It is now February 24, 1936. I,  John E. Redford, am the only child of
John Redford and Eleanor Caroline Kington. I was born January 25, 1866
at Wellsville Cache Co., Utah. my father was born March 16, 1844 at Halfacre,
Pilkington, Lanceshire, England. My mother was born April 18, 1848
At Garden Grove, Iowa. I am now in my 70th year.

My mother died when I was a babe six months old, with what we now claim to be appendicitis. On her dying bed she asked my father to let her parents raise me. I remember doing chores for an old lady and digging sego bulbs for our breakfast as my grandparents were very poor. Grandmother used to spin and I carried the wool from the carding machine to her home. I was a small lad and remember how she used to give me a bed sheet, sack, or tablecloth, and the bulk would nearly over balance me. Then I would carry the wool to the weaver who wove for grandmother on shares. I went to the fields with my uncle, Jerry Kington, to pick out the longest straws and soak them in the ditch to bind the grain with. (This was the only way to bind the bundles as the grain was cut with a cradle or dropper.)

My schooling was very limited. A Presbyterian lady who had one room used to teach school and help as she thought best, but as soon as my father learned I was one of her pupils, he took me out and sent me back to my grandmother. I had been there only two months. I then started school under a man named Moroni Duncan. He taught a very short time, so my schooling there was about three months. I went to another school under a Mr. Lawson, who was a cripple and could not walk. I was here about three months also. Our studies were only reading, writing and very little arithmetic. If I could get any work at all I had to leave school and earn what I could. Usually my pay was a peck of wheat or fifty cents a day.

I worked in Portneuf Canyon, Idaho, about a month or six weeks then went with my Uncle Jerry to work at David Stoddard’s sawmill. I was nineteen years old. when my grandmother died of dropsy. At this time many of the Wellsville residents were being arrested for polygamy. I rode a horse five miles to warn a man that Federal deputies were coming. The summer before I was married I worked in Challis, Idaho, doing the irrigating on the ranch and getting out timber to sell. I later went to work by the Salmon River. Fall was getting near so I returned home and was married 20 May 1886.

We lived in Wellsville until after our third child was born then went to work at a sawmill in Sanpete County, Utah. We stayed here all summer then before winter set in went to Park City, doing odd jobs. We went back to Wellsville and from here to Canada where we homesteaded at Leavitt. (Taken from a personal History written by John Ephraim Redford.)

John Ephraim had been active in the church his entire life. He was an enthusiastic genealogist and an ardent temple worker, having been called to be an officiator in the Cardston Alberta Temple. He died 30 June 1941 of a heart attack while taking part in the Temple.

Burial at Leavitt, Alberta, Canada on 2 Aug 1941
Married to Sarah Almira Leavitt on 20 May 1886 in Logan, Cache, Utah
Children:
Antionetta, Eleanor, John, Julia, Blanche, Owen, Arvin, Arilla, and Nora.