Roma Jean Wood Stabile

Roma Jean Wood Stabile
July 26, 1928-April 20, 2014
      Roma Stabile was born July 26, 1929 in Pocatello Idaho, under the sign of Leo. Her earliest memories were in the thick of the Great Depression in Salt Lake City, Utah when she played in open fields and play yards. She ate eggs three meals a day, for a number of years, because her father was an egg deliverer. Roma's parents were Frank and Atha Wood. Roma would recount stories about her father always being so kind and generous and forgiving. He was a hard working executive at the Union Pacific Railroad. She spoke well of her mother, too, except for the occasional ''she'd spank me with the pancake turner'' or “she’d smack me in the head with a hair brush while braiding my hair if I winced”. But Atha always cooked tasty, healthy meals as best she could, despite her lack of access to groceries other than eggs, and making do on her own while Frank was away on the rails. Roma was the oldest of four children. Her younger sister was Fran. Her two brothers were Jim Wood, and Bill Wood. Jim and Bill were born after the Great Depression when money eased the family lifestyle.  She grew up with Fran and Jim, but Bill was a lot younger and was about the age of Roma’s daughter Linda.
    
      Roma met Jay Russell Barber, the father of her children, as a young woman. Roma married Russ on her 18th birthday in 1947 - they both being eager to begin a new life after the horrors of WWII and Roma reaching a legal age to marry. She and Jay had three wonderful children. Her oldest was Linda Kay, then Keith Russell, and her youngest was Teri Jo. Linda and Keith spent their early lives in Salt Lake City, and then the family moved to San Diego, California in 1961 shortly before Teri was born. Jay Russell Barber was a cab driver, WWII veteran, golfer extraordinaire who brewed his own beer in the garage and had a life-long career with IBM as did Lee Done, Jay's best friend and Roma's brother-in-law. Russ and Roma were "Jack Mormons" who kept true to their heritage and even studied it in detail but held too few of the Doctrines and Covenants of the Mormon Church. Roma and Russ divorced in the 1870s, but soon after, Roma met the love of her life, Ben Stabile. Ben was a WWII veteran and a real estate broker. Their years together were boom and bust but they made the most of it and truly loved each other.

Teri says this: Until I was about 14 I thought my mom, like every other mom, had supernatural powers. She kept it all together… an immaculately clean home, a great job, she prepared delicious meals, could paint a house inside and out, rearrange the furniture seemingly all by herself in minutes while I was out with a friend or at school, refinish shoddy old furniture she picked up on the cheap into priceless antiques, kept a beautiful garden, and always seemed to know what I was up to. She and Fran were famous for donning dark clothing for late night raids on streetside leavings of rich Beverly Hills families on "Garbage Night". One of Teri's favorites was a giant bird cage which became an eclectic ornament of the Fran's home. Roma Barber kept an antique Shaving Mug collection complete with a working Barber pole - which some of the family will no-doubt remember. Roma the Gringa made frequent trips across the border from San Diego into Tijuana Mexico which taught me and Cousin Tony to feel comfortable there as children and later as young adults. Sometimes a sidewalk vendor would recognize me as Roma's daughter years later in one of her old pottery or rod-iron haunts and they always asked about her. Roma loved to bargain in Tijuana, lunch at a comfortable downstairs Mexican café with mariachis and margaritas. Bill Wood accompanied her there on every trip he made to San Diego. The Done and the Barber households were similar in time and space with the children coming around the same time, living down the street from one another, and in with their spare time in the company of mutual life-long friends like Joe Pidd. We children have also remained connected… Linda and Bill Wood grew up together as is evidenced in the frequent Home-Movies shot by Frank Wood of the two of them together. Keith and Russ's nephew Mike Crus (Joan Barber's son) continue to play golf together twice a week even now after all these years perpetuating one of the family's traditions stemming from R.O. Barber - a lifelong golfer and also once a rum runner in Salt Lake City during prohibition. Teri and Tony Done grew up together during the frequent trips between San Diego and Los Angeles when the Dones and Barbers got together and later with Spence and Stacy Wood as Teri traveled back to Utah when Ben and Roma lived in Kaysville. Jim and Roma had a special relationship too. She loved her younger brother and he made her proud. She always had nice things to say about Jim's wife, Joye.

Ben (acting as Roma's biographer) prepared a 17-page abbreviated Wood family history which Teri will email to you upon request. Jim and Roma helped to narrate Spencer Wood's Video production "F. C. Wood Home Movies". Teri and Spence interviewed Roma much later in about 2002, but dementia had already partially set in and many of our questions remained unanswered. Spence and Teri talk once every few years about getting together to edit that multi-hour interview down into a bitesize mini documentary.

No account of Roma's life can go without acknowledging Keith and Debbie for all they did for her once Ben passed away. Weekdays Roma was an "inmate" at Wentworth, the deluxe elderly home some of us visited at the SLC family reunion. There she was a "spring chicken" always being sought after by other inmates because she was fun and kind and zesty. But weekends were spent with Keith and Deb at their home in Sandy. There Roma got to feel at home and feel a sense of family, work in the garden, help to prepare dinner, and to "help" Debbie go shopping.

Then Linda and Don took her on as the dementia continued to complicate everything. The last few years of Roma's life were spent mostly in their home where she had the "upstairs suite" with a fine view of the golf course and a personal refuge of her own. Roma loved to chop up vegetables for the fine dinner Don usually prepared and she would fold the household laundry grateful to keep busy with the many hours on her hands. One thing about Roma is that she felt most herself when doing something productive. Linda was always at her side, especially during the rough patches, taking a lot of responsibility for the rest of us, and through it all had only positive thoughts of it all.

Roma was a fanatic sewer. She sewed everything. She taught her granddaughter, Claire, to sew when "Sparkles"(Claire) was just a toddler. She sewed in her 20s, all the way to her 70s. Her quilts always keep family warm. Roma and her family did an amazing job of keeping her family's ancestral history. Her information dates back all the way to the 1700s. Every year, a favorite family tradition was to pour over old family photos while the eldest of us could identify the people in the pictures. This tradition has been passed down from Atha to Roma to Teri and now to Claire…. Generation to generation in the family line. Here are some Q and A about the Wood family line:

Q: Who was Mary Ann Raybould?
A: Mary Ann and Steven Wood are Roma's great-great-grandparents. Mary Ann was born in 1819 and died in December 25, 1878. Mary Ann was widowed when Steven died, along with other Wood family, after being on board the ship "Ashland", which took them to the United States from West Bromwich, England. They died of Cholera on the shores of the Mississippi River, on their way to Council Bluffs, Iowa (popular Mormon settlement). Young Sam Wood was to head west with Steven's brother, George (Sam Wood's uncle), to Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1849. Mary Ann was befriended by William E. Davies (a shipmate on the fateful voyage), and journeyed with him to San Bernardino, where they were married and she later passed away. Sam is the critical link to the other most recent Utah family heritage.

Q: What is the significance to the month of December to the Wood family?
A: There are 5 reasons. Starting with the supposed birth date of Jesus Christ on the 25th, for whom the Mormon Latter-Day Saints Church was built around. Followed by the death of Mary Ann Raybould on the 25th. Then, the marriage of Sam Wood to Josephine Catherine Chatterley (Aunt Jody), also on the 25th of December 1871. Also, in December 1879, George William Decker, Roma's paternal Great Grand Uncle (and relation to Anna Lillian Decker Wood), made 20 trips across the Colorado River herding 250 cattle in freezing temperatures during their wagon train journey to Bluff, Utah. Finally, Teri Jo Barber, Roma's youngest child, was born on the December 25th, 1962. She arrived in a red Christmas stocking.

Q: Does the Wood family have any connections to Native Americans?
A: In the four corners region, Joseph Henry, Sam's son, was a scout and mediator for the American government, who pow-wowed with local American Indians including their chief, and he traveled with a Navajo Indian guide. He was granted permission to explore Native American ruins and grave sites. In part this was due to the medical aid of midwife Aunt Jody. Who helped deliver a problematic birth to the Chief's wife and child, and helped with many other doctoring episodes among the Indians and White settlers alike. Another great birth that Aunt Jody attended was the birth of Francis Clair Wood after a journey through deep snow on the same birthday as Abe Lincoln.

Q: Why did Roma and Fran have an on and off diet of eggs?
A: During the Great Depression (circa 1930s), Frank worked as a delivery man between railroad jobs. His pay for this service was not I cash but in eggs. Therefore, often there were 3 meals a day of eggs. Atha did her best to feed and clothe the sisters. She sewed quilts patched together from old clothes to keep them warm at night. Frank's method of keeping his family warm during cold Utah winters was to heat rocks in the fire and place the warm rocks in their bedding a night. Atha fed the hobos who came politely to her door, hungry. Sometimes Atha is thought of as a strict disciplinarian. This is partially due to sensitivities to Frank's employment with the railroad. Coping with the Depression, especially while Frank was on the train away, required all the household chores to be shared between the three of them. Atha's motto was "Use it up, Wear it out, Make it due or do without''.

Q: How did our Family Line become Mormons established in Salt Lake City and other Utah locales? 
A:  The earliest link I could find is in Ben's writings.  He said that Brigham Young himself was in West Bromwhich England in 1840.  It seemed to Ben (and myself) logical that BY himself may have converted our Wood ancestor - Steven Wood - then to the LDS faith.  It was not long after that when Steven and his family embarked on the "Ashland" ship to America arriving in early 1849.  About 100 years later, Linda was born! Surviving the Cholera that killed the rest of the family, Steven's brother George and young Sam Wood (then just a boy) settled in Parowan Utah some 260 miles from Utah - with George becoming a father figure to Sam in Steven's absence.  They brought with them metal forging skills from England and so were called by the Church to Cedar City Utah where they mined and worked an iron deposit there.  Young Sam then 10-years old carried mail, started a sawmill with George, handled horses and mules, and later built roads.  At 23 years old, Sam entered the wilderness with a grade school education as a scout for the US Army during the Utah-Indian War of 1865-1868. He was called to settle a Mormon community in San Juan County Utah near 4-Corners with his new wife "Aunt Jody". The place is now called Bluff and it was settled amid Navajo and Paiute Indian Country.  The Navajo and Paiutes were on and off at war too during the time Sam lived and worked among them.  One central gathering location for Mormons settling the San Juan River Watershed was "Forty-Mile Springs east of Escalante (where Spence and Jim and other Woods explored earlier this century).  The Decker family - an esteemed Mormon heritage family - were called to settle in the same area in Monticello Utah.  Sam and Jody's second son - Joseph Henry- was born to in 1875 in Cedar City. He met Anna Lillian Decker in Bluff, were wed in Salt Lake, and returned to Monticello where the two had an upstanding, prosperous lifestyle.  The home they built of massive sandstone blocks still stands today in Monticello and is a state historic site. Daniel "kickflipped" the stairs to that home on his skateboard for hours one day while Teri and Claire awaited the occupants to return home that day as they passed through Monticello finding the home and wanting to perhaps go inside. We had to settle for a mug from the local giftstore with an image of "Horse's Head Mountain" - the landmark backdrop where a horse's head image can be seen amongst the trees against the snow-capped peak. No one ever came home that day but we did picnic on the front lawn and walk around the home 10 or twenty times that day!

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