Bedelia Carolina Quigley was born July 10, 1887 in Pilot Knob, Missouri. She was the fifth child of William and Menetta (Ringer) Quigley. Her name was Bridgit at birth, but she changed her name to Bedelia when she began grade school in Cripple Creek, Colorado, while living in Altman a few miles away. Altman, at one time was the highest incorporated town in the United States at 10,629.9 ft. Her father worked in the gold mines, while Menetta ran a meeting hall called Quigley Hall. Bedelia's father lost his life in 1893, during the battle between the miners and the Western Federation of Miners, who tried to unionize the miners. It was a violent time.

Bedelia married a miner Flemuel Durham April 29, 1905 and moved to Goldfield, Colorado. She had two children Charles and Kathlyn. When Flemuel died she moved to Idaho after a stop over in Eckert, Colorado to run a boarding house for a couple of years. In Idaho, she met William Jackson Young and married him September 26, 1912 in Weiser, Idaho. To their union they had five children; Benny, Pansy, Ethel, Joe and Ellen.

During the depression, Bedelia managed the self-help kitchen for Canyon County in Caldwell and helped organize the first school lunches. She was a hard working woman and did whatever she could to help provide for her family. Her husband William was a stockman by trade.

Her husband William died in August of 1943, in a tragic accident with a Union Pacific troop train in Caldwell, Idaho. Bedelia continued to live in Caldwell, until moving to Oregon in 1968 to live with her children. She died in Albany, Oregon, February 9, 1975 and was laid to rest next to her husband in the Indian Valley Cemetery on her husband's birthday, February 14.