Hilda Mary Woodford Fife

Hilda Mary Woodford was born on the 15th of August 1903 in Marrickville (a suburb of Sydney), New South Wales, Australia to William Oliver Woodford and Edith Mary Dunn.  She and her family were friends of Winston Churchill and she was in London during September 1940 when the Germans dropped bombs on that great city. She was a world traveler and a professional genealogist living in England and Scotland before coming to live in the United States.

 

She conducted family history research for LDS Church President David Oman McKay.

Hilda (black hat) is on the left and David Oman McKay (white hair) is facing forward in the center of the photo.

Hilda Woodford (in the pink coat) on Princess Street in Edinburgh, Scotland - August 1960

She married Arthur Root Fife on the 16th of April 1968 in the St. George LDS Temple in St. George, Utah.  She was 64 and Arthur was 81. She became the step-mother to 5 adult children.  She had been hired years before to do research on the James Fife and Peter Muir Fife families in Scotland.  These were Arthur's ancestors and I am assuming this is how she met Arthur; who was living in Cedar City, Utah at the time.

Arthur died at the age of 89, on the 6th of September 1976 when Hilda was 73. They had been married for only 8 years and 5 months. I do not have any memories of Arthur as I was only 5 when he died and it wasn't until I was in my early teens that I interviewed Hilda in her home.



This is how I remember Hilda.  

She died on the 5th of December 1995 in Salt Lake City, Utah at the age of 92.

Though she initially didn't have a love of genealogy (until she was pushed into it by a professional genealogist, who was hired by her parents when she was younger), she soon fell in love with it and made it her life-long pursuit and professional career.  Unfortunately she has no posterity of her own.  However, she has influenced many families through her research and the resulting resources that can be found today in the LDS Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.  

In her LDS Patriarchal Blessing given in 1954 she was blessed, "that many people will rise up in the latter days, and call you blessed, because of the help you have given them, and the things that you have taught them, pertaining to life and salvation."  I know this to be true as she has had a profound effect on my life and I am sure many others. 

You can see more photos of Hilda at https://familysearch.org/tree/#view=ancestor&person=KW82-NHH