~Submitted by her son Don Woodley, February 2007

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Lola Bernice Trindle was born 29 July, 1908 on her parent's farm near Bristow. She was the oldest of four daughters born to William Irving and Lora Johnson Trindle. Her sisters were: Florence Eva (Mrs. W. Clell Early, Lohrville, IA), Beulah Mae (Mrs. Robert Wharton, Latimer, IA) and Marian, who died at the age of 6 months from whooping cough. William and Keziah Cornford Trindle and Fred and Eva Lingenfelter Johnson were grandparents.

Bernice, as she was always known, attended Pleasant Grove, the one room country school near her home in West Point Township. If memory serves me correctly, it stood on the southwest corner of Hwy #3 and the Kesley blacktop ( CR T-25) on land provided by my great-grandfather William Trindle. That was about a 1-1/2 mile walk for Bernice and her good friend & neighbor Helen Bell. Erma Moore, the daughter of Charles and Annie Moore, was another neighbor and friend.

Bernice graduated at the head of her 8th grade class with a 97.6 Grade Point Average. She was named Valedictorian of the 1924 Graduating Class of Butler County. In her Valedictory speech, Bernice quoted the following poem (author unknown) :

Faith is the brave endeavor,
The splendid enterprise.
The strength to serve,
Whatever conditions may arise.

She believed that in order to have success "we must have hope, faith, and confidence"; and noted at the end of her speech that "our education ... must not stop here. If we are to be most useful in this busy world we must be well prepared to handle its hardest problems. So we must plan to go to high school. " That dream was set aside on September 9, 1926 when she married Walter A. Woodley, a young farmer from Ingham Township in Franklin County. Shortly after that event, Bernice's friend Erma Moore married Royal B. Woodley, Walter's brother.

Bernice and Walter spent a long and fruitful 40 years on the Woodley family farm, north of Hansell, followed by nearly twenty more at their "retirement" farm home north of Geneva, Iowa. They were the parents of three sons: Morris, Warren and Donald. Walter passed away quite suddenly February 8, 1985 of a heart attack. They had been married 58 years 4 months and 30 days at the time of Walter's death. Bernice passed away on October 25, 1993.