Written by James Lyman Marsden, son
Annie Ivy Skeen was born August 14, 1893, in Plain City, Utah, the first born child of Lyman Stoddard and Annie Skelton Skeen. She lived all of her young life in the Plain City area, attending schools in Weber County. She graduated from Plain City Schools and then attended Weber Academy.
Being the oldest in the family Mother was both older sister and part-time mother to her younger brothers and sisters. They were a close family in their younger years and this close knit group remained that way in later years. Whenever she talk about Plain City she always referred to it as home.
Most of the kids were called on to work outside in the fields or had projects around the large farm, but Mother’s responsibility was to assist her mother with the housework, cooking meals and helping take care of the younger members of the family. She began her training to be a good mother at an early age.
After graduation from Weber Academy she received a call to serve an LDS mission to the Northwestern States area, headquarters in Portland, Oregon. She served 18 months as a missionary and had many great and spiritual experiences. Because she had been to college and had some knowledge of office work, she was often called into the Mission office to do extra work. She because acquainted with a young Elder from Taylorsville, Utah, by the name of Clyde Marsden, who was serving as assistant to Elder Melvin J. Ballard, who was the Mission President. They apparently became fond of each other and after their release their courtship began in earnest and they were very soon married in the Salt Lake Temple. They began their married life together in Taylorsville, but soon after, Dad (Clyde) was called into the US Army (WW I), and he spent the next three years in the service in the front line trenches of France and Germany.
While Dad was away the family grew by one new member. They were blessed with a baby girl and how proud they were to welcome Marjorie, their first daughter into the family. After the War, Dad had a job in Murray as an automobile salesman at the old Wasatch Motors Company, but soon after an opportunity to start a farm machinery business was offered to him, and the business of Clyde Marsden Inc. was born.
The family moved over to Murray, Utah, closer to the business and by that time their smily had grown to five children and a little white dog named Trixie. They built a new brick home