Biography of Zina Eliza (Woodland) Adamson
A.D. 1886–1965
by herself & Phyllis (Adamson) Despain
Zina Eliza Woodland was born March 14, 1886, in Richmond, Cache Co., Utah, to Alfred & Sena (Thompson) Woodland.
She was the sixth child in a family of eleven children.
At the age of three while she was holding some stick for Bill, he hit her hand with the ax nearly severing it.
Bill hid under the bed while a handy neighbor man fixed it up using castile soap and court plaster.
The Lord was with her — it healed properly, for which she was grateful ever after.
After my father acquired a farm, we used to do our part by topping the sugar beets.
Sarah and Zina had the most fun riding in the farm wagon, lying down flat as they passed through town, so no one would see them.
Their mother stayed in the background, even though she had the biggest job of putting up lunches and everything.
She was setting an example that her children would follow.
Zina was baptized on June 7, 1894, by William Merrill and confirmed by W. K. Burnham.
The family furnished the sacrament bread for Sunday School for 25 years.
Each week one of the kids would have the responsibility of taking it over to the church in the next lot.
There was no baker’s bread [available there] in those days.
Zina began school at the age of six attending one held in a one-room school house.
She went to school until the ninth grade and liked it too.
It was especially exciting when they built the new school house and they got away from that one-room affair.
Children would have to go to Logan to continue schooling past the ninth grade.
Zina was fifteen years old when her father died of pneumonia.
He had been sick for nine days.
The neighbors pitched in and helped the young boys harvest his sugar beet crop.
Mother was left with a large family to support.
Naturally the children all had to help — not easy in a small town like Richmond.
To be honest, Zina sure got fed up with doing house work!
She had a reputation for doing it so well, that all the time there would be someone asking her mother if she might be available.
She did house work for many mothers, especially after they had had a baby.
Not many families had washing machines.
She was glad when the Sego Milk factory in Smithfield opened.
There was a chance to get a change.
She worked there for a long time — labeling cans or soldering closed the vent hole in the cans.
Zina went to Butte, Montana, in 1907, when Amelia’s fifth child was born [Dennis Horne, August 19, 1907].
Eph was working there in a mine.
He had known the Woodland sisters from the times they would take a picnic lunch up High Creek traveling by wagon.
He looked her up and they went to a couple of places together.
He left, but Zina stayed there for some time.
Zina went to Farnum [near Ashton], Idaho, where her uncle Alfred and Chrysta were homesteading at the time.
This was when their third child was born [Wallace Glen, October 7, 1909].
Boy, it was rough!
The midwife came on horseback.
Then she went to Brigham City, Utah, to work for Uncle Parley [Thompson](mother’s brother) when they had had a baby.
After that, rather than go home, she got a job there packing cherries, and then one at Garland packing apples.
Eph came home from his mission at that time [October 11, 1910].
Zina soon followed in late October.
Back home she was active in the Mutual Improvement Association serving as the assistant chorister.
She didn’t use a baton, but they could follow her and wanted her regardless.
She had been a member of the ward choir when she was fourteen.
She sang soprano and they had a good choir — especially good conductors.
There was so little else going on she never missed a practice unless she was ill.
Zina had corresponded with Eph while he was on his mission.
When he got back he went to Park City, Summit Co., Utah, to get a new start.
On October 18, 1911, they were married without fanfare — just their two families together for dinner when they came home to Richmond from the temple in Logan.
Park City was a surprise to Zina: she hadn't realized that it was built in the hills.
They liked it.
There was so much going on in those days when the town was booming.
Every weekend there were dancing parties at Swede’s Hall.
Drifters came there to make a fast fortune and move on, but Eph and Zina made it their home.
They lived for a month in an apartment next to the old Jefferson School.
Then they bought a small home on Sand Ridge — not a very desirable place — too many mill tailings; there was a mill only a block away.
When Phyllis was a year old [1917], they decided to make a move.
They found a place on lower Park Avenue where there was plenty of room for children to play.
The chickens and chicken coops came with it.
There was space for a garden so for their small family this was a real farm.
Eph had a long way to walk to work though.
Their first car was an old Essex, in which they could make a few trips to visit in Richmond.
Zina was in the choir for years having been made a member soon after we had arrived.
She was also on the Relief Society program committee for a long time and a Relief Society teacher for eighteen years.
In about 1934 she went Salt Lake with Mrs. Mills and Beckman to sing with the Singing Mothers in the Tabernacle.
They stayed at Lydia [(Adamson) Woodland]’s while Phyllis helped at home.
Ephraim died of cancer on May 27, 1942.
Zina cared for him patiently during his disability, which had lasted a few years.
Her brother Noah later said of her, “This I know — your mother is one of the meek that will inherit the earth.
I can’t think of anything but the nicest and sweetest things about her.
When you say ‘don’t dare put it off,’ it sounds just like Zina.”
Zina’s son Lee lived with his mother even after he married in 1955.
They later sold their home in Park City, whereupon Lee and Betty moved to Idaho.
Zina came to live with her different children, finally with her daughter Phyllis (Adamson) Despain.
She died July 22, 1965, in Salt Lake City.
Her remains were interred in the cemetery in Park City.
—Woodland Family Organization, The Alfred Woodland Family (J. Grant Stevenson, Provo, UT, 1978), pp. 100–103