Life History of Henry Nibley Stoddard
By Henry Nibley Stoddard
My father David Brown Stoddard was born on October 7, 1880, in Wellsville, Utah. He was the oldest one of the family and he had two brothers and two sisters. When he was ten years of age his father was killed. He had to work every summer for small wages to help make a living for his mother and his brothers and sisters. He went to college for two years and then had to go out and make a living for himself. When he was nineteen years of age he came to Oregon to work for the Stoddard Lumber Company. After he was here a few years he met my mother. After he got married he started to work for the United States Post Office.
My mother Edith Nibley Stoddard was born on December the fourth 1882 in Logan Utah. She was next to the oldest in the family. She had two brothers, one older and one younger than her, and she had three sisters. When she was --- years of age she came to Oregon.
I was born on March 13, 1918 in LaGrande Oregon. I had five brothers. When I was five years of age I had a new baby brother born. When I became six I started to school. My first grade teacher was Mrs. Young. I want to Willow School. I liked school very much and I also liked my teacher. The next year for the first time I went on a trip with my mother and my younger brother and one of my older brothers. We went on the train and I thought it was a great thing for it was my first time I had been on one. I had many experiences and one of them was while riding in the train. My brother and I were sitting out on the observation watching the country. While we were sitting there all of a sudden everything went dark. We did not know what happened so we went back and asked my mother and she said that we had only went in a tunnel. We stayed in Salt Lake two weeks and then we came home.
When I was six years of age I started to Primary and I went all the time graduating from one class to another until I was twelve when I graduated from a Trail Builder to a Scout.
The next year in the summer my mother, father, and my three brothers and myself was going on a vacation to the Yellowstone National Park. We went through Idaho where we met my Aunt and Uncle and my three cousins. We all went up into Yellowstone. When we were first entering they stopped us put a --- on our guns so that we could not shoot anything while you know the law is that you can not kill or injure anything in the park. While we were going down the highway there was a bear came out of the timbers and stood right in the middle of the road and would not let us go by. And as the law says that you cannot hunt or kill any animal in the park, so we had to stop. When we stopped he got up on the running board, we tried to get him off, but he would not go. We then had to get some bacon out and give it to him, and then he went away. Once when we were camped in an auto camp on a hillside my cousins and my brother and myself went up on the hill to get some chips for a fire, while we were stooped picking up chips we heard the bushes move but we did not think it was anything and just went right on, when all of a sudden a big brown bear came tearing out of the bush. We dropped the chips and ran as fast as we could to the tent. In the same camp there was a kitchen and one day there was a big brown bear came down, opened the kitchen door and went in. The bear chased the girl around the counter and some men had to come in with clubs and drive him out.
While we were in the park we saw every kind of geyser and hot pots. We stayed two weeks and then came home.
My father owned a farm out two miles on the other side of Hot Lake right along Katherine creek and we lived on it then. I had a white horse named chief, I rode him all the time and went after the cows on him.
I fished in the creek every day and one day I caught a large (fish) and I had my picture taken with it. We lived there all summer and then in September, when school started my brothers and I came to La Grande every day with my father and then at night after he got done with work we went back home. We stayed on the farm until sometime in November and then we moved back to La Grand for the winter. Every summer we would live out on the farm and then move back for the winter.
When I was twelve years of age I was ordained a deacon in the priesthood. This work I liked very much. I also at this time was a scout and I first received a tenderfoot badge which is the first step in scouting.
The saddest thing in my life so far was the death of my brother, David Wilford Stoddard. He was killed instantly by a bull in 1929. This was a very instant shock to my parents and my brothers and I.
When I became the age of fourteen years, I graduated from the grade schools into high schools. When I was at this age, I looked back on my certificates that I has received from church, and I found that I has not received my Deacon yet. It had been two years since I was ordained a Deacon. I did not know what was the matter, so I went and saw the Bishop about it. He looked it up and found that there was no record of it. They decided that I would have to be ordained over again. I was ordained a Deacon the second time in 1932.
