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Olive was born June 18, 1901 to George Davis Merkley and Phebe Ann Hacking in the house in Maeser, Utah by the canal by the road from Maeser to Vernal. The house is on the southwest corner of the intersection by the canal.
In the words of Audrey Richens, a sister:
I remember the day she was born. We were so thrilled. We four kids in the family were sent away to Uncle John Hacking's to spend the day. We wondered what it was all about. We had such a good time. When we came home that evening we had a little baby sister. We were all so thrilled at that we didn't know what to do. She was the youngest and the baby of the family all the time she was living. She was a sweet thing. We all loved her so much, and she was an intelligent little girl. She was a little blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl that anybody could love because she had so many sweet ways. She seemed like the most intelligent one of the bunch of us. She grew up as a little girl having fun. She always had a sense of humor and a lot of fun in her life. She did many things. She could go riding on the horses and she almost lived with Father constantly because he was crazy about her. I suppose it was because she was the baby. When he would go on the horse she would ride with him. When she was just about five years old, he bought her the prettiest little tricycle you ever saw. In those days there sure weren't many tricycles; kids didn't have them. Olive always enjoyed hers so much. She could do a lot of tricks on it.
She was always happy, singing and whistling. Father said, "The best thing an old man can keep is a whistling girl and a blatting sheep." We lived up to that all through our lives; we tried to be happy and whistle a lot. Olive was really outstanding with her friends. They all just loved her. If there was anything to be done, she knew how to do it and she did it in a nice way. One time when she was teaching Sunday school (She wasn't very old but she had a class and the kiddies all just loved her.), she harnessed the team and took the kiddies on a picnic and drove the horses, herself. The kids all had a wonderful time and they wanted her to do it again the next day. That's the way Olive's life was.
She grew up and learned to play the piano. She could play about anything that she picked up. She played and she could sing and she could dance. We would have little dances down home and your Uncle Levi and Joe would come down. We had a dancing class and they would come to our home. We would pull the rugs up and we'd turn on the Victrola and just practice all these dances. Our home was always the scene of fun. We lived in the home on the corner where Amos Merkley now lives. [The corner by the canal, southwest, on the road from Maeser to Vernal.]
When she was just a little girl, she and Linnie Hacking (That was her cousin.) used to play. Linnie would play the violin and Olive would sing, and they would have a wonderful time. They would walk up to mutual in the old Maeser church house then come back and sing and play some more. She and Olive were very close together. Linnie had a sudden illness and passed on. Olive was quite lost after that for a long time. She always made the most of what happened to her. We tried to get her to study harder when she went to high school, but she didn't need to. She was always ahead of her class. She didn't need to study and dig out things like I had to.
She was a wonderful person in many ways. She used to play tricks on us, and we could never quite get even with her. I remember one time when she was going somewhere, Mother said to her, "You must do the dishes before you go," and Olive said, "Oh, I'll do them when I get back." When we found her, it was dinner time and Olive was still up in the field with Father and the boys. When she came back the dishes were done, but she had to do them after that. She didn't mind if she could just have fun and enjoy life, and that is what she did.
One time she was stung by a bee and had a bad reaction to it. She swelled up all over and we ended up putting her in a tub of cold water to try to get the swelling down.
She got out of high school and met Ed Bodily and they got married. We thought she was a pretty young girl to get married. She was 18 years old. But we can see now what a nice family she brought into the world and what her mission must have been. I think it must have all been for a purpose. She had six little kids. I remember the night before she went out for her last operation on her head. Carl and I stopped to see her; we were on our way home from some meeting at the church. Olive was just bathing the last of the little kids. She had made them all new pajamas--flannel pajamas and nightgowns. Anna was just a tiny little girl, and the oven door was down and her clothes lying there on it, and Olive put her arms around her and said, "This is one little gal that will never leave me." I can remember that so well. Olive and Ed left the next morning to go out and she didn't ever come back to us.
She used to come up here when she was suffering so bad. She would come to get away from the noise sometimes. I remember one day when she came up I got her to lie down for a little while. She had those tubes in her head and in the back of her ear where she had troubles in her mastoid glands and things. She had suffered something awful. That was before she had the final operation. She would get terrible, terrible headaches. She would suffer something terrible.
The summer after they were married, she and I went over to Aunt Eleanor's one afternoon. I picked her up in the buggy and we went over. When it was 5:00 o'clock, she said, "My goodness, Audrey, we've got to go. It's time for Daddy's supper." Aunt Eleanor said, "Oh, yeah, Olive. Now, it's a pleasure. After while it will be duty."
Another time when they came up here, we made a big two-gallon freezer of ice cream and we had ice cream all over the place. We sure did have good times together.
We were living in this little four-room log house, and Olive came up to stay with us. She stayed all night with us. The next morning, Carl got up and went out and did his chores. I got breakfast, and all at once Carl (He was quite a tease.) saw a diamond on Olive's finger, and he said something about it. She wasn't going to show it to us; she was kind of bashful about it. So we got up and headed her off, me on one side of the table and he on the other side. And we got to see her ring. I will never forget that. That must have been in November, and they were married in March. He had, as I can remember, a sedan car when they were married.
The folks moved to town just about a week before I was married, so she lived in town and worked in the co-op store for awhile. She had the prettiest hat that summer--really had some pretty clothes.
When Carl and I were married, she went to Salt Lake with us--she and Carl's mother. We went in a Ford car. The sand was so deep through Gusher; there was no paving or anything. We got as far as Heber the first day. We stayed there, camped out in Heber, then went on the next day to Holladay. The next day Olive stayed with Aunt Lila and we went to the temple. She came back and went to work in the store and then met Ed Bodily. It wasn't very long until they were married.
She died on the twelfth of November 1930. She died in Provo and they brought her home. Harold was only eighteen months old. Aunt Jane took Harold to her place and the rest remained at home.
Your dad didn't let the kids be separated. Zelpha came to take care of the family, and they ended up getting married.
After Olive and Ed were married they lived in the house in Maeser on the mill corner where Lucile was born. After they lost the sheep and place because of the hard winter they moved to Gusher and took care of Chris's place while he was on his mission. Lorenzo was born while they were in Gusher.
When they moved back to Maeser, they lived in the old Fisher place where the rest of Olive's children were born. Melvin, Anna, Gordon and Harold.
