Ada England Morrell and her brother William England

In 1887, Cache Valley was just starting to gain its footing in the developing territory of Utah. This is the year and birth location of Ada Eliza England. Ada was present as her family helped shape the development of the valley, she herself being involved throughout the years. The community, largely Latter-Day Saint based, was close-knit with people from all around the world. Ada would go on to marry Joseph Morrell. Together they had many children and continued to live and serve in Cache Valley. Toward the end of her life, Ada compiled records in scrapbooks of her parents and grandparents and their descendancy through the 1980s, capturing the history of Cache Valley as seen by this iconic and influential family.

Ada’s scrapbooks consist of records, announcements, newspaper clippings, celebration invitations, and memories. Throughout the hundreds upon hundreds of pages formed by Ada's own hands, the reader not only grasps the amount of effort that went into each page (consider cutting and pasting clippings and photos, collections of public records, preservation of old invitations, and research of individuals), but also is able to see the bigger picture of what the scrapbooks represent to Ada and the members of her family. These scrapbooks are not only a collection of good times (Instagram worthy moments), but also a collection of generations worth of documents and records, enabling the reader to see into the lives of those that came before.