Hannah Chapman, my Great,
Great, Great Grandmother was born March 2, 1813, the eighth of ten children in
the family of William Chapman and Mary Drury. She came into the world in
Ousefleet, a small hamlet
in Yorkshire, England. The following month she
was baptized by Minister Simpson in the Whitgift Methodist Parish.
Just short of her
twentieth birthday, she married Thomas Chester from the nearby town of Crowle
in Lincolnshire. In the next nine years, seven children were born to Thomas and
Hannah, three of whom (James, Mary and Emma) died in early childhood. When the
youngest, baby William, was only sixteen months old, his father died from an
abscessed knee at the age of thirty-three, leaving Hannah with four children:
Ann, Thomas, Frances, and William.
About a year later,
Joseph Goodworth became smitten with the widowed mother of four, who was
thirteen years his senior. They were married October 29, 1845. Three sons were
born within the next four years: Richard Brooks (my Great, Great Grandfather), Joseph, and Frederick, making
Hannah the terribly busy mother of seven. This marriage was also short lived,
as her twenty-eight-year-old husband passed away May 11, 1853, from kidney disease
and a back problem.
Forty-year-old Hannah
Chapman Chester Goodworth, twice married, twice widowed, was left to care and
provide for seven children. Her first
husband's parents quickly came to her aid to help rear her fatherless children.
A
few months after Joseph’s passing, Hannah was converted and baptized into the
Mormon faith. Her in-laws were not happy about her choice and did their best to
dissuade her, but her testimony was strong and unwavering.
Determined to migrate to
Zion, Hannah took advantage of the Perpetual Emigration Fund to finance the
family’s passage to America. It would not have possible for her to afford the
journey without this assistance and she was incredibly grateful for the loan
which she would repay after arriving in America.
As Hannah made plans for
her departure from Liverpool, she was responsible for
four Chester children and three Goodworth children and she had every intention
of keeping her family together. By this time, her oldest son, Thomas Chester,
had married and determined to stay in England with his new bride.
Hannah
applied for the remaining six children to emigrate. Unfortunately, there is no
evidence that sixteen-year-old Frances and fourteen-year-old William left
England. Some histories purport that their Grandfather Chester convinced them
to stay due to his opposition to Mormonism; other tales claim that their Grandfather
took them off the ship after boarding and before departure, but if that were true,
Hannah did not record it. It is not believed that she ever saw either of them
again during her lifetime, although Thomas did eventually come to America.
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| Enoch Train |
Hannah, with the
remaining four children set sail on the ship "Enoch Train" March 23, 1856, along with five hundred
thirty other saints, on the first shipload of emigrants who would participate
in crossing the plains with handcarts. I can only imagine her courage.
They crossed the ocean in
thirty-eight decidedly unpleasant days, arriving in Boston, May 1, 1856. The
very next day they boarded a train for New York City. From there they went to Iowa
City to prepare for the handcart trek across the plains.
Hannah, her three sons,
six, seven and ten years old, and twenty-year-old Ann, walked approximately
twelve hundred miles. It is said that Richard, the little ten-year-old, pushed
the handcart while his mother pulled. Hannah did not record the hardships - the
sand, dust, heat, exhaustion, storms, hunger, illness, fear, deaths and burials
along the trail, and constant handcart repair, but others in the company did. They
finally arrived in Salt Lake City on September 26th.
Hannah, concerned with
repaying her P.E.F debt, found work as a housekeeper with the Adolphus Babcock
family in Spanish Fork. Brother Babcock was a widower with probably three of
his nine children still living at home. Hannah and Adolphus had a child, Hannah
Alice, but there was no joy in their marriage, and they separated shortly
thereafter.
The next event recorded
in Hannah’s life is her sealing to Charles Jeremiah Raymond on November 7,
1865, in the Endowment House. Hannah was quoted as saying, following this, her fourth
marriage, that for the first time in her life she had found happiness.
Unfortunately, great
sorrow seemed to follow Hannah. Only two weeks after the marriage, her son Joseph
was fatally shot, not quite seventeen years old. The accident occurred when the
militia were assembled for drill and target shooting. A gun went off uncapped
and shot him in the right temple, and he died about half an hour later. Her son
Frederick also passed away in his early twenties of pneumonia.
Charles and Hannah
Raymond were cited among the first early pioneers in Bear Lake County. Later,
the family moved to Soda Springs. It is notable that in 1876, Hannah was one of
the seven sisters who formed the first Relief Society in Soda Springs and was
chosen as a counselor in the presidency. Three years later she became
president, in which capacity she served until she was 83 years old. By this
time, Hannah was once again a widow. Charles had died in late 1883.
As if she had not
suffered enough affliction in her life, Hannah had one final trial. Her
dearest wish had long been to see the finished Salt Lake Temple. By the
time the temple was completed in September 1893, however, Hannah could not see
anything - even with the aid of glasses.
She attended the dedication
anyway and when she arrived at the temple, she received a marvelous blessing from heaven. Her eyesight was miraculously restored so that
she could see everything around her distinctly. After the dedication she
went to her daughter's home in Woods Cross, Utah, where she was able to read
the newspaper and thread a needle. Within hours her vision was once more dimmed,
and she finished her life in darkness, and without complaint.
Hannah Raymond died
February 15, 1898, in Soda Springs, Idaho.
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| Chester Family Plot in Pioneer Cedar Cemetery, Soda Springs, Idaho |
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| Hannah's Burial Site in Pioneer Cedar Cemetery, Soda Springs, Idaho. |
