I was born at Etna, Utah.  That’s just over the hill from Grouse Creek, Utah, on September 29, 1911.  I am next to the last of seven children that were born to Joseph Smith Barlow Jr. and Elizabeth Christena Hansen.   Mildred, Alice & Ruth are the names of my sisters and I had a little brother Elmer that came between Shirley and Ruth and he died when he was nearly two years old.  He had diarrhea and in those days they didn’t know what to do for it, so Elmer then Shirley and Wayne are my brothers.  My parents are Joseph Smith Barlow Jr. and Elizabeth Christena Hansen.

We lived in Grouse Creek until I was eleven years old, then we moved to Malta, Idaho.  Our family was called to move from Grouse Creek, Utah to Malta, Idaho to help colonize the church.  My father was the bishop there and was called to be a councilor in the Raft River Stake Presidency with headquarters in Malta.  Apostle Melvin J.  Ballard came to Grouse Creek and sang,  “I’ll Go Where You Want Me to Go Dear Lord”.  We sold our home and farm inGrouse Creek and moved with a team of horses and a big hayrack.  We came over the mountain in June and there had been big snowdrifts, which were now mud holes.  The wagon was stuck for several days; we stayed with friends in Lynn, Utah.  We rented a house in Malta until dad built us a house.  Dad worked for wages and we enjoyed our new home. Dad lived for six years, and then after going to the mountains for wood he had a heart attack and died.

I attended school in Grouse Creek and Malta.  In Grouse Creek we went sleigh riding to have a good time.  We just had loads of fun sleigh riding.  There’s a big hill in back of our place and another hill close by going to my cousins place that we had lots of fun sleigh riding and we would go sleigh riding in big sleighs with horses pulling the sleigh.  This is something that kids now days have missed.

We made lots of dresses for our dolls and dressed up a lot too.  We cut out paper dolls from Sears or Montgomery Ward Catalogues and cut out clothes and furniture for them.

We had children’s dances that were so much fun.  There was a piano player and Archie Toyn’s father played the violin.  We had a new dress for Christmas and Fourth of July.  (Sometimes it was a hand me down, but we looked forward to this event)

At Easter Time we would fix a lunch, including hard cooked eggs and go up on the hill back of our place, we’d sit under a cedar tree to eat it.  It was usually cold so we would dress warmly and have a lovely time.  We would say that we were going “Eastering”.
I had one boy friend when I was in Grouse Creek, only I was too little then to really have a boyfriend.  But he sent me a Valentine that was made out of wallpaper and it said, “The war is very dreadful, there is no doubt about it, but I shall fight to win your heart.  I cannot live without it.”   So I guess Floyd Ballingham was my first boyfriend, but really when I got big enough to have one, Clifford Smith was my first one out to Malta.

Our family used to tell stories together and eat and have fun times eating special things.  Mother made lovely ice cream and cream cake with strawberries on it and all sorts of things and we played games together.

I was blessed in Grouse Creek, Utah.  We had to go over the mountain; this was what was appalling when I looked on my record.  I was born in September and I wasn’t blessed until April 7, 1912.  We had to go over this hill to get to Grouse Creek and in the winter time it was just too cold I guess to take a new baby out and we had to take turns with Uncle Jess, Lester’s folks.  We had to take turns going to church with them.  We only had one outfit that was big enough to take the family in, and we would take turns going to church.

I guess it got winter before it was our turn and I wasn’t blessed until April.  An interesting thing happened when I was blessed, I was to be called Ida Louise and my dad got up there to bless me, he couldn’t remember the second name so it turned out I’m Ida and that’s alright.

I was baptized July 1, 1920 in Grouse Creek in a stream and my dad baptized me.  He said the first one ready will be first and I was the first one baptized.

We had Cloe Sanders for our Mutual teacher, she just passed away, and she was 99 years old when we went to her funeral this fall. She was our first mutual teacher and she was just a dear, dear lady, we had some good lessons.  We’d have fun at parties and dances and things.  W took trips to Salt Lake and in those days you didn’t take many trips to Salt Lake.  The road wasn’t like it is now; you couldn’t imagine what the road was like.  Then we went once in Uncle Theo’s old car or pickup or something that had to be pushed up over the hill and all kinds of problems, but we had fun in Salt Lake.  We stayed at a motel or something and got to see all the sights of Salt Lake.  It was a real thrill, but the Mutual classes were really good.  They really had good teachers and good lessons, we learned well.

I went to Malta High School.  I did the schoolwork but I had fun too.  We had loads of fun.  We didn’t have clubs that I can remember then.  We did have fun though in our activities, we had loads of fun.  We went to lots of ball games.  One time I was going with Orvil Udy and he was on the ball team and we’d go down to surrounding areas, here to Twin Falls, Jerome and like that you know to ballgames.  We just had good times and dances.

You weren’t supposed to go on dates, you couldn’t go to dances in fact until you were fourteen years old, and I remember dreaming of when I would be fourteen years old and I would be old enough to go to the dances.   I suppose I started going with Clifford right after that my mother was quite heartsick to think I was so set on going.  He was quite attentive and that worried her.  So I was young, probably as soon as I was fourteen years old.

I went to college at the University of Idaho Southern Branch.  I was there for two years from 1930, 1931 & 1932.  I graduated in 1932 from the Southern Branch and I had a teaching certificate then, but I didn’t think I’d ever use it.  I got married right after, I didn’t think I’d ever use it and teachers were not in demand then, they were just a dime a dozen.  You could not teach if you were married and when I went to school too, there were three of us in the family that were going at the same time, my sister was helping put us through college and I worked for board and room at Pocatello, lived in with a family and worked and I felt that that was a big part of my education as what I got out of my books, but I longed to live in the dorm like the other kids.  Do things with them but it was a good education and then I went back to college after your grandpa’s accident.  I went back to college for five years after your mom went to school, then I decided it was time for me to go to school.  I took night classes for nine years and four years of summer school, and then I graduated from college in 1966 with a bachelor degree in education to teach school.

I met your grandpa in Malta, Idaho.  He was a neighbor just down the street where the old Malta church used to be.  The Horne’s lived there. They moved there from Almo about the same time we moved from Grouse Creek.  Similar timing, he went to school and he was just an ambitious, vivacious young man in the community.  He was going with Annabell.  Annabell and I were the best of friends and she said, “I’m tired of going with you, I want to go with somebody else.  You go with Ida.”  And so he did and by October we were married.

My first impression of Lorin was that he was lots of fun.  He was ambitious; you just can’t believe the ambition that your grandpa had.  He was just filled with fire; he loved to have fun.  He loved to work; he organized everything in a business way.  He was just a real intelligent man.  That’s very impressive.  So it’s too bad he got taken away before he got all his dreams to come true, but that’s the way it happened.

We were married October 13, 1933 in the Salt Lake Temple.  Grandpa Horne’s cousin Walter and Marie Horne were being married that same night.  we wanted to be married at night because of the Temple lights were so lovely at night.  We went down and had a double wedding with them.  Parkee and Ray Spencer, Ray is a cousin and Parkee is an Aunt, were with us.  None of our folks could come, they didn’t have cars then.

We lived in Malta when we were first married.  We had a two-room house just south of the cheese factory.  The Horne’s had some land there and they put some cabins on the back of the lot and we built the house.  Later we moved the house up on a plot next to Mother, where Aunt Inez lives.

Your grandpa was doing some trucking in his pickup.  He and his dad had things organized.  It was really smart the way he whipped up something for a job.  Like the stores would want something and they’d go to Burley, they’d bring the stuff out. Finally he got in with Conoco and he was a Continental Oil agent there all those years until the time of his death.  We had to move to Burley because of Continental Oil; they took the railroad out.  They used to bring gas into Idahome and when they took out the railroad, it didn’t go to Idahome anymore so that’s how we came to Burley.

We were married three years when Sharon was born in that two room house.  I believe she was born there, she was born in 1936, and we were married in 1933.  We just had a country doctor, Dr. Sater.  The doctor and my sister Alice came out and stayed with us.  That was the way we handled babies then.

I had a miscarriage between Sharon and Marsha, so there was five years between each one of the girls.  In 1940 Marsha was born. We gave the girls only one name.  Edith, your mom, was born in 1945.  I was 34 years old and I was 34 years old when your grandpa crashed, your mom was only 2 months old.

We lived in Malta until it was time for Sharon to go to school, then we moved to Burley.  In Burley, she went to school at the Miller school for first grade.  Then we moved to the home where I presently live.  That’s where everyone grew up.  Well in fact your mom was born in Burley.  Marsha was born in Salt Lake City because the country doctor that was out to Malta moved away and he’d taken up drinking.  It was quite hard to get a Doctor out there, so we went to Salt Lake.  I stayed with Alice until Marsha was born.  Dr Horne was the Doctor; it was our first experience with him.

Lorin was killed in a plane crash in 1946.  He was always interested in flying and he was a Continental Oil agent, but he was just on his vacation and went back East to bring a plane home.  He and Roy Moore went back on the train, and then brought that plane home.  He crashed January 29, 1946.  There was fog in Texas and they just gassed up at Weatherford, Texas.  He told me before I went to Salt Lake with him once; he said why we’re trained to set planes down anywhere.  They said he chose the only good landing there was to set the plane down, but there was a rock and it threw them out of the plane and the plane was set on fire.

They left on a Tuesday, crashed on a Tuesday, were found the next Tuesday and buried the next Tuesday.  So we and everybody in the country were praying for them.

Sharon was 10 years old, Marsha was 5 years old and Edith was only two months old when their daddy died.  Lorin was always cautious; “I want things so if anything happens to me, Ida and the girls will have a living.”  We scrimped like anything to get our home paid for.  We only paid $4,500 for our home, then imagine, it was all paid for.  He had set up a fund with Benenficial Life that we’d get, I don’t know, $50 or $75, but of course in those days that was enough a month.  Then with Social Security, we got SS immediately.  Grandpa Horne took me to Twin Falls and we signed up for that.  He had a good job. In those days he made about $700 a month and that was good money.  So we got among the top on Social Security.  But it was this insurance fund that was set up and SS that kept us going until I taught school.  The girls still received SS until they were 18 years old, even with my teaching.

After Lorin died I decided that it was enough for Edith to be without her father, she shouldn’t at two months old be without her mother too.  I couldn’t take her to a babysitter so we just got along this way.  The Insurance was set up to last quite a few years, so I stayed home and worked in the church.  I was the Spiritual Living Teacher; they called it Theology Class back then.  Then I taught Jesus the Christ and it was a big booster for me.  It really helped my spirits, it was a deep subject and I really worked.

When Edith was six years old, I intended to wait another year to teach school.  She was hard to get out the door when I had to go early.  She went to Southwest and I went to Overland, but about the time Mr. Wrigley, the county superintendent came the fourth time in October for me to teach school, I decided I’d better go while they wanted me.  In those days you couldn’t teach if you were having a baby, and Bethene Martindale was expecting Judy.  That’s how I got started in first grade.

I taught school for 25 years.  I started at Overland and taught there for eight years, then moved to Dworshak when it was built and finished there.

I’m working with the Lauback reading program, Mini-Cassia tutor council.  I have students that I help there and I’m secretary of the organization.  It’s helping adults to read and you work on a one to one baptize with the.  I’ve worked on it in my home but presently I’m working in the Library with two.

I’m on the Juvenile Conference Committee that meets once a month, and helps youth that are in trouble with the law, so that they don’t have a court record.  We are an arm of the Court.  It’s very rewarding to help these youth.  I think most of the time; we help them move forward and they don’t get in trouble anymore, and seem so grateful for it.

I’m teaching Spiritual Living for Relief Society and enjoy it very much.  I’m a Visiting Teacher.  I volunteered at Beehive Clothing for seven years.

I have fourteen grandchildren.  Sharon has 6, Marsha has seven and Edith has one.

I suppose there’s been lots of trying times in my life, but I think the accident of your grandpa’s was probably the hardest.  It went on so long, not knowing if they were alive or dead or where they were, or when they’d be brought back, or anything.  I think that was about top of the list, but we were blessed.  I’d just get to the point where I think that I just couldn’t take it.  Then I’d just feel like an arm came around my shoulder.  I was given strength to carry on and we did.  People were so kind and good to us.  A lot of people said I couldn’t have done it, I don’t know how you do it well when you’re faced with it, there’s no alternative, you can go on your face or you can go forward.  The fact that I had fine friends and family, and all the work I was doing, that was upbuilding.  It helped me to carry on.

The girls and I just had loads of fun.  We’ve gone place together.  We used to go to Wayne and Lois’s, they lived in Boise.  We’d go up there and when they moved to Spokane, we’ve gone up there too.  I was my own boss, but I kept people worrying; because, they didn’t know where we were, but we did have good times together.  It made the girls, I think, closer with their mother because of this; we just had lots of fun.  We had a new Desoto that you’d roll down both of the windows and it’d look like a convertible.  It was snazzy.

The church played such a big part in my life.  I said my teaching was my occupation, but I loved it dearly.  I’d leave the schoolroom, and the church work would take over and it was a wonderful thing to keep me going.  I know people that just went down.  Just couldn’t carry on and I felt like my teaching at school and the church work just lifted me so that I could keep going.  So it’s nice to be involved in church work, don’t ever give that up.

I had no idea that I would be left to raise this family alone.  We’d only been together for 12 years.  I did have this teaching certificate, but I hadn’t used it.  I didn’t dream that I ever would use it, but after his death I could see that I was to be a teacher.  Of course, you can be a teacher now and be married, but then you couldn’t.  It was a wonderful thing when I could go to school and all the girls went to college.  We all had our college credit things that we needed to make our lives happy.  So my advice would be to have something lived up so that you can do, even now days it takes more than one income to keep a family going.  If a person has something in mind that they can do, I was thankful that I did have this teaching position and I was well respected through the years.  It was a marvelous experience, uplifting and it’s great joy to go along the street and hear, “Hi, Mrs. Horne!”  It’s rewarding to have something like that.   I’ve been a widow for 40 years in January.  That’s a long time.

Ida Horne died July 24, 1995 in Burley, Idaho.

By Danielle Adams (Grand-daughter), Danielle interviewed Ida Barlow Horne on November 30, 1985.