Chatham Family Genealogy

It is also possible that there is another son in this family. On the 1865 state census for Illinois there is a C. Chatham listed in Effingham County with another male child. Since Christopher is the only "C. Chatham" I've found in Illinois during this time, and since the ages of the children line up, I'm assuming this is my ancestor.

Although I have not yet found marriages and families for most of the children of Christopher and Lucy I have found a marriage for Robert and for James. Robert married Sarah E. Thomason 6 March 1885 in Fayette County, Illinois.

On April 13, 1999 I was contacted by the great great granddaughter of Sarah Chrischaney Chatham and learned more about her family. Sarah married Charles Franklin Beardsley and they had at least four children, Willie, Icie, Lillie, and Lula Viola. Lula Viola was born in Jackson, Michigan, which indicates that at some time they moved away from the Effingham, Illinois area. I'm hoping to track down the marriage location for Sarah and Charles, to hopefully be able to find out what happened to most of the family after 1865, when they disappear from Effingham County Illinois records. As more information and pictures become available from this branch of the family, I will add them to the website.

The first marriage of James Johnston Chatham was to Adeline Matilda Blanton on 27 July 1874 in Coffeyville, Kansas. The children of this marriage are:

Dorothy Chatham born 2 June 1878 in Coffeyville, Montgomery, Kansas
Gretchen Chatham born 1884 in Coffeyville, Kansas.

This marriage ended in divorce and James moved to Arizona to continue his career in journalism, as well as state and local politics. Once in Arizona James went to Tombstone, Arizona to work on a local paper. Sometime after that James moved to Nogales, Arizona, where he lived for more than thirty years before his death in 1920.

In Nogales, James met my great-grandmother and married Mary Lillian CHENOWETH on 18 January 1891. Mary was quite a bit younger than James. She was born 30 August 1867 in Bourneville, Ross, Ohio. The children of this marriage were:

Jesse Chenoweth Chatham born 20 December 1891 in Nogales, Santa Cruz, Arizona

Herbert Renick Chatham born 26 September 1894 in Nogales, Arizona

Martha Agnes Chatham born 23 December 1896 in Nogales, Arizona
Grace Coralie Chatham born 18 April 1900 in Nogales, Arizona
Lucy Emily Chatham born 30 June 1903 in Nogales, Arizona

Although I don't know too many stories about the family of James and Mary, I have been told a few by some family members. Helen Dees, who knew Mary when she was a child and young adult in Nogales, Arizona, told me the following about Mary Lillian Chenoweth:

What a super lady she was -- she was the truant officer when I was in high school -- we were all terrified of her. She didn't drive a car but hired someone to take her around to "ferret out all those sneaky truants" -- one of the brightest individuals I've ever known. My last memory of her is seeing her sitting in the house on West Street. She had a sort of easel-shaped board in front of her and she was working some incredibly difficult puzzle.

One other story I have been told comes from Wirt Clay Barton, through his granddaughter, Ann-Marie Boyett. He is the son-in-law of Martha Chatham. Ann-Marie told me that J. J. used to sit in the saloon with his back to the wall because the stories he wrote in the Nogales paper made him some enemies.

My one big regret on the Chatham family is that I don't know more about Jesse Chenoweth Chatham. I recently learned that Jesse was the general manager of the Caterpillar plant in Culiacan, Sinaloa Mexico. He and his wife, Carmen, had two children. My father told me that when he was a little boy in Nogales, Jesse used to come visit his mother, Mary Lillian Chenoweth, every Christmas. Dad and Jesse used to go to Tucson during these visits. They would spend a couple days in Tucson. In the morning, they would go shopping for clothes and in the afternoon they would go to the movie theaters. Helen Dees, who told me the story of Mary Lillian as a truant officer, also told me that she ran into Jesse several times in Mexico and he was always with a woman and some children, but she wasn't positive of their relationship to Jesse. I hope that some day I will be able to make contact with this branch of my family.

Another story that I thought was interesting about the children of James and Mary was that they had the opportunity to meet Pancho Villa and were quite excited by this experience. Apparently the girls also had fun giving their older brother a bad time. My grandfather, Herbert Renick Chatham, was the Assistant Collector of Customs for the State of Arizona. In this capacity he was responsible for the border crossing in Nogales, Arizona. Since it was very common for residents of Nogales, Arizona to go across the border to shop or have a meal, Herbert's sisters would often go across. Apparently they thought it was great fun to hide an orange somewhere in their purses or packages and then walk through the custom's station. Since all of the officers knew them they would just ask them if they had anything to declare and the sisters felt very "sinful" when they said, "No," although they were hiding an orange. They would then make certain that their brother knew they had done this "terrible" thing. I wish I had more memories of my great aunts, but I do remember meeting Grace at my home before she passed away in 1972. Grace was an avid genealogist and I remember her talking about some of her family stories.

James Johnston Chatham died 16 April 1920 in Nogales, Arizona and his wife, Mary Lillian Chenoweth Chatham died 32 years later on 16 July 1952.

Mary Lillian Chenoweth Chatham

My grandfather, Herbert Renick Chatham, was born 26 September 1896. I can only imagine what life in the Arizona desert must have been like back then. Considering that my favorite temperature and weather is when it is 30 degrees and snowing, I would have hated growing up in the Arizona desert at a time when there was no air-conditioning. Apparently Herbert did the normal things a boy did growing up. Somewhere in my records I have information that Herbert was on a baseball team which also had a future president of Mexico as a member.

Herbert was also a young man when World War I broke out. Herbert wanted to enlist when the war broke out but his mother was very much against it. Being a normal young man, he enlisted anyway, without his mother's permission. He was ready to be shipped out when his mother found out about it and pulled some political "strings." Although Herbert was not discharged from the service He did get transferred to a medical corp and spent the war as a medical corpsman in the United States. When he left the service he was a sergeant in the army.

On September 9, 1922 Herbert married my grandmother, Verna Martha Brown, in Naco, Cochise, Arizona. They were the parents of:

Lillian Etta Chatham born in Nogales, Arizona

By the time my grandparents married, J. J. Chatham had already died so Mary Lillian spent the rest of her life living with Herbert and Verna. My dad told me that one of his duties when he was old enough to drive was to take her to the homes of students who were truant from school. Although he loved his grandmother he always hated that job. Many truants were fellow students from his school.

Herbert and his family were very fortunate because he always had a steady job during the depression. Although they had to take a cut in pay, there was always food on the table and clothes to wear.

Like most kids, there were times when my dad really frustrated his mother. Dad told me that when he was a boy there was nothing worse than wearing "new" jeans. In order to get rid of the new jeans look Dad would take his brand-new jeans outside and throw them in the dirt. He would stomp on them, cover them with dirt, get them wet, and do everything he could to make them look older than they were. My grandmother never did understand that, but today with stone washed jeans it is very understandable why you wouldn't want jeans that look too new.

I always thought my aunt, Lillian Chatham Chasten, had one of the most interesting jobs when she was a young woman. During World War II her job was to read the letters of soldiers. They censored all letters so that nothing considered detrimental to national security could be inadvertently passed on in a letter. They hired Aunt Lillian to read those letters. She must have heard many great stories!

Although my dad and most of his friends were very anxious to get into the war, fortunately for their parents and their future families they were just a little too young. Dad begged his parents to allow him to enlist and although they didn't want him to, they finally agreed to sign his permission form when he graduated from high school. Dad graduated in 1945 and then joined the navy. Although the war in Europe was over the war in the Pacific had not ended yet, but it did end while dad was in Boot Camp. Dad told me that he spent the next year sailing around on a mailing ship but he never had to see active duty. I just recently found out that the "mail ship" he was on was the battleship, South Dakota. This battleship saw a lot of action during the war with numerous casualties; however, Dad did not join it until October of 1945, after the war was over. He stayed with the ship as it sailed to and then docked in Long Beach, California, then through the Panama Canal to the east coast. Finally the ship sailed to Philadelphia and the Naval Ship yard where it was placed in mothballs. Dad was discharged from the Navy in August of 1946

After the war Dad returned to Nogales and attended the University of Arizona for a couple of years. In 1947 he married Helen Joyce Hulbert "Dees" and my sister, Phyllis Joyce Chatham, was born

This marriage ended in divorce and several years later Dad married my mother, Yvonne Viles, who was also divorced. Mom had previously given birth to my brother, Gale. He was the biological son of Ed Huish of Douglas, Arizona.

Gale E. Chatham with his maternal grandparents
Leonard O. Viles and Agnes Lofgreen Viles

The children born to Herb and Yvonne are:

Don Chatham

Debbie Chatham

Although I have been blessed to have a good relationship with my brothers and sister, and have wonderful memories of growing up with them, all of us regret the fact that our brother, Don, passed away when he was 35 years old. We all would have liked to have the enjoyment of watching each other grow old and being able to enjoy each others company for many years. My brother, Gale, my sister, Phyllis, and I all live in different states now but we keep in touch regularly with e-mail, phone calls and visits. Thank heavens for family! I can't imagine how hard life would be without them.

One of my favorite memories of my life growing up in Southern California was the time we spent at the beach. Our regular Saturday trip was always to the beach. Every Saturday, Dad and Mom would load us up into the car and take us to Huntington Beach or Newport Beach. Once a year we would also spend a week camping out at the beach. Trying to get a camping spot at the beach was extremely difficult, even in the 60's. Dad would have to leave work every night and drive to whatever beach camp he wanted to stay at and sign up every night until our turn came. Then we would go down and live in our tent at the beach for the next week.

Although I knew how to swim and loved the water, I was a bit of a wimp as a child when it came to the waves. Obviously that was a "HUGE Embarrassment" to my brothers and my dad because one year they decided to take care of that "little problem."

When I was about 10 my dad and brother came up to me in the water and grabbed me by the arms. They then told me that whether I liked it or not I was going to learn to swim out past where the waves break and learn how to react in the water when a wave was coming towards me. Holding me on either side we then walked out into deeper water where the waves were breaking. When one came up that was obviously going to break over my head Dad told me that to avoid the force of the wave I needed to duck my head under the water until the wave had passed. With the wave coming straight at me I had no choice so I ducked under the water but I was afraid to come back up for fear that the wave hadn't completely passed over me. Dad couldn't figure out what I was doing under there for so long so eventually, when he thought I was probably about to pass out from lack of oxygen, he pulled me back up. I was so excited at having been able to "survive" the wave! Dad and my brother spent the rest of the day working with me and by the end of the day I felt like a real "pro" in the water.

Although I have always loved the ocean and swimming, my "first love" is sailing. To me there is nothing as exhilarating as to be controlling a small sailboat by knowing how to harness the wind in the sail. One year when I came home from college I discovered that Dad had gotten his hands on an ocean-going catamaran. That summer I spent every spare moment out on the ocean or the lake with him as he taught me how to sail. Once I left school and came back to Southern California full-time Dad gave me the sailboat, which I sold,and then bought a smaller day sailer that I could handle all by myself. That gave me a lot more freedom to go sailing on days when my dad or my friends could not come with me. When I had someone with me I loved taking it out into the ocean, but on those days when I only had a small nephew or niece with me we would go to Lake Castaic, north of Los Angeles, and spend the day sailing on the after-bay, which was exclusively for sailboats and swimming.

Well, that is the "simplified version" of the Chatham family. I look forward to hearing from anyone who thinks they might be related, or who are doing research on the Chatham surname.

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