Wedding Anniversary for Mom and Dad Clayton

What a joyful and life fulfilling event ---- two young people so in love would seal their lives together for time and all eternity. I am including in my post a part from mother's journal that tells about the courtship and marriage.

"While attending the 8th grade in school, Wilford Clayton and his family arrived in Ucon from North Carolina (Roxboro). He was the oldest of ten in his family. He was also in the 8th grade. We both graduated from this grade school. Little did I think then that he would be my special someone to share my life with. As there was no high school closer than Idaho Falls or Rexburg at that time, I had the opportunity to go to Rexburg and live with Hazel Cook and family and work for my room and board and go to school. The next year there was two years of high school in Ucon in a building near our grade school. My second year of high school was also there and I lived at home. Then a third year was added and I was able to take advantage of my third year of schooling. I wasn't privileged to go to school anymore. My brothers were called on missions and finances wouldn't afford it for me to leave home to enter school.

The following summer I went to work for an attorney named Auto McCutchen. This was housework and cooking. This was in Idaho Falls. There I had the opportunity to go to St. Anthony with my sister. We worked in a seed house. We lived with Mary and Joe Jones who were distant relatives.

By now I was dating one boy only. Yes, it was Wilford Clayton. It seemed all he did was tease me constantly. He had been working on the railroad and had bought a Ford touring car. We had many good times together. I think the farthest we traveled from home was to Big Springs in Island Park. We followed my folks who were with Sam and Priscilla. It took all day.

As winter came on, Wilford and his father went up to Driggs to work in a coal mine. As time went on we decided to be married. We had walked home from church one night and he had given me a diamond and we set our date, February 24, 1927. We were married in the Salt Lake Temple.

Our first home was located at the coal mine where he worked. This was in Sam, Idaho west of Driggs about twelve miles. It was a mining camp. Church was held in a one-room schoolhouse. It was a fun winter. Dances were held at the one room schoolhouse with a fiddler and a piano for music. Also, once a week a silent movie was brought in from Driggs and everyone attended these special attractions.

Our home was two rooms and a path, and a spring of water nearby which helped, a homemade cupboard with curtains in front, a homemade table and two used chairs, a relic of a stove, a homemade washstand, and a pair of springs on a fold down couch which we used as a couch in the daytime --Oh, and a rubbing board for a washer. Not much, but about as nice as anyone had at that mining town. We had lots of fun and enjoyed making it as pretty and comfortable as we could. Wilford worked in the mines and his parents lived just a few houses away from us. As Mr. Samuel who owned the mine went broke, we ended owing a grocery bill to pay. However, a Ford motor company in Driggs took some of the non-cashable bonds we had received as pay as a down payment on a Ford Coupe car whenever we did receive the wages owed to us. We were glad of this, as it gave us a way to travel to other work areas. The car wasn't needed in the winter as the snow was deep and roads were narrow and hardly passable. That ended our work there and our monies owed to us.

Thanks mom and dad for all you did for us. We love you