Chase Family Scrapbook

Chase Family Scrapbook 

This weekend I went through the Chase Family Scrapbook that was made by Clarissa Chase Weiss (1900-1991) and probably compiled between the years of 1940 and 1980.  

The scrapbook is about 16 inches by 18 inches and loosely bound with brown shoelaces.  There are about 90 unnumbered pages.

Claire Chase (age 6) is marked in this picture. 

Claire was always interested in her family history and proud to share it.  In 1947 Mrs. Simon Weiss was the committee chair for the event “Chase Cousins Reunion” held at Liberty Park.

The Chase Home in Centerville no longer stands, but the cabin does along with an historical marker.

Clarissa Dean Chase is 7 years old in this picture and sitting next to the piano.  Claire's brother David Harold Chase died at age 10 four years after this photo was taken (gun accident). 

Max Weiss (son of Clarissa Dean Chase Weiss) bought the old Chase upright piano that is shown in the picture above and had it for many years.

This Deseret News article is typical of the many articles Clare pasted into her oversized photo album/scrapbook. Note that this 1942 reunion was sponsored by Chase Cousins Club under the leadership of Mrs. Simon Weiss (Clare Chase Weiss).

About one third of the book is a collection of the Family Genealogical research that was gathered over the years.  Most of it was from Kate Chase’s research.   The George Ogden Chase family had a lifetime membership in the Chase Genealogical Association.

Aunt Kate Chase did much of the temple work for her Chase family.

Note the Life Membership to the Chase Family Organization.

One paper describes how “Kate Chase saves the Chase Mill at Liberty Park” from being torn down.  Another tells of “Christmas at Chase Park” in Centerville.  It looks like some of the contents where items that were passed on to Claire by family members and she collected them all into this scrapbook.

Claire has collected  various newspapers articles referring to the Chase Mill from the 1960-1980’s.  Perhaps these were handouts shared during reunions with the Chase Cousins.  Claire also pasted in articles that had no family history connection but were simply interesting to her. 

George Ogden Chase's sword is now in the Daughters of the Utah Pioneer Museum.

In 1990 Karen Weiss (Claire's daughter-in-law) transcribed and duplicated a 35 page history of Clarissa Dean Chase Weiss for family members.  Most of that material is not found in the scrapbook.

Some pages are typewritten copies of other older documents that Claire duplicated and then pasted into her scrapbook.   A few of the pictures are original, but most are copies.  The entries are not in any chronological sequence and, unfortunately, rarely does Claire reference the source of her  information.

This is the John Alden Home in Massachusetts.  The Chase family was descended from the Mayflower Pilgrims.  This was a quite a status symbol in Clare's day.

Many entries from the Josephine Streeper Chase diary are pasted in the scrapbook.  A wonderful synopsis of the Streeper diaries was written by Fae Decker Dix in the Utah Historical Quarterly (and available as a pdf online.)  The actual diary was given to the Marriott Library University of Utah Special Collections in 1970.

Thirteen pages are simply pasted in pictures of historic buildings along with random postcards.  There are also some pictures of items that are now located in the Salt Lake DUP (Daughters of the Utah Pioneer) Museum.

More pictures of Chase Park and the home (built in 1860).  The cabin was built in 1849.   The woman in the upper right is Josephine Chase Bradshaw who cared for the home for many years.  

Historic Site Marker on 1000 N. (Chase Lane) and Main Street in Centerville, Utah.

Much of the information in the scrapbook was prepared by Josephine Chase Bradshaw (1892-1978) and is also included in the book Centerville-the City In-Between by Mary Ellen Smoot and Marilyn Fullmer Sheriff (1975).   Josephine Chase Bradshaw actually lived in the old George Ogden log cabin after her husband died and she returned west to Centerville.   As the historical plaque reads: "The stately home remained in the Chase family until 1982. In 1989, it began to deteriorate and was torn down, leaving only the log cabin, the granary, and memories of the one grand home at Chase Park."  (1000 N. Main Street).

Max Weiss (son of Clarissa Dean Chase Weiss) writes fondly of his "Aunti Jo" in his biography published in 2013.  Max worked for her picking cherries and painting.  He also bought Aunti Jo's cherry orchard for $2000 when he was 16 years old and sold it just prior to his marriage. 

 In 1998, a Chase family historian,  William V. Saunders, published two biographies (one about Isaac and the other about Phebe) that contains more accurate Chase family information than that found in Claire's scrapbook.  

Pictured are children of Brigham Young and Claire Ross (Isaac and Phebe's daughter), who became one of Brigham's many wives (marrying in Nauvoo in 1844?) and bore him four children.  She died in 1858 and sister wives helped raise her children.

One of the treasures in the scrapbook was the actual recipe from the chicken and biscuit meal that was served frequently to Brigham Young and Heber K. Kimball in the Old Chase Home in Liberty Park.  There are no notations about who recorded this recipe.

Chicken and Biscuit Dumplings were served to Brigham and the Twelve.

Christmas Dinners in the Centerville "Chase Park" were a held until Aunt Kate Matilda Chase died in 1937.

Following the death of Grandma Claire, Betty called family members in California to let them know.  One letter from Rose Cross was particularly kind and found its way into the scrapbook as a kind of final tribute to Claire.  Aunt Betty probably wrote the note in the upper left of page one.

The Pioneer Chase family and the Jewish immigrant Weiss family seemed to get along just fine.

This letter tells how Rose Weiss Cross (granddaughter raised by Max and Annie Weiss) adored her Chase relative Claire Chase Weiss who married into the Weiss family in 1917.

Upon the death of Claire Weiss (1990) Betty Dean Chase Lillywhite Olson gave the Chase Family Scrapbook into the keeping of David Mark Weiss, grandson of Claire. Betty wrote in a card to her nephew Mark in 1989, "I am unwilling to fill out the 'tribal' information sheets.  I respect your interest.  The genealogical interest is not at all a priority in my understanding of life..."  Maybe that is why Betty so freely gave her mother's scrapbook to her nephew.

You are all invited to come and look through the scrapbook the next time you visit the Mark Weiss family in Logan, Utah.  Meanwhile, we will continue to search for a way to scan and share the important pages of “Grandma Claire’s Scrapbook”.