Cloyd O. Booth was a well known and respected Iowa pioneer of Clarke and Union counties. He was born to Charles W. and Rachel Smith Booth on a farm southeast of Hopeville on December 23, 1881. Cloyd grew to young manhood on the farm with his parents, an older sister Frona, and two younger brothers, Sam and Pearl. Cloyd attended school at Hopeville and later began working by the day on nearby farms, thereby gaining farming experience.

Bertrice Crandall was born near Rochelle, Illinois, on January 30, 1885, the eldest child of Frederick M. and Edith Cooper Crandall. When she was one year old her parents, believing that the West afforded greater opportunities for advancement, moved by train across the scarcely populated prairie of Iowa to Gage County, Nebraska. Here, LeRoy Crandall was born. Soon, they moved further to Thomas County, Kansas, where they homesteaded and lived in a sod house. There, another daughter, Ruth, was born. Bertrice was but a young child while living here, but remembers the ceaseless winds of Kansas, the prairie dogs, the packs of wolves, the rattlesnakes and the short, parched Buffalo grass. She also remembers the frequent approach of Indians to their home and their demands for food. After a seven year drought the Crandelis loaded all their possessions into two covered wagons and moved, in 1892, to Vernon, Kansas. Here their daughter, Kathryn, was born. In 1901, the Crandall family came by train to Murray, as Mr. Crandall had bought the general store in Hopeville from Jess Stark. Their youngest child, Kenneth, was born in Hopeville. Bertrice completed two years of high school and an additional course in bookkeeping. She was her father's bookkeeper in the store and played the reed organ in the Methodist Church for services.

On February 14, 1906, Cloyd Booth and Bertrice Crandall were married. They drove a

horse and buggy to Murray and then took the train to Osceola where they were married in the home of an uncle, Wib Booth. They moved to Thayer, having purchased the general store and operated it for the next seven years. In 1913 they purchased and moved to a 120 acre farm northwest of Thayer and made this their home for the next fifty four years. During this time many improvements were made in this area. The old Blue Grass Trail which passed their farm was rerouted and replaced by paved Highway 34. A brick school building was built in Thayer in 1921 and the school district consolidated. All seven Booth children attended the Thayer school of which Mr. Booth was a director for twenty years and served as President of its Board for many years. In 1957, Mr. and Mrs. Booth retired from farming but continued to reside in their farm home. They observed their sixty first wedding anniversary with their children a few months before Mr. Booth passed away on May 30, 1967.

Bertrice Booth moved to Murray in June, 1967, to make her home with Mr. and Mrs. Elmer Goodrich.

The Booths oldest daughter, Theola Herring, lives in San Francisco, California, and has one daughter, Jacklyn. Fred married Mary O'Neall. They live on a farm south of Thayer and have two children, Gary and Lana. Eleanor married Jack Wake and reside on a farm east of Murray and have three children, Joan, Rodney, and Diane. Helen married Albert Stoner and lives in Brigham City, Utah, and have three children, Stanley, Bruce, and Ann. Richard lives in San Francisco and has four daughters, Theola, Lola, Debra, and Teresa. Elmer, their youngest son was killed in Saipan in 1944, with the 16th Infantry Division. Elberta Mae is married to Raymond Rider. They live on a farm west of Murray and have two sons, Steven and Fred.