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Jan. 5--TWIN FALLS -- Looking back at her mother's life, Alice McIntyre said she was a woman of strength, of morality and of values.
It is with these traits that Zelda Wiseman was able to overcome obstacles and difficulties that are not as common today. She died Dec. 26 at the age of 98.
Her early years were spent in a tent while her father helped build the dam and canal in an area northwest of Wells, Nev., called Metropolis.
With five brothers and two sisters, the large family learned quickly to get along without a lot of things before building a house on the property and setting up a dry farm. They still didn't have electricity or plumbing, but they had a roof.
"Her parents were very hard working," said Alice McIntyre, Wiseman's daughter. "Her mother cooked for the men building the canal and dam and my mother said that even though they had a dirt floor, her mother kept it swept every day."
Young Wiseman's chores consisted of gathering eggs and feeding chickens among other things, but her love was reading.
"She'd get in trouble sometimes when the teacher would talk, she would get her textbook and get so absorbed in reading it that she wouldn't pay attention to the teacher," McIntyre said with a chuckle.
Her family was a strong unit and the parents instilled a strong work ethic in their children. For her 12th birthday, Wiseman received a .22-caliber rifle and a horse.
"But, her father wouldn't let her have a saddle," McIntyre said.
Wiseman always wanted to go to college, but after graduating as her class' salutatorian in 1925, she moved to Wells and worked at a cafe. It was there she met her first husband, Dewey Johnson.
Just a few years after their marriage in 1926 and birth of McIntyre in 1927, they discovered Johnson had cancer and he was moved to Letterman General Veteran's Hospital in San Francisco.
When her husband died in 1930, at the height of the Depression, Wiseman wasn't able to earn enough for living expenses and childcare, so she sent her 3-year-old to live with her parents in Metropolis.
During this time, Wiseman attended beauty school and, after marrying Richard Parker in Elko, Nev., McIntyre returned to her mother and they lived at Spruce Mountain.
Wiseman's love of reading was shared with McIntyre, who remembers receiving books mailed from the Elko County Library.
"She loved Odyssey, Iliad, Shakespeare and novels, too," McIntyre said.
She also enjoyed sewing, making her own clothes up until she had her first stroke in 1999.
"She used to even take old clothes, tear them apart and make new clothes out of them," McIntyre said.
Wiseman and Parker eventually divorced and she moved to Downey, Calif. Four years later, she met and married her first husband's best friend, Emmett Wiseman.
When Emmett died, she moved to his family's property and lived in a mobile home while refurbishing the house.
"She was very independent," McIntyre said. "She didn't ask for help unless she really needed it."
After her 1999 stroke, Wiseman moved to Twin Falls and lived with her daughter until another stroke left her disabled.
She really loved her family, McIntyre said. She especially enjoyed visiting with her grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren and watching them grow up.
"She was a strong woman who came from a strong family," McIntyre said. "She had a strong sense of morality and values and a real strength in how she coped with all the difficulties she had."
Times-News writer Jami Whited can be reached at 735-3278, or write to her at jwhited@magicvalley.com
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