The Life Sketch of

MARY ELEANOR GRIFFETH (BODILY)

by a daughter,

Eleanor Bodily (Ransom)

Mary Eleanor Griffeth was born November 20, 1872, at Hyde Park, Cache, Utah. She was the oldest daughter and second child of George Andrew Griffeth and Mazy Elizabeth Thurman. She was named Mary for her mother and Eleanor for her great grandmother, Eleanor Charles Gibson. She was always called Eleanor.

As a child, mother remembers living in a dirt roofed house and riding with her grandfather to the meadow on a hay rack, pulled by an ox team. Well she remembers having shoes made by the village shoemaker, Brother Johnson. One pair she was especially proud of was a pair of laced shoes with cloth tops. The tops were made from a pair of her father’s old pants. She still recalls how happy she was when Lorenzo Johnson delivered her shoes.

At the age of eight mother started school. As she grew up she 1earned to wash, pick and card wool. She also helped spin and dye yarn and learned to knit stockings and sew carpet rags.

When mother was twelve her family moved to homestead in Fairview, Franklin County, Idaho. School was still in session so she stayed in Hyde Park to finish the term. She had the privilege of returning for three more winter terms of school. She also had one term at Richmond. Later in life she took a course in dressmaking. On the farm in Fairview, she learned to make butter and do other work of farm life.

At the age of sixteen she began teaching school at Fairview. For pay she took hams, potatoes, calico, store pay or any other thing that the students turned in as a tuition. At this time she also was working in the church. At the age of fifteen she was made secretary of the Y.L.M.I..A., which office she held for eleven years. She also was a Sunday School Teacher, a religion class teacher, and later secretary of the religion class and a member of the ward choir. The work of the choir was quite different from what we know today. They learned to sing a note. Mother learned to read music fairly well. This training has been of great benefit to her family. As her home was four miles from the church house, she made many trips on horseback and even walked this distance to attend her church duties.

Mother loved to sing and dance. She enjoyed meeting and associating with her neighbors in the social affairs in Fairview. Her contribution to the party or social was generally a song, though often she took part in the ward dramas. At the age of nineteen Mother began keeping company with Robert Bodily, the man who later became her eternal companion. After they were engaged she waited for him to fulfill a three—year mission to Australia.

In the spring of 1886, Mother was called to teach kindergarten at Preston under Miss Miner of Salt Lake City, Utah. The kindergarten was not a church movement, but President George C. Parkinson had charge of the work, and he called her to help teach so she could learn the work and take it back to the ward. In the fall of that year she started the kindergarten in Fairview.

On November 25, 1897 she was married Robert Bodily in the Logan Temple by Apostle Mariner Wood Merrill. They began life together on a rented farm in the north part of what was then Fairview. (This is now owned by Bros. West and Ezra Lewis in the south end of Preston sixth ward.) Father owned a ranch at Swan Lake, but it was then pioneer country, and they couldn’t make their home there. The following spring they moved on to a forty—acre farm, south of where they were renting. Brother McNeal owned this place. He gave them a house rent free providing mother would herd the crops and cook for his hired help. This was not an easy task. Father went every summer to shear sheep and in the fall of the year worked on the header and thresher leaving mother to see to all the chores so she was kept busy milking, herding, and cooking. Later they bought the forty acres from Mr. McNeal.

On January 5, 1899, a baby girl Eleanor Delila was born to them. The following spring they moved to the ranch at Swan Lake. Here mother endured many hardships incidental to pioneer life. During the haying season father came back to Fairview to work and mother, with the help of her twelve year old sister, Albertie Griffeth, took care of the cows and the ranch, The rattlesnakes and range steers were a real menace to her happiness. The fall of that same year they moved back to Fairview never to leave again.

While mother was on the ranch she was released from the Y.L.M.I.A. and religion class, but was given a leave of absence from the Sunday School. Upon her return she took up this work. She also took up the choir work again.

On October 24, 1900 another baby girl was born, Zola Griffeth Bodily. When her baby, Zola, was about two years old, mother took sick. She was moved to her father’s home thinking she would be better in a few days, but that was not so. She was real bad before she got through with it. The doctors said they could do no more for her, then the elders were called in. She and her family saw the power of the priesthood manifested in her behalf and she recovered in due time. Because of this lingering illness she was unable to keep up with the public work, accordingly she was released from all her church offices. During the summer of 1905 mother’s mother (Mary Elizabeth Thurman) took fatally ill. After seeing her suffer for a long time the family was called to part with her in October.

This made a changed world for mother. As she was the oldest girl in her father’s family she stepped into her mother’s place as best she could. Instead of having the help of a mother she was now looked to for help.

In the spring of 1907 mother, along with her husband and children, made another move. They bought eighty acres of land south and west of the forty acres they first owned in Fairview. They sold the ranch at Swan Lake, and eventually sold their first home in Fairview.

On December 4, 1907 mother gave birth to her first and only son, Robert G. Bodily. Mother now had fertile soil for a garden and a few fruit trees which she appreciated very much. However, the house was above the ditch so she had no irrigation water to help beautify hex home. This didn’t stop mother. She, with father’s help, set some shade trees and planted a few flowers. When four o’clock came around it was a signal for mother and us children to begin pumping and carrying water to the trees and flowers. Later she added a small piece of lawn. She never gave up until her home became a shady nook with grass and flowers. On February 23, 1912, a fourth baby girl was born, Preale G. Bodily. Little Preale was only allowed to remain with them a short time. She passed away when she was twenty hours old. Mother has seen her other four children grow and develop into man and womanhood. She is the grandmother of six healthy children, four boys and two girls which she very much appreciates and enjoys. (As of this writing.)

Besides the church work previously mentioned mother served more than twenty years as a visiting teacher in the Relief Society. She has also been teacher topic supervisor. When the authorities of the church called on the Relief Society to help with washing and anointing of expectant mothers, mother was called with two other sisters to do this work in Fairview. She was head of the committee. She also considered this very sacred calling, and it was with faith and humility that they washed and anointed the sisters preparatory of motherhood.

Mother has also been active in genealogical and temple work. She has been endowed for about two hundred dead and has helped with a number of sealings.

Mother has helped her family and neighbors in times of sickness and death. She has had the joy of helping to bring twenty-six babies into this world. She is an efficient, practical nurse in every way.

Mother is a lover of nature and outdoor life. She sees beauty in the handiwork of God. Many times she has called the attention of a beautiful rock, tree or sunset. She was always the first one to hear the spring song of the birds and the croak of the frogs. She would put forth a great deal of effort for the sake of a flower.

Mother has been a devoted wife, mother and grandmother. She is unselfish and extremely patient. She has been a hard worker. Yet she has been willing to share with others. When sickness and death came to the home of father’s brother’s wife, mother took the motherless children and cared for them. She had Nellie Bodily in hcr home for nine months. Later she took Ruth and Curtis Bodily in her home for two years. In her early married life she took Mary Masener, another motherless girl, and cared for her until her father was able to take care of her. When her father (George Andrew Griffeth, Jr). was on his own after his family was all married and on their own, she took him in her home and cared for him for four years. Even though she helped others, she never neglected her own children. She has encouraged them to seek for good things.

She admires refinement and education and has helped her children get all the schooling they possible could. All four children have had the advantage of high school and three of the four have had some college. Schooling in these days was not as easy as it is now. We had no busses nor car, so mother had to do a great deal of hard work as well as encouraging.

Mother has been able to teach all four of her children to read music. Mother has tried to take advantage of every little bit of learning she could and has passed it on to her family whenever possible.

Mother gathered the history for Fairview which is published in the Daughters of Utah Pioneer Book, (History of our County).

She and her husband have been willing to spend their means to further the work of the Lord and spread the Gospel. Three out of four of her children have filled missions. She considers this a privilege rather than a sacrifice on her part.

Mother was promised in her Patriarchal blessing that her prayers should heal her family. During the winter of 1919, the flu came to her home. She had her husband and three children all down at once. The neighbors did the chores, but mother didn’t allow anyone in the house. Days went past. She couldn’t get help from a doctor because they were all so busy. Mother saw her family growing worse. Zola’s fingers started to turn dark. Then mother decided to pray. She knelt between the two sick beds and prayed very earnestly. The very next day Eudell brightened up and they were all better by the time mother took down with the flu. We feel that the promise of the blessing was fulfilled in our behalf through her faithfulness.

Mother liked handiwork. In her declining years this seemed to be her hobby. At age seventy, Mary Eleanor Griffeth Bodily is still with us. She is enjoying the comforts of a modern home which she helped to earn and make. Because of ill health she hasn’t been active in church or community affairs for Lhe last five years, but she still has a strong testimony of the church. She faces the future with undaunted faith and courage.

In 1959 the following has been added--

In December of 1944 Robert and Eleanor Bodily, turned the farm over to their son, Robert G. Bodily and bought a home in Logan, Utah at 581 East 6th North. Here they spent their remaining years working and planning together. For almost seven years Eleanor was handicapped with ill health, but she was up and around as much as possible, reading, doing hand work on some little household task. On February 6, 1946, she had to part with her husband who preceded her in death by only one month. On March 7, 1946 she passed away at home and is buried in the Fairview Cemetery.