By Roy Delore Gregory
Ada was born in Mapleton, Idaho to Hyrum Heber Taylor and Pheba Martin. She had two brothers and two sisters: Lester Hyrum, Heber James, Louella Pearl, and Mable. She was the fourth out of the five children. She attended Mapleton Elementary, Franklin High School, and North Cache High School.
She married Delor Albiston Gregory on 18 January 1939 in the Logan LDS Temple. They had four sons: Roy Delor 11/20/1948, Stephen T 7/4/1953, Curtis Alan 2/21/1959, and Jerry Dean 3/27/1961.
Delor had been working for Grandfather Taylor for many years on the farm and herding the sheep. Two days after Thanksgiving in 1937, the family home burned. After she married Delor, they lived at the ranch in a sheep camp to milk the cows morning and night. She worked as a farm hand alongside Delor.
Besides Mapleton, she also lived in Lewiston, Utah with Aunt Pearl and Uncle Les for a time while she attended North Cache High School. After she and Dad were married, they moved to Filer, Idaho for a time, and then back to Preston, where they lived the rest of their days.
She loved penmanship and practiced her writing often. She also enjoyed spelling and English. Another of her other hobbies included genealogy. She created family books for several of her family members.
She was a faithful member of the LDS Church and served many positions, including Primary Teacher, First and Second Counselor to the MIA, Relief Society Secretary, Visiting Teacher, and MIA Teacher during which time she taught many young people about genealogy.
She was also a member of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers and served as Captain of the Syringa Camp.
Because her mother had cancer, she served in the American Cancer Society of Franklin County as the Secretary-Treasurer and also First Vice President.
She sang with the Singing Mothers Choir for many years.
I sent a request to the other boys regarding their memories of Mom. Here is what Jerry sent me back:
“You asked if we had memories of mom: What a great mom we had! I have some really fond memories. One of the things that perhaps not too many people knew about mom is her talent of yodeling. Roy, did you ever hear mom yodel? As shy as mom was, it was difficult to get her to yodel but there were a few times that I begged or bothered her enough that I got her to do it. Now, for a quiet, soft-spoken woman that mom was, when she started to yodel it kinda shocked ya. I never have or probably never will hear a better yodeler than my mom!
Mom was the Relief Society Secretary for our ward for probably all of my life. She served in many different Presidencies. She was a friend to all the women of the ward.
I don’t know how she put up we 4 (5) boys. Mom always enjoyed going on rides with us. We went on many different rides up the mountains. But mom didn’t like camping. I guess she liked to come home, clean up and sleep in her own bed. I remember one time when a couple of our friends Curtis, and I went camping up Cub River Canyon. We hiked in and set up camp. We were very surprised that evening when we saw mom coming down the trail carrying a cooler. She told us that after we had left for our camping trip, she started to think that we would enjoy some ice cream so she had packed up a cooler full of ice and ice cream and drove up the canyon to find us. This was a big surprise because mom never liked to drive in the canyons much less, go hiking alone. That has always stayed with me… that she would do that for us.
The first time I ever left home for any amount of time was when I joined the National Guard and went to Basic Training in Oklahoma between my junior and senior years of high school. For anyone that thinks that their mom is bossy and demanding should wake up to a Drill Sergeant yelling in their ear at 5 o’ clock in the morning! I would take mom’s yodeling any day! During that time of harsh realization that I wasn’t in Cache Valley anymore letters from mom were very encouraging and meant a lot to me.”
Mom’s birthday was Christmas Eve. As I recall, she told me she was baptized in the __ River just after her 8th birthday in January and told me how cold the water was!
Each of our birthdays were on or near a holiday. I was a Thanksgiving baby, Stephen was born on the 4th of July, Curtis was born near President’s Day, and Jerry was born near Easter. I guess Mom didn’t want to be the only one with a holiday birthday!
