Beth Aldridge, second daughter of Jefferson Davis and Minnie Elizabeth Boyer Aldridge, was born October 22, 1893 at Whitmore. After her grandfather's death, her father bought the family home, Bonnie Craigs Ranch so Beth grew up in the Inwood area and attended Bear Creek School.

The children picked hops at Whitmore to earn money, walking ten miles to work for two or three dollars a day. Later Beth and Walter claimed adjoining homesteads a few miles from Bonnie Craigs.

On August 10, 1925, Beth married John Roberts Shuford b. March 27, 1901, at the First Christian Church in Red Bluff. He was the son of James and Mary Shuford who brought him from North Carolina while he was still a child. After the wedding, the couple lived in Palo Alto where John worked for the American Trust Company Bank. Beth worked as a seamstress so the couple could realize their dream of owning their own ranch. They had one daughter;

Joy Elizabeth Teacher and Contributor to Covered Wagon

In 1937, the couple were able to buy Hardscrabble Ranch on North Bear Creek; they spent the next three years making improvements. They piped in water from a mountain spring, installed a small Pelton wheel, and became one of the first families in the area to have electricity. In 1940, the Shufords made the Ranch which they renamed Hidden Meadows their permanent home, built their own house and started raising Guernsey cows, chickens and pigs, and later registered Hereford cattle.

One of their proudest accomplishments was sending Joy to the University of California at Berkeley where she graduated in 1952. Beth become a leader of the Bear Creek 4-H Club; her idea for a club project was to put permanent markers on unmarked graves in Ogburn-Inwood Cemetery. Thanks to this project there is only one unknown buried in that cemetery. This 4-H Project was part of the forty years Beth devoted to gathering information for the Historical Society's cemetery book.

Shufords joined the Historical Society in 1945, and become active when they moved to Redding. John was on the Executive Board for six years and served as President in 1967 and 1968; Beth wrote articles for Covered Wagon and served as Librarian and Custodian from 1959 to 1970. In 1971, 1972 and 197, she and Jean Beauchamp were co-editors of the Covered Wagon. The couple handled publication sales from 1973 until 1976 when John become ill.

John died January 16, 1979, and Beth moved to Turlock to be nearer her daughter Joy who lives in Mariposa. Beth now resides in a convalescent hospital in Merced, California. Her grand-daughter, Robin Spaur, and two great-grand-children live in Nebraska. Another grand-daughter, and a great-grand-son live in Wyoming.

Source: Shasta Historical Society