Myrtha Azuba Griffeth (Alder)

Azuba has been asking me to write the story of her life and I should, for, after all, I have known her longer than any living person nearly eighty-three years.

I remember when she was born, I know I do.  Our brother D. said I couldn’t remember because I lacked two months of her being three years old.  One day when we were having an argument about it, Mother said, “Yes Bertie is right, Grandma usually had the head of the bed towards the east but that time it was towards the south.

Well, she was born up-stairs at Grandpa Griffeth’s home in Hyde Park, Utah. Sept. 2, 1889.

Her parents were George Andrew Griffeth and Mary Elizabeth Thurman.

Our family had been living in Fairview, Idaho for nearly four years but, as good help was hard to get, Mother was taken down to Hyde Park where Sister Lucy Wolfe, who had delivered most of Mothers babies, lived.

I was just working when Grandma came upstairs to get something out of a big box.

She smiled and said “bertie, there’s a little kitten in bed with your mother.”  Mother was lying on her side facing the east.  I took hold of her shoulder and pulled myself up.  Mother turned her head and smiled at me.  I was thrilled to see the little red-faced baby with a lot of dark hair, but I felt that someone was making a fool of me.

I can’t remember anything more until she was learning to walk.  That was when Grandpa Griffeth was building our house.  When he had a little of the floor laid our two big sisters; Eleanor and Irene let me walk the baby back and fourth, while they guarded with out-stretched hands.

Next I remember is how she used to come and meet me when I’d come home from school.  I don’t know whether it was her love for me or the thought of getting some of my “High Priest” peppermint candy that old Mr. Jensen used to shut in my book when I read well.  Any way I surely looked forward to having her come to meet me.  (In case you don’t know the kind of candy I’m speaking of: it’s that flat white peppermint, that old men (High Priests) carry in their pockets to bribe children.)

When she was four ears old. She used to play the organ and sing “Little Bow Peep Lost Her Sheep.”  She couldn’t reach the pedals so Eleanor would have to pump for her.  No other child in the world could do such a smart thing so she was considered wonderful.

Then come the time that she was old enough to go to school.  She was quick to learn and willing.  About that time she knit about two-thirds of a red stocking leg and took it to the primary fair.

At school we used to play “house” at noons and recesses.  Azuba and Lizzy Jenkins were Leslie Corbridge’s wives.  They lived at the west end of the school-house.  We had a real community around that old one-roomed building.

By the time she was old enough to go to high school in Preston, all the rest, of our family, were out of school.  So she and I rode in a one-horsed buggy or in a two wheeled cart, from north Fairview to Preston, a distance of three miles.

She didn’t complete the four year normal course.  She took cooking and sewing, graduating in domestic science in 1909.

Afterwards she decided that she would like to teach school.  So she studied on subjects such as psychology and school management, passed the county examination, and became a district schoolteacher.

She taught the lower grades for two years, and enjoyed the younger children very much.

Before taking up teaching, she clerked in John Larson’s store in Preston, Idaho for a short time.  Wile working there she became interested in a handsome your, returned missionary by the name of Edgar Alder.  She had gone to school with him before he went upon his mission, but he was then interested in another girl.

Edgar proved to be the man of her choice and they were married in the Logan Temple Dec. 13, 1911.

She has made her home in Preston 5^th ward ever since and has reared a family of one girl and four boys; Laree, Karl, Varr, Reo, and Zaina.

She has been the mother of missionaries, service men and college graduates.  Her only daughter (Now Mrs. Marvin Bodily) has been a joy to her because of her lovely disposition and understanding.

Though Azuba has had rather poor-health, her life has been happy because of the great love in their home.  Her husband never forgot that she was his sweetheart.

She was a good singer.  When she was going to high school the music teacher put her on the front row with his trained singers.  Some of the girls were jealous and one girl said “I don’t see why those Griffeth girls are stuck in everything.  They haven’t had any voice training.”  The professor, Henry Otte, soon let her know that Azuba had a good voice and that she always kept in tune.  So she continued to sit on the front row with the good soprano singers.

She was a good dancer.  When she was very young she could dance all of the new dances that her big brothers and sisters could dance.  And she never ceased to enjoy dancing.  Even when her forth child, Reo, was old enough to be the dance director in Mutual improvement Association, she participated.  At one time she was Reo’s partner in a quadrille dance.  Each couple was from a different ward.  When they met to practice before going to Salt Lake City to take part in the final, they were all strangers.  The three couples were standing there when Azuba and Reo joined them.  There was instant silence and strange looks were exchanged when they saw the elderly lady approach.  Azuba stood for a short time then said, “Don’t be alarmed.  I’m not his wife or sweetheart.  I’m his mother.”  Then they began to laugh and welcomed her into the group.  They really had an enjoyable time together.

Just recently some of the men, who used to be boys in her Sunday School Class, have danced with her.  She says she could have danced all evening if they had asked her earlier in the dance.  She declares wha (she?) would not have given out.  And I believe her.

Azuba is a good sewer.  She always enjoyed making her own pretty dresses.  She would sit up half the night to finish a dress she wanted to wear the next evening.

She likes to crochet.  She enjoys mastering an intricate pattern, making articles that are beautiful and rare.  She has the patience to work for days on something that most of us would consider too difficult to bother with.

She loves flowers, rocks, wood, and everything connected with nature.  You should see her beautiful flowers, rock garden and rock collection.  Her drift wood is very interesting too.

Azuba always enjoyed riding horses.  She learned to ride on an old bay poney called Old Joe.  He was an old “Skamp” about being caught, but once being bridled he was good and trusty.

She rode him to herd cows and pigs.  Though her little legs got sun-burned, she was trust-worthy and faithful to her job.

One day Old Joe thought that she was going to stop at the house, as she often did, so he stopped, she went on.  No bones broken.  Next time she made sure they were both of one mind.  She rode horses from then on.

She married in December of her last year of teaching and then she didn’t have an “Old Joe” to ride.

Edgar’s horse, that she rode, was a pretty little mare, very high-spirited.  She got real nervous waiting.

Azuba discovered one day that some of the town boys were making it a habit to loiter around by the side of the school house, just to see her mount her poney.  They enjoyed the horse’s frisky movements and rearing before she started off for home.  Azuba wasn’t afraid of the animal but she was a little embarrassed when she found that she was the school-teacher bronco-rider.  She never got her ride to Star Valley and back, though.

She has always been active in the Church, too.  Before she was married she and Robena Bodily taught the kindergarten class in Sunday School for some time.  She has held various offices in Sunday School, Primary, Mutual Improvement Association, and Relief Society.  She has helped a great deal in music being the ward chorister for years.  She still is ward chorister and a visiting teacher in Relief Society.

She served a s a Sunday School Stake Officer.  She and her husband filled a mission in Alabama.

She trained a ladies trio that used to sing in the different wards throughout the stake, and once they sang in the Logan Temple.  One of the three, her husband and children still sing.  She also trained her sons, who sing a great deal.  She always enjoyed singing herself and regrets that her voice now isn’t as clear as she would like it to be.

Since Edgar’s death Dec. 3, 1970 she has been very lonely.  They were together alone for a long time after the family was married and gone.  So naturally she missed Edgar and his loving attention very much.  She still tries to find some happiness in her lovely home and with her children and grad children.

Many fine men and women welcome her as "My old Teacher.”  They remember the fine lessons she taught and the goo example she sat for them.

She is also remembered for the fine talks she used to give.  She was a gifted speaker.  She was even invited to speak at a funeral.

Once she was chosen to represent the stake Relief Society and give a talk in the Slat Lake Tabernacle.  She was very humble and frightened but through fasting and prayer she gave a talk that brought many compliments.  Well in closing we will say she has lived a busy, humble, faithful and fruitful life.

God Bless her.