A FAMILY RECORD, 1862 T0 2011

I want to know that I have done something, in my slice of the times of this family story, that is meaningful and enjoyable to my kinfolk. I hope that this manner of relating the story fulfills that desire.

I began with questions: Which date? Which person? What order? Format? Let me tell you first why I am doing this blog, and then what I decided on those questions.

I moved (back) to Utah in December 1985. An early job was in Ogden near Lorin Farr Park. I had made a habit of walking into town through the Ogden City Cemetery. A peaceful place, very interesting to my curiosity for history and biography. One day I noticed a marker for one John Chugg. I must have already begun family history research for the name to register, but I did not know the other names on the nearby memorials.

When I was in Salt Lake City the next opportuniy I asked my grandmother Backman if she knew of or knew why John Chugg would be buried in Ogden. He had a 'whole other family up there' she told me.I began to look for and to research that whole other family: his second wife Hanna Lee and their children and his siblings and his mother.

I have been doing similar projects with all my pioneering ancestors. I wanted to know who they were, what they did. I wanted to see if I could find their mark on the world I live in today. And I have.

Johanna Stanbury Chugg was not the first of the Chugg family to immigrate to America. In fact she came rather later- by about six years. But she was the eldest of the immigrant Chuggs, the matriarch of our family. Philip, her husband did not immigrate I understand and so I think of her as the head of this American Chugg family.

I have been reminded that not all her children came to America. I have had notes from descendants of those remaining in England and Wales. As I learn more I will bring them to this page, but I will write for the most part of the American family: the family as it comes down through John (1819-1903), Elizabeth (1822-1889), Philip (1822-1887), Catherine(1828-1916) and William (1837-1924).

The others, Mary (b. 1826), William (infant), Jane (1833-1857) and Ann (1833-1910) I do not know quite as deeply.

We, Johanna Stanbury Chugg's progeny have spread out across the country and into other countries as well. We have estabished and sustained industries, ventures, services that have made life better for ourselves, our neighbors and the world. We have served our country, some giving all. We have taught, fed and cared for our fellows; we have led them in faith and in government. We have served them in public law and safty. We have soothed them at birth and their families at funerals.

We, of Johanna's family are a remarkable people.