naming them all. Well, Hugh, then Fred and several others who were engaged to get married three or four times before finally getting married.
I met Joseph C. Woods on a blind date when I was fourteen and we would go steady then break up then make up again. I was baptized in the Protestant Methodist church when fifteen and that rather put a damper on my dancing. I fell by the wayside, as the preacher put it, and I kept on dancing. They never turned me out of the church so I guess they still have my name on their rolls. I didn't know what they believed in and I still don't. Well after four years of courtship I finally married Joseph C. Woods on February 24, 1900.
We moved into a small house on a big farm where we raised cotton, corn, potatoes, and some garden. We were very poor as far as worldly goods were concerned but oh, so rich in Love and Respect.
That fall I donated 40 acres of land from the state. We sawed trees and Joe hawled them to the mill, made into lumber and Joe and my brothers made us a small house. We had a well drilled, build a chimney and fireplace and moved in our home right out in the woods. We cleared land nights and Joe worked days. We made a pole pen to store our corn and Joe split rails and made a lot (as the southerners called it) for our horse, cow, and chickens. On December 25th. 1900 my first son was born, just ten months of marriage. We named him John Theodore, but he lived only three days.
April 9, 1900 sister Adah's baby was born but Adah died. That was a great blow to me as she married the same year I did. She gave me the baby and I started letting it nurse but my father said I would have to live with him and ma if I kept the baby so I told him I couldn't do that as part of our chickens had gone wild while I was helping nurse Adah. Mother, then, kept the baby but it only lived eight months. It was just like loosing my own baby again.
My second child was born January 12, 1902. We named him Julion Bartholemew but since then he has had his name changed by law to Robert Julian.
Our third child, a girl, named Maryen Carra was born November 23, 1903. She lived till January 1, 1904. Our fourth child was born January 28, 1905 and lived 13 years.
August 1, 1904 I was baptized in the L.D.S. Church and confirmed the same day along with Sister Morina Ault, brother Caleb and his wife and cousin Sidney Ault and his wife. My father had joined the L.D.S. Church two years before. From then on our friends, or the ones we thought were our friends began to find fault with us.
Our fifth child, Caleb Orrin, was born October 15, 1906. He lived to be thirty eight.
We build a small but nice house to hold our meetings in. We had a Sunday School going for some time. My dad was superintendant, I was his counselor, sister Rena was Secretary, brother Caleb was teacher and my mother was teacher of the small children. We had our S.S. at my father's home till we made our church house.
Our sixth child was born May 9, 1908 and was the only child blessed in our church house before it was destroyed by fire on the night of July 24, 1908. It was then our enemys started in ernest to do us harm and we got a written notice to get out in one month. My father talked to Mr. Thornton, the father of some of the men who helped burn our church, and as my father was fairly well to do, he made this offer: We either buy their property or they buy our's. They wouldn't buy ours nor sell theirs so we had to take what we could and leave.
Joe and I had fourty acres plus six we had bought, with two orchards about 1 1/2 acres or more in garden, a three room house, large smoke house, large crib and four stalls. The crib was to store grain and had a lot of hay in it at the time. We sold the land and the hay for $139.00. We also had two good milk cows and calves, one springing heifer, chickens, hogs, a span of mules and wagon and many tools and house things. Most of this we had to sell on credit.
We traveled by train to Blackfoot, Idaho and had $43.00 and four children all under seven. But God Blessed us and my husband found work and we didn't suffer. The Saints of Blackfoot did all they could to help us and gave us clothes and we got along fine.
Before the winter was out, Joe contracted mumps and was sick for a long time. What saved the day that time was that Joe was working at the sugar factory and got medical aid. I did work for a Sister Brawley. She paid me 10 cents an hour and gave the three children and me dinners. (the other child was in school) I also did quilting for Mrs. Brawley.
Pa bought five acres of land, of which he gave us 1/2 acre and we built a two room house, that way we didn't have to pay rent., But, the following summer Joe got a job on a ranch for $40.00 per month with chickens, cow and a house furnished so we rented out our house. We had a free garden and I was able to do lots if work and having the "know how", we did well. This job was at Springfield, Idaho and when school started we moved back to Blackfoot, Idaho. Joe did tree topping and baled hay in the winter and I baked bread and sold it.
Our seventh child was born in July of 1920 and we named her Ida Vera Lou. That fall we sold our home and moved to Kelsey, Texas, a Mormon settlement, and lived there 18 months. We bought a farm, two mules and a wagon and made a crop.
When we sold our farm and cow and mules and wagon and rented a house where we staid the winter, through the birth of our eighth child on December 25, 1911. In February we started back to Idaho and arrived in Burley, staid a few days, then went to Blackfoot, Idaho. There we rented a house and Joe went to work. My husband had lots of friends and it wasn't hard for him to get work. I believe it was March 16th. we moved and right away Vera got sick. The Doctor didn't know what was wrong and she died. She was buried at Blackfoot cemetery, I believe on March 30, 1912. It was very sad but we tried to live our religion and if you'll always say " let God's will be done," God will help you.
I forgot to say Joe had joined the church before we left for Kelsey, Texas.
Joe and I bought nine city lots from Orrin Wilde. There were two chicken coups, good large ones. We moved two rooms up on front of the lot and cleaned them and moved in so we wouldn't have to pay rent. The next September we dug a basement 15'X30" and built a house. I helped and people would stare at me but I didn't mind as I knew we would have a good home. The next spring we got a job on a ranch and rented our house. Joe made $50.00 per month. We had a house and got some chickens to go with the ones we had and had a cow. We bought a horse and buggy and paid #25.00 down. When Joe got his check I would go to town and pay our tithe which was $5.00 and $25.00 on the horse and buggy and that left us $20.00 to live on. We had plenty to get by on as we had all the fruit we could use, a garden and had milk and eggs. Joe contracted to do the hard work on eleven acres of sugar beets and the man let him off to go do the work. When it made it too hard for him I would take the horse and buggy and pile the children in and go do the work on the beets myself. I had five children living at the time.
The next year Joe leased a farm near Donaldson Lake, Idaho from Mr. G. Stowell for five years. We moved to Springfield on Mr. Stowell's place. It was a 50-50 basis. He furnished five cows and four mares. We were to get half increase and he was to furnish all the tools. It was there our ninth child was born, named Marie Elizabeth. Mr. Stowell came while I was still in bed and started grumbling and never stopped till we left the ranch. We had only been there one year.
We moved back in our house and staid until November 23, 1915. It was there that our tenth child was born June 6, 1915. (Named Jessie Charlotte) We sold out and moved to Arizona in a covered wagon. We got to Lehi either on the 18th. or 19th. of January, 1916.
We rented a farm church property and everyone said we wouldn't make our seed back. We put in canteloups, cotton, corn and watermelon and garden and God blessed us! We had arrived at Lehi with $500.00 and we cleared $1600.00. God was truly with us.
We bought a place that was run down, 40 acres and it was cheap. Joe, our largest boy and I all worked on it grubbing mesquits, and that was a big job. We made good crops and had the good will of the Indians who came to work for us when they wouldn't work for anyone else. Joe paid them fair wages and we gave the Lord his tenth.
We lost Jessie and stephen, one from pneumonia from a backset of small pox. Jessie, first, on January 3rd. 1918 then Stephen some day in June from scarlett fever. We said "Let God's will be done", it was hard but God knows best.
We sold our Lehi ranch and bought a sixty acre place on Tampe Canal with no house. We moved in tents and build us a four room house. I forgot that on October 21, 1918 our twin sons were born, Joseph Karl and James Charles. In April we all had the flu and down at once. We lost little Joseph April 21, 1919. We were saddened again.
In September we sold our home and bought a the White Wing Poultry Ranch at Mesa Arizona. On May 30, 1920 our thirteenth child was born, Ruth Irene. In 1920 a slump came in cotton. If we had sold our place in the spring of 1921 we would have had $20,000.00 but didn't. We rented our place and moved to Goodyear to make a crop. We planted alfalfa and cotton and April 1922 our fourteenth child Samuel Paul was born on the Allen Ranch near Goodyear, Ariz. We had the misfortune of losing our horse, named Flag, so in the fall we sold everything and left Arizona and moved to Home Gardens, California.
We bought two city lots, built a house and Joe did carpentering. He was run over by an auto and crippled in 1923. It was then we commenced working in the fruit on Dinuba, Calif. Then we sold our place in Home Gardens, Calif. and went back to Mesa and made a crop. In 1925 we came back to Dinuba, to pick grapes then went to Twin Falls, Idaho and staid there five months then back to Home Gardens, Calif.
We bought property and built a seven room house. Then in 1929 we let the home go in on a forty acre place in Tulare, Calif. We made two crops and lost the ranch. We moved to Corcoran, Calif. in 1932 then sold the teams and went to following the fruit of a summer. We made one more trip to Arizona then came back and followed the fruit again. We went to oregon from September to February and came back to Visalia.
We bought five acres on 8th. Avenue North, let it go back and moved to Hall Avenue, then in February 13 bought the property we are now in and have lived here ever since, it now being 1950. Joe passed away October 16, 1947.
Judith Saripta Ault Woods
Grave located @ G.P.S.: N 36 20 292
W 119 18 379
I was born February 13, 1882 at Bear, Ark. My mother nearly died at my birth from 15 hard fits. They kept me alive on one teacup of milk per day with sugar and whiskey. They used a goose quill wrapped in clean rags and a bottle. My birth took place at Bear Town Ark. Montgomery County now Garland. At three months they quit giving me the bottle and I drank out of a cup. They then decided to wean me from whiskey and had to taper off, just a little less at a time. The first clear memory I have was a visit to grandpa Westbrook's. We rode in a wagon and I was three years old. I remember the dresses sisters Abba and Jemima wore. The dresses were cream colored with wheat heads and Cheet heads (Cheet is a small grain of no value) and cockrel blooms of purple. I remember a man wading a stream of water and carrying his shoes. The next thing I remember was when Brother Guy was born. They woke us up and took us to George Ryans. There was a brother Josh, Calib, Adah, and myself. I was 3 at the time.
My first school was a Prescription School. The teacher was Mrs. Dea Ryan. She taught all sizes and as I was only 6 she would send me out to play with her son Frank who was too young to learn. My brothers and sisters told my pa and he whipped me. They children all said I got a frankin. Dad said he was paying for her to teach me and not to baby tend. We sure enjoyed our going to school as we worked if not in school.
My second school teacher was Miss Hulda Tucker and I liked her very much. The schoolhouse was an old log house that wasn't used for a dwelling because it was too run down. Miss Tucker got a fever and chills so our schooling was cut short.
The next school my brother Arthur Ault taught. The teachers taught from First Readers till the fourth. Three months was the limit of our schools and some times there would be three years before we would get to school again.
We worked during spring, planting and hoeing crops. We girls helped gather them in early summer and fall. I sawed and piled logs and burned them, dug sprouts and cut cotton stalks and corn to prepare the ground for planting. I would pull fodder and help bring it in and gather corn and pick cotton in the fall of the year. One year we picked cotton bare footed when the ice was frozen up out of the ground and wouldn't melt all day. I wasn't half as sorry for myself as I was for sister Adah as she seemed to be colder than I and I loved her more than I did anyone else. She was one year 9 months older than I and wasn't strong.
Brother Calib and I were chums. We played while we worked but sister Adah wouldn't stop----just worked right on.
One thing made a lasting impression on my mind---Brother Samuel P. Ault's illness and death. He had Tiphoid fever and it ran through our family. I was 6 years old at the time, 1888. We lived near Cedar Glades, Ark. and that is where brother Sam was buried along with a brother-in-law who also died of Typhoid. Pa. Ma and I were the only ones who didn't get sick.
One winter sister Adah and I went bare footed all winter but the older children had shoes as they had to do most all the work. Pa had an abcess on his liver and was sick all fall and winter. Don't get the idea that my parents were mean to us for they were the best parents who ever lived and did all in their power to take care of us. I don't ever remember that I ever went hungry. Sis Adah and I herded the sheep in lambing season (there wasn't any stock law and everything ran outside) and the hogs were bad to eat the lambs. We would get quite cold sometimes but we had good warm clothes as lambing season comes eary in the spring before it warms up.
My fourth school was taught by Miss Mary Smith who was a very fine teacher and taught all of her pupils the best she could. She was just 17 years old but taught all sizes as usual. She taught 3 months and I was 10 years old at the time. When school let out I had won the most head marks of my spelling class and got the prize. I was happy and kept the china cup long after I was married. Joe used it for a shaving cup.
It was while Miss Mary Smith was teaching that brother Guy died (that had been his first school) and also my little nephew John Ault. They had what was called at that time "bloody fluxs".
The following winter sister Jemima got married.
My fifth school was taught by Miss Mary Smith and it was in the winter. She was to have taught five months but two boys got to fighting so she was asked to quit. Our schooling was again cut short.
Our Sundays were spent with the Thornton children, either at their place or at papas. We would go fishing or bathing (if no boys were around). Sometimes we had others to play with but not while we were small. Our pastimes were climbing trees, picking berries and gathering nuts in season.
When we tended any church we went to Cedar Glades but that wasn't often. I met my brothers wife-to-be, Lizzie Elder, when I was 6 and she was 7. (Note: Caleb Orin's wife) We met at meeting one Sunday and we are still good friends now in 1950.
My parents were good christian people and they raised us to love the Lord. I don't know when I learned to pray or talk with God when in times of troubles but as a child I had my prayers answered. But I didn't always do as I was taught. At one time when all the other children were away at boarding school, Caleb and I were left home. We took the horses to the pasture and then went over to grandpa Thornton's field and got a watermelon and ate it. That was a heavy load on my mind for several years.
The first time I saw my husband, I was eight and he was sixteen.
My first truly beau was Henry Stucksbury. I was thirteen and he was twenty-five and so very handsome, Dark and a black mustache. He had been a coal miner in Tennessee and had one short leg, but my could he dance and sing. I went with Henry for six to eight months then met Boss Martin, a short blond, who I thought was the only one for awhile. Well, there were so many boys in my life space won't permit me naming them all. Well, Hugh, then Fred and several others who were engaged to get married three or four times before finally getting married.
I met Joseph C. Woods on a blind date when I was fourteen and we would go steady then break up then make up again. I was baptized in the Protestant Methodist church when fifteen and that rather put a damper on my dancing. I fell by the wayside, as the preacher put it, and I kept on dancing. They never turned me out of the church so I guess they still have my name on their rolls. I didn't know what they believed in and I still don't. Well after four years of courtship I finally married Joseph C. Woods on February 24, 1900.
We moved into a small house on a big farm where we raised cotton, corn, potatoes, and some garden. We were very poor as far as worldly goods were concerned but oh, so rich in Love and Respect.
That fall I donated 40 acres of land from the state. We sawed trees and Joe hawled them to the mill, made into lumber and Joe and my brothers made us a small house. We had a well drilled, build a chimney and fireplace and moved in our home right out in the woods. We cleared land nights and Joe worked days. We made a pole pen to store our corn and Joe split rails and made a lot (as the southerners called it) for our horse, cow, and chickens. On December 25th. 1900 my first son was born, just ten months of marriage. We named him John Theodore, but he lived only three days.
April 9, 1900 sister Adah's baby was born but Adah died. That was a great blow to me as she married the same year I did. She gave me the baby and I started letting it nurse but my father said I would have to live with him and ma if I kept the baby so I told him I couldn't do that as part of our chickens had gone wild while I was helping nurse Adah. Mother, then, kept the baby but it only lived eight months. It was just like loosing my own baby again.
My second child was born January 12, 1902. We named him Julion Bartholemew but since then he has had his name changed by law to Robert Julian.
Our third child, a girl, named Maryen Carra was born November 23, 1903. She lived till January 1, 1904. Our fourth child was born January 28, 1905 and lived 13 years.
August 1, 1904 I was baptized in the L.D.S. Church and confirmed the same day along with Sister Morina Ault, brother Caleb and his wife and cousin Sidney Ault and his wife. My father had joined the L.D.S. Church two years before. From then on our friends, or the ones we thought were our friends began to find fault with us.
Our fifth child, Caleb Orrin, was born October 15, 1906. He lived to be thirty eight.
We build a small but nice house to hold our meetings in. We had a Sunday School going for some time. My dad was superintendant, I was his counselor, sister Rena was Secretary, brother Caleb was teacher and my mother was teacher of the small children. We had our S.S. at my father's home till we made our church house.
Our sixth child was born May 9, 1908 and was the only child blessed in our church house before it was destroyed by fire on the night of July 24, 1908. It was then our enemys started in ernest to do us harm and we got a written notice to get out in one month. My father talked to Mr. Thornton, the father of some of the men who helped burn our church, and as my father was fairly well to do, he made this offer: We either buy their property or they buy our's. They wouldn't buy ours nor sell theirs so we had to take what we could and leave.
Joe and I had fourty acres plus six we had bought, with two orchards about 1 1/2 acres or more in garden, a three room house, large smoke house, large crib and four stalls. The crib was to store grain and had a lot of hay in it at the time. We sold the land and the hay for $139.00. We also had two good milk cows and calves, one springing heifer, chickens, hogs, a span of mules and wagon and many tools and house things. Most of this we had to sell on credit.
We traveled by train to Blackfoot, Idaho and had $43.00 and four children all under seven. But God Blessed us and my husband found work and we didn't suffer. The Saints of Blackfoot did all they could to help us and gave us clothes and we got along fine.
Before the winter was out, Joe contracted mumps and was sick for a long time. What saved the day that time was that Joe was working at the sugar factory and got medical aid. I did work for a Sister Brawley. She paid me 10 cents an hour and gave the three children and me dinners. (the other child was in school) I also did quilting for Mrs. Brawley.
Pa bought five acres of land, of which he gave us 1/2 acre and we built a two room house, that way we didn't have to pay rent., But, the following summer Joe got a job on a ranch for $40.00 per month with chickens, cow and a house furnished so we rented out our house. We had a free garden and I was able to do lots if work and having the "know how", we did well. This job was at Springfield, Idaho and when school started we moved back to Blackfoot, Idaho. Joe did tree topping and baled hay in the winter and I baked bread and sold it.
Our seventh child was born in July of 1920 and we named her Ida Vera Lou. That fall we sold our home and moved to Kelsey, Texas, a Mormon settlement, and lived there 18 months. We bought a farm, two mules and a wagon and made a crop.
When we sold our farm and cow and mules and wagon and rented a house where we staid the winter, through the birth of our eighth child on December 25, 1911. In February we started back to Idaho and arrived in Burley, staid a few days, then went to Blackfoot, Idaho. There we rented a house and Joe went to work. My husband had lots of friends and it wasn't hard for him to get work. I believe it was March 16th. we moved and right away Vera got sick. The Doctor didn't know what was wrong and she died. She was buried at Blackfoot cemetery, I believe on March 30, 1912. It was very sad but we tried to live our religion and if you'll always say " let God's will be done," God will help you.
I forgot to say Joe had joined the church before we left for Kelsey, Texas.
Joe and I bought nine city lots from Orrin Wilde. There were two chicken coups, good large ones. We moved two rooms up on front of the lot and cleaned them and moved in so we wouldn't have to pay rent. The next September we dug a basement 15'X30" and built a house. I helped and people would stare at me but I didn't mind as I knew we would have a good home. The next spring we got a job on a ranch and rented our house. Joe made $50.00 per month. We had a house and got some chickens to go with the ones we had and had a cow. We bought a horse and buggy and paid #25.00 down. When Joe got his check I would go to town and pay our tithe which was $5.00 and $25.00 on the horse and buggy and that left us $20.00 to live on. We had plenty to get by on as we had all the fruit we could use, a garden and had milk and eggs. Joe contracted to do the hard work on eleven acres of sugar beets and the man let him off to go do the work. When it made it too hard for him I would take the horse and buggy and pile the children in and go do the work on the beets myself. I had five children living at the time.
The next year Joe leased a farm near Donaldson Lake, Idaho from Mr. G. Stowell for five years. We moved to Springfield on Mr. Stowell's place. It was a 50-50 basis. He furnished five cows and four mares. We were to get half increase and he was to furnish all the tools. It was there our ninth child was born, named Marie Elizabeth. Mr. Stowell came while I was still in bed and started grumbling and never stopped till we left the ranch. We had only been there one year.
We moved back in our house and staid until November 23, 1915. It was there that our tenth child was born June 6, 1915. (Named Jessie Charlotte) We sold out and moved to Arizona in a covered wagon. We got to Lehi either on the 18th. or 19th. of January, 1916.
We rented a farm church property and everyone said we wouldn't make our seed back. We put in canteloups, cotton, corn and watermelon and garden and God blessed us! We had arrived at Lehi with $500.00 and we cleared $1600.00. God was truly with us.
We bought a place that was run down, 40 acres and it was cheap. Joe, our largest boy and I all worked on it grubbing mesquits, and that was a big job. We made good crops and had the good will of the Indians who came to work for us when they wouldn't work for anyone else. Joe paid them fair wages and we gave the Lord his tenth.
We lost Jessie and stephen, one from pneumonia from a backset of small pox. Jessie, first, on January 3rd. 1918 then Stephen some day in June from scarlett fever. We said "Let God's will be done", it was hard but God knows best.
We sold our Lehi ranch and bought a sixty acre place on Tampe Canal with no house. We moved in tents and build us a four room house. I forgot that on October 21, 1918 our twin sons were born, Joseph Karl and James Charles. In April we all had the flu and down at once. We lost little Joseph April 21, 1919. We were saddened again.
In September we sold our home and bought a the White Wing Poultry Ranch at Mesa Arizona. On May 30, 1920 our thirteenth child was born, Ruth Irene. In 1920 a slump came in cotton. If we had sold our place in the spring of 1921 we would have had $20,000.00 but didn't. We rented our place and moved to Goodyear to make a crop. We planted alfalfa and cotton and April 1922 our fourteenth child Samuel Paul was born on the Allen Ranch near Goodyear, Ariz. We had the misfortune of losing our horse, named Flag, so in the fall we sold everything and left Arizona and moved to Home Gardens, California.
We bought two city lots, built a house and Joe did carpentering. He was run over by an auto and crippled in 1923. It was then we commenced working in the fruit on Dinuba, Calif. Then we sold our place in Home Gardens, Calif. and went back to Mesa and made a crop. In 1925 we came back to Dinuba, to pick grapes then went to Twin Falls, Idaho and staid there five months then back to Home Gardens, Calif.
We bought property and built a seven room house. Then in 1929 we let the home go in on a forty acre place in Tulare, Calif. We made two crops and lost the ranch. We moved to Corcoran, Calif. in 1932 then sold the teams and went to following the fruit of a summer. We made one more trip to Arizona then came back and followed the fruit again. We went to oregon from September to February and came back to Visalia.
We bought five acres on 8th. Avenue North, let it go back and moved to Hall Avenue, then in February 13 bought the property we are now in and have lived here ever since, it now being 1950. Joe passed away October 16, 1947.
Judith Saripta Ault Woods
Grave located @ G.P.S.: N 36 20 292
W 119 18 379
Family Members
Siblings
-
![]()
Bartholomew Arthur Ault
1867–1948
-
Cathsandra Jane Ault
1869–1872
-
![]()
Aba Jane Ault Dobbs
1871–1946
-
![]()
Samuel Paul Ault
1873–1889
-
![]()
Jemima Elizabeth Ault Tillman
1874–1962
-
![]()
Joshua Stephen "Josh" Ault
1876–1954
-
![]()
Caleb Ault
1878–1953
-
![]()
Adah Ault Buttram
1880–1901
-
![]()
Guicie Jonathan Ault
1886–1892
-
![]()
Nancy Marena Ault Ray
1888–1979
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
Advertisement
