Elizabeth "Lizzie" McPhee was born on November 16, 1879, on Canning Street, near the Claythorn Street School in the city of Glasgow, Scotland, the third of six children of James McPhee and Susan Dolan McPhee. After the death of her mother, she somehow scraped together enough money to cover passage to America for her twelve year old sister, Jeanie, and ten year old brother, James, in steerage. $100 of the passage money was borrowed from her mother's sister, Elizabeth Koehler in MA. Lizzie spent the next five years working to repay the Koehlers. They landed Ellis Island with five dollars and high hopes July 3, 1903. Lizzie was by then 25 years old.

Lizzie worked at the Bigelow factory for six years. She began to correspond with a gentleman named William Douglas Linton in CA. Will had also been born in Glasgow, September 16, 1859. However, he shaved some ten years off his age in presenting his credentials to Miss McPhee. (He may have also neglected to mention that he had a family and ex-wife) Lizzie McPhee arrived in Red Bluff, CA by train September 9, 1909. It was obvious to her family that she came in response to letters through a ‘lonely hearts club,' although she would never admit it. She had never laid eyes on Will Linton before that day. They were married here October 10, 1909, shortly before her thirtieth birthday.

Lizzie found herself in the isolated country crossroads of Beegum CA (on what is now Hwy 36). Eight children blessed their home. She shepherded them to adulthood despite struggling with health problems. Will died in 1938. Their three boys enlisted in the military during WWII and the youngest died in Okinawa. The other children married and moved on, the ranch was sold and Lizzie settled into her old age retirement in her new home in Red Bluff. She made a trip back to Scotland in 1948 to visit her family home. (as told to her daughter-in-law Arla)