08/06/2026
This is my 3 x great grandmother, Isabella Wood (ne. Clark) born in Wigglesworth, Yorkshire in 1832. She farmed all her life, born in to a farming family she married a farmer.
I can’t image her life was easy after being married. Her husband, Joseph Wood of Halton West, Yorkshire had been previously married and had 2 young boys.
At 25 years old once married she took on a mothering role to 2 boys under 3 and farmers wife while they farmed 100 acres. She then went on to having 10 children of her own. 10 years later they have moved again and now farming 140 acres at Hodgson moor in Bowland forest. I think, largely due to the ill health of Joseph, who had been suffering up on the moors of Yorkshire they moved closer to town and lower in the valley as in the 1881 census they have downsize to 81 acres. Joseph died in 1878 at the age of 44 of pneumatic fever after suffering for the week prior.
Sadly 4 years prior to the loss of Joseph, they had lost their middle child , Nancy of measles pneumonia at 5 years old.
A few years after Joseph was gone Isabella gave up the tenancy on Blakey Hall, Colne, Lancashire and moved to Back-o’th-edge farm, Colne where she lived until her death at 60 in 1892.
I look at my life and compare the things I do and to her life, would I have coped with her life? I feel she lived a good life although it was hard, I think that is reflected in that her children remained living close by.
