Ida (Burnett) Brewster Mosher was born May 3, 1863, in Santa Cruz, California, the daughter of Luraney and John Burnett. She came to Yavapai County, Arizona Territory, at the age of six months. Her father first ranched at Walnut Grove. Ida also lived in Peeples Valley, Goose Flats in Prescott and Walnut Creek, as her father moved the family around. In 1873, the Arizona Journal Miner reported that Ida, when only sixteen years old, was engaged to teach the school at Camp Hualapai, located on Walnut Creek. In 1879, she closed the school to put in a winter of study with a man named Professor Sherman.

Ida gave birth to a daughter, Louise Glen, in June 1881 in California. In September 1881, the Journal Miner reported that Ida had started a boarding house in Wickenburg. On December 4, 1881, she married Sadins H. Brewster (alternate spelling Bruster) in Prescott. No further information on Mr. Brewster is available.

A family story says a Mr. Bozart was planning to take Ida to Seligman to marry her. The day they were to leave, he was working with some horses and was kicked and fell and broke his leg. When he got out of the hospital, Ida had married another man named Roland Mosher in Prescott on January 13, 1885.  Roland, who had been born February 7, 1850, had come to the Camp Verde area in 1870. Roland was a rancher and dairyman and became the Yavapai County recorder in 1906. After her mother remarried, Louise Glen took the last name of Mosher.

The Moshers were a handsome couple--she was six feet tall, and he was six feet four or five inches. Ida and Roland had three children: Jane Mosher Louttit, born November 21, 1885; Roland C. Mosher, born December 7, 1887; and Hugh Mosher, born August 18, 1893.

As well as being a teacher, Ida also became a registered nurse and worked at Flinn Sanatorium and as superintendent of nurses at Mercy Hospital. In addition, she worked as a typesetter and a stenographer and learned to type at age fifty so that she could work as chief deputy county recorder. She was a member of the Christian Science Church and the Eastern Star.

The Moshers resided in Walnut Grove and Prescott. During Roland's term as county recorder, they lived in the city-owned Governor's Mansion, housing being part of the recorder's pay.

Ida died on May 28, 1926, and was buried in Mountain View Cemetery.

Donor: Roland “Jack” Mosher, May 1998
Photo Located: PB-146, F-30, I-8
Updated: 4/29/2014, Gretchen Hough Eastman