John Lee

Home of John and Sarah Lee as it now looks on Main Street in Heber City

John Lee was born January 18, 1822 at Mission, Nottinghamshire, England.
John was left fatherless at age two, at ten years old he went to work, first as a farm hand and then in a foundry for six years.
John Lee married Sarah Roebuck on November 15, 1841. John joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 1846 and Sarah was baptized in 1849. After being baptized John became a traveling elder and baptized some twenty persons.
John and Sarah left England in 1856 on the sailing ship Enoch Train. They arrived in America at Boston, and then went West by handcart. "Travel was slow and dusty, everyone got very tired, many died. June 15 our son William age twelve died and was buried by moonlight somewhere on Moon creek. Three of our children had to ride the whole way (one 6 months, one two years, and one four years old)."
The Lee family, after arriving in Salt Lake went South and spent three years in Spanish Fork before moving the family to what is now Heber City. "There were twenty-eight families here then."
Their home was the first with a fireplace in it when finished. At Christmas they had the first party in the valley.
John and Sarah had twelve children born to them. Sixty-four grandchildren and eighty-six great grandchildren.
John Lee died at home on September 14, 1909. John and Sarah are buried in the Heber City cemetery.

Pioneer Day, July 24th

We have several of our ancestors who are remembered among the "pioneers" of Mormon history.
Among those great pioneers are: John and Sarah Lee and their children, George Sidwell and others.
I have chosen to highlight David Grant, my great great grandfather. David made the trek West not once but three times. David was born in Scotland and at the age of 22 made is way to America. In 1840 while in Payson, Illinois he was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. David was a tailor by trade and had a successful business in Nauvoo.
David and his first wife Mary were among those that received their temple endowment in the Nauvoo temple.
After leaving Nauvoo they were among the saints that spent a time at Winter Quarters. In Winter Quarters Mary gave birth to their second child. Mary died shortly after giving birth.
The next year David was called to go with Brigham Young as he led the first company to begin the great exodus West. David was with the vanguard company that entered the Salt Lake Valley on July 24th 1847. The next spring David returned to bring his 2 young children to the valley. David married again and was then called to serve a mission the British Isles.
After serving a 4 year mission he returned again to Salt Lake for the third time with a handcart company. David introduced Elizabeth Williams, one of the girls he had met on the trip West to his son, hoping they would marry. She was not impressed with David's son and instead Married David on 21 December 1856 together they had 8 children.
David had 2 wives pass away during his life time was married 4 times and fathered a total of 19 children. He died at his home in Millcreek, Utah on 22 December 1856.

I am so thankful for all those that came before us. To blaze the trail with their testimonies and faith.

If you want to read the complete story of David there are several versions posted in FamilySearch

Berthe Maria Johnson Bulow

Berthe Maria Bulow, picture taken the summer before here death.
I believe the medal she is wearing was to honor her as one of the surviving Utah pioneers.

Grandma Bulow, was my Great great Grandmother. Berthe was born on February 10, 1843 in Denmark. The daughter of Kastina Peterson and Andrius Pole Poleson. She was born in the home of Rasmus Pederson, where she lived as their daughter. When Berthe was nine Rasmus died and his wife remarried making it impossible for her to live there any longer. She went to live with her mother's second cousin, Louise Grand.
Berthe was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on January 1, 1866. Four months later at the age of twenty-three she left Denmark and set sail for America. She landed in New York on October 1,1866. She then went to Boston and from Boston to Florence, by train. She remained in Florence only three days before heading to Utah.
On March 14, 1868 she married Charles Henry Bulow, being his third wife. While in Salt Lake two children were born to the Bulow's. In 1872 the family moved to Richfield where they made their home. While in Richfield five more children were born. My great grandfather Samuel Ezra Bulow was their fourth child. Three of the Bulow children died in 1878 during a diphtheria epidemic.
In the early spring of 1891 Bertha's husband died.
In 1910 Bertha moved to Moroni where she lived with her son Samuel. She later went to live with her granddaughter Mary Lucille Bulow Clark in Provo. She lived with the Clarks until her death on November 21, 1937, at the age of ninety-three. My mother, Carol once told me she was passing by the bedroom that she shared with her Grandma and she heard her take a deep breath, she went in to check on her and found that she had died. She said "I know that I heard her take her last breath." Mom would have been eight years old at the time.
Berthe is buried beside her husband in the Moroni, Utah cemetery.

Francis Cooke

Going back a bit for this one. My tenth great grandfather Sir Francis Cooke, left England for religious freedom. He was among those that arrived in the "New World" on the Mayflower.
Born in England in August 1582. He died sometime after he was eighty years old in Plymouth, Massachusetts on 7 April 1663. He learned his trade of wool comber before leaving England.
He was married to Hester Le Mahieu, they had at least one child, Jane Cooke.
Not much else is known about him.
Wool Comber: In the manufacture of woolen textiles the wool was carded to lay the fibers into roughly parallel strands so they could be more easily drawn out for spinning.

DNA test, No Big Surprises

When we were serving as hosts at the RootsTech event they had a 50% off DNA deal with Ancestry.com. I could not resist the urge so I did it. Sent my test tube of spit off and awaited my personal DNA results. almost eight weeks later they finally arrived. Of course since my family has been very active in the family history world I pretty much knew what the outcome would be but still it is interesting to see the numbers.
I am officially
87% Great Britain (no surprise here)
4% Scandinavia
2% Ireland
2% Europe West
2% Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal)
<1% Finland/Northwest Russian
<1% Europe East

Chancey Charles Lee

My paternal great grandfather Chancey Charles Lee was born 10 October 1853 in Sheffield, England he was the seventh child of John and Sarah Lee. At the age of two he started the long journey, with his family to Utah first boarding the ship Enoch Train in Liverpool and then traveling with the first handcart company to make the long trek to Utah, at the age of three. Not long after arriving in the Salt Lake valley the family made another journey to settle in the Wasatch valley in what would become Heber.
Chancey married Louisa Marie Baum on 26 June 1876 in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City. At the time of their marriage Chancey was twenty-two years old and Louisa was Nineteen. Together they had Ten children. Shortly after giving birth to their youngest his wife became ill with pneumonia and died on 20 October 1896, leaving Chancey with nine children to raise on his own, ranging in age from four weeks to fourteen years old. Just a month later the baby also succumbed and died 19 November, (eight of his children lived to adulthood).
Chancey never remarried but managed to raise his children on his own. He spent most of his life farming on a small scale and labored diligently to provide for his family.
He lived as a widower for forty-five years. At the time of his death he was living in the home of a grandson in Tabiona, Utah. At the time of his death he had seventeen grandchildren and eighteen great-grandchildren
He was laid to rest along side his eternal companion in the Heber City cemetery.

Voyage of the Enoch Train
(a large model of this ship was in the church museum of history for many years)

Charles Mickelson Clark

 My maternal grandfather Charles Clark, was born 26 October 1903 in the small town of Hilliard, Wyoming. Hilliard is just Southeast of Evanston, Wyoming (I don't think it is there any more). He was born the oldest child of Charles Mickelson and Mary Bate. His mother died shortly after giving birth to her third child. Charles father was a rodeo rider and left his three small children with family and went on the road. It was later learned that Charles Mickelson had died in Kansas. Charles and his younger brother were eventually adopted and sealed in the temple to the family that had taken them in, George and Mary Clark. As a young boy the family lived in Orem, Utah where they farmed for several years.
On August 1923 grandpa married Mary Lucille Bulow in Provo, Utah. They made their home in Provo, Utah living with his father in the family home. Charles and Lucille cared for his father until his death and then remained in the home all of their married life. The home was a simple square frame built home divided into four rooms of equal size. Charles made many improvements to the home over the years including an indoor bathroom and added a bedroom on the back of the home. my mother remembers sleeping in the back room with a plastic sheet over her because the roof had not yet been shingled.
Charles and Lucille were the parents of six children. Two of their children died as infants. Marie the day after she was born and Robert died of pneumonia at six months old. Four of their six children lived to adulthood, my mother Carol was their fourth child.
Charles worked most of life for US Steel, first working as a chemist in the Ironton plant in Provo and later and the Geneva works in Orem.
It was from my grandpa that I learned the value of work. As a boy I enjoyed visiting and helping him with various work projects. He never gave me job to do and then left me to work, we always worked side by side. From him I learned the joy of gardening and working in the yard. I once helped him remove all the old shingles off his very steep roof and then we laid tar paper and new wooden shingles. I was about sixteen at the time and I remember him teasing me when a group of girls walked passed the house and made cat calls at me.
Charles lived the last few years of his life with my parents in Spring City, Utah and then In a rest home in Heber, Utah where he died on 1 August 1991. Charles and Lucille are buried in the Provo city cemetery just a few blocks from where they lived their entire married lives.