I love this picture of my great grandfather as a young man, but I can only remember him as an old man. My mother knew him well (in fact he named her), and she adored him. She said this about him: "The conversations between my Grandfather Goodliffe, my father, Uncle Roy, and my Uncle Floyd Jensen were exciting and intellectual, fun and full of life. I couldn't wait to finish the dishes so I could go in and listen to them talk."

He was born in Bingham, Salt Lake County, Utah. His biological father was Enos Anderson Jr. His mother married second to Arnold Goodliffe as a plural wife and her young children were adopted by him. Of his adoptive father, Charles said, "Arnold Goodliffe is the only man I ever called father and the only real Dad I ever had. He gave me a name, of which I can be proud, a home and security."

Charles married in 1897, and six months later left for the mission field in Kansas. When he left, his new bride was expecting their first child, Arnold, who he didn't meet until the baby was 15 months old. In 1925-1926 he served a second short-term mission of several months in the Central States.

When he left on his first mission, he and Annie owned nothing, and when he returned, they didn't own much more. He took whatever work he could find: he was a miner, a census enumerator, a farm laborer. He ran a boarding camp for sheep shearers, hauled hay, did building construction. For awhile he was a newspaperman. His father owned the mercantile in Park Valley, which was deeded to his mother, and on her death he bought the shares deeded to others. So for more than a dozen years, he and Annie owned and ran the mercantile. In 1929 he sold it to his son Arnold and he and Annie moved from Park Valley to Brigham City. "Lived the life of farm folk," he said. During the 1930s he was Deputy County Clerk. He also worked with civic organizations such as the Associated Civic Clubs of Northern Utah.

Here is a little quote from him that makes me smile. It's from his his autobiography, which he wrote in November 1961. Writing about his farm, he said, "Alf Olsen had been after me quite a few times to sell out to him. I had in my mind decided to operate this farm until I reached 80 years of age. But I did not quite make it. I was 79 the last year I worked the place. We picked the peaches (Mom & I) that year--1956. Mom was 74. The following January, I sold out to Alf Olsen. I have never regretted it. But I did hate to have to let it go."