Lydia Lyman Bio

Lydia Lyman

LYDIA LYMAN was the daughter of Edward Leo and Mary Maranda (Callister) Lyman. 

She was born 11 August 1884, at Oak City, Millard County, Utah.  She married Leo Finlinson in the Salt Lake Temple on 3 October 1907.

Leo and Lydia reared a family of eight: Maidie, Grant Lyman, Virginia, Clara, Leo Lyman, Isabel, Julia and Richard Lyman Finlinson.

Lydia was one of ten children, who always had a project to earn money. As a teenager and young adult, she knitted stockings to earn money. After her marriage she raised chickens to have her own "more discretionary" funds. She worked on the farm with her husband, kept a vegetable garden and grew roses and peonies which she sold on 'Decoration Day' to people who came from other towns to purchase flowers for their family graves.

Lydia owned and operated the Oak City Cash Store for twenty-five years, was the Postmistress and served on the City Council.  She was ambitious and in addition to the store and home, she made most of her daughter’s dresses and many beautiful quilts.  She made quilt tops at her store during the more quiet winter months, then invited the women in town to her home on her birthday in August where she would prepare them a lunch and they would help her quilt her quilts. 

Her pies were legendary. She would make 20 pies then go to the store to work. She taught the social science lessons in Relief Society which brought her a great deal of enjoyment. 

Lydia always enjoyed gathering sayings which expressed a motivating philosophy of life.  She stimulated great goals in others by sharing these sayings.

Leo and Lydia’s main desire in life was to rear a family with high Latter-day Saint ideals.  Their children were taught to pray.  They all cherish the memory of gathering around the kitchen table each morning for family prayers.  They were also taught to accept any job they were asked to do, both at home and in the Church.

Lydia died 9 years before her husband in the Payson Hospital in Payson, Utah County, Utah on 18 May 1958. She was buried in the Oak City Cemetery on 21 May 1958.