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Ida Crutchfield Light was born on May 21, 1904 on a farm in the Oak Grove community of Trigg County, Kentucky. She was the youngest of fourteen children born to John J. Light and Emily Catherine Thomas Light. Ida had a twin sister, Ada Litchfield Light who lived only a few weeks and died on June 9, 1904. Ida’s siblings were Mattie Patterson Light, born in 1879; John Wesley Light, born in 1882; William S. “Little Billy” Light, born in 1885; James Samuel Light, born in 1886; Francis Herbert Light, born in 1889; Elzie Bertram Light, born in 1890; Annie Light, born 1892; Lucy Nora Light, born in 1894; Robert Thomas Light, born in 1896; Mamie Adeline Light, born 1898; Starkie Light, born in 1900; Ethel Light, born in 1902.
Even though born into a large family, Ida did not live in a large household as several of hers siblings died in their childhood and the older siblings were married. Her father, John J. Light, died before she reached the age of one. She always referred to her older brother, John Wesley Light, a bachelor, as her father figure.
On
November 13, 1921, a Friday the thirteenth, she always recalled, she
married Peyton Thomas Bridges at the courthouse in Clarksville,
Tennessee. Pate, as he was known, was the son of Ghent Alfred Bridges
and Nettie Cunningham Bridges. Ida was only 17 when she married. Ida
and Pate had four children, A son, born in 1922, named Alfred Wesley
after her father-in-law and her brother, died at the age of four in 1926
from diphtheria. Their three other children were Chester Keidell
Bridges, born in 1925, Juanita Katherine Bridges, born in 1929 and
Charles Kenneth Bridges, born in 1944.
Ida and Pate lived in the
Maple Grove community of Trigg County during the early years of their
marriage. Pate worked as a salesman for several companies during those
early years and Ida was a housewife.
In
the early 1940’s Ida and Pate moved to Cadiz, Kentucky and started on
two careers. Pate began operating a grocery truck where he delivered
groceries throughout the county which was known as a rolling grocery, a
self-contained vehicle where customers could select what they wanted
from the stock. In addition, they opened a restaurant in downtown
Cadiz, known as the Bridges Café. It was at the café, that Ida entered
the workforce. She was responsible for all aspects of the restaurant
operations including the kitchen and the customers. She worked a
waitress and as the chief cook.
In the late 1940s, the Bridges’ gave
up the operation of the restaurant and opened a small grocery store on
Jefferson Street near downtown Cadiz. This was one of several small
grocery stores that were located throughout the small town of Cadiz at
the time. One main difference of this grocery store was that it was the
base store for Pate’s rolling grocery business where he daily restocked
his grocery truck from the grocery store.
Miss Ida or Miss Ida-Pate as she was known became the main operator of the Bridges Grocery store. She ran all operations of the grocery, from stocking grocery products to being the chief sales clerk for the store. After her husband died in 1962 she continued to operate the grocery store and all its operations without the rolling grocery element, until she retired in 1967 when the grocery closed. During those years as a “grocery lady” she was well known in the community and especially liked by the kids in the neighborhood who stopped by the grocery store on their way to and from school, located just a block away, to warm up by the pot-bellied stove and buy candies and goodies from Miss Ida-Pate. During that time, all grocery stores were closed on Sunday, but many times, Miss Ida-Pate would receive a knock on her house next door, asking if she could open the store so they could get that needed loaf of bread or quart of milk. Miss Ida-Pate always welcomed those Sunday customers.
Ida Light Bridges died on April 12, 1985 at a nursing home in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. She was buried next to her husband in the East End Cemetery in Cadiz, Kentucky,
LINEAGE:
(Ida Crutchfield Light was the daughter of John J. and Emily Catherine
Thomas Light and the granddaughter of Stanley and Emily Ann Light
Thomas. Stanley was the second child of Starkie and Mary Bridges
Thomas. Starkie was the fourth child of James and Mary Standley
Thomas. Mary was the seventh child of Drury and Charity Cohoon
Bridges.)
