[Editor's transcription of letter] "Longford, 26th Aug. 1854. My Dear Husband, I write these few lines to inform you that I intend to come to you as soon as I can get things ready, for I am quite tired of the weaving, it gets worse every week. I shall bring Hannah with me. I shall be on the water most likely when you get this letter. You say to meet me when I get there. I wrote a letter when cousin George wrote his letter but I could not send it then and I have sent it now. Your sister H. [Hannah Randle] has another fine daughter [Lydia Randle] come to town on the 10th of Aug. She is doing well. Mr [...] is about [...] his house. I have received your letter and was very thankful to hear from you and that you are well in health. I don't know whether I can or not if you send me a little money to, for I am in trouble now and have been ever since you left me. From loving wife, L.R."
Old St. Laurence Church in Foleshill, Coventry, where Lucy's parents, Benjamin Porter and Sarah Ward, were married in 1814.
Lucy's son George was known as "Junior." Like his father and his sister Sarah, George also came to Utah. He died 2 March 1906 in Salt Lake City.
Lucy Porter
Lucy's husband, George Whitmore Rogers. Photo taken in Auckland.
FIRST GENERATION
LUCY PORTER (ROGERS)(Mother of Sarah Porter Rogers)
Lucy Porter was born 22 June 1824 in Longford, Warwickshire, England. Her parents, Benjamin
Porter and Sarah Ward, were the parents of ten recorded children, of which Lucy was the fourth.
[Lucy's granddaughter, Sarah Porter Rogers Williams Denney, several years later, noted that
Sarah Ward Porter actually had twelve children-two of whom apparently remain unidentified and without documentation.] Benjamin Porter and Sarah Ward came from the same part of Warwickshire, and had been married in 1814 in Saint Laurence Church, Foleshill, Warwickshire.
Lucy's mother taught her to be a particular and careful housekeeper. When Sarah Ward Porter
would buy a piece of meat for the family, she would carefully mark off the meat to designate a portion for each day it was to last. Lucy also learned to be extremely particular about the family laundry. In her later years, Lucy sewed baby clothing for her children and grandchildren from the finest materials, incorporating the most exquisite and finely-detailed needlework.
Lucy Porter was known to have a sweet and admirable personality. She was forced to learn a trade early, and she became a weaver. Her father, Benjamin Porter, passed away in middle age of a ruptured blood vessel in his head in 1840, when Lucy was 16. Approximately two years later, Lucy's older sister, Ann Porter Rogers, married George Whitmore Rogers, a Longford weaver.
Lucy's sister Anna unexpectedly passed away in March 1847, leaving a baby daughter, Hannah, in the care of her husband, George. As a 24 year-old spinster, Lucy was invited to come to the house of her former brother-in-law to act as his housekeeper and tend his two-year-old daughter. In May 1849, Lucy and George married in Foleshill Independent Chapel, Coventry, England.
When George became disenchanted with the silk weaving trade in the mid-1850s, he left Lucy and daughter Hannah behind and ventured to Australia. George operated a freight wagon, servicing the miners in the Australian gold rush. Sarah, an expert ribbon and silk weaver herself, owned her own loom in addition to maintaining George's five looms; in George's absence, she remained in Longford and tried to sustain the family weaving business.
In May 1854, Lucy wrote to George detailing some of the problems she was dealing with in his absence:
"Longford, England
May 17,1854
My Dear Husband,
It is mingled feelings that I sit down to write these few lines to you. I am sorry to inform you that I have had nothing but trouble of one sort or another, since you have been gone. I dare say you will say it serves me right. I might have gone with you, so it does. I have wished many and many times since that I had gone. I am sure I should have been a good deal comfortabler with you than I have been here. Let me have what trouble I may, I have no one to help me bear it like you. I have been ill a month or more and could not do any work, it cost me 10 or 11 shillings in medicine. Since you left me Mr Orton the last time I was ill He said there was nothing the matter with me, but weakness brought on overexertion and fretting which I knowed to be quite
right. I have had to pay a crown to have the 'pattern' done which you cut. I wanted to draw the money out of the Building Society but they could do nothing in it until they had a note from you. I hope you will write as soon as you receive this letter, and send me one as I expect to have the money balloted to me and I shall have to pay a fine of five shillings, if I don't take to the money. They have had a share balloted to them at the chapel. I have had some trouble at the warehouse. Henry sold a few remnants to a man who lived at Coventry. He promised before he sees them that he would not expose them, but he sold some at Coventry and the Master saw them and he came over about it. He seemed very much put about. He said he should follow the
law on him. The Master went into Lohnsons [Johnsons?] and he told him something about seeing some bits of ribbons on bonnets which he thought were some of your work, and when I went to the warehouse again the Master and Mrs. called me everything that was bad. I could not tell you half what they said. We quite thought we should lose our work but we have not. I was just getting better of a bad bout, and I was troubled about it till I was almost ill again. Little Hannah is pretty well. I send her to Miss Clarl's school now she is getting on pretty well with her learning. I pay 6 pence a week with her. Sarah [probably Lucy's sister, Sarah Porter, age 17] is with me at present, but I don't know how soon she will be taken from me for the windmill sails are at work again now. Mother is very poorly. "
In August of 1854, Lucy wrote a letter to George indicating her intent to "be on the water" and
join him shortly. "I am quite tired of the weaving, it gets worse and worse every week," she wrote. Lucy also informed George that his older sister, Hannah Rogers Randle, gave birth
to a new daughter (Lydia) who "came to town" on 10 August 1854. Although finances and work-related problems remained a constant challenge during George's absence, Lucy was always his "loving wife."
The unruly living conditions in Australia apparently caused George to discourage Lucy from traveling with the family to Australia. Instead, George returned to Warwickshire after a three-year stay "down under"; however, he remained discontented with England.
Lucy and George had no children for the first eight years of their marriage; then, beginning in 1858, they had three children:
Sarah Porter Rogers, born 11 April 1858, Longford, Warwickshire;
Ann Porter Rogers, born 26 April 1861, Longford, Warwickshire; and
David George Rogers, born 16 June 1865, Auckland, New Zealand.
MOTHERLY ADVICE SENT BY LUCY PORTER ROGERS TO SARAH, AGE 15, AT THE WILKINS' PLANTATION
Elliott AT
July 20th 1873
Sunday Afternoon
My Dear Sarah
The children are gone to school your father has gone to see the old people and I am left all alone so I thought I would try and pen you a few lines. I am sorry to tell you I have a fresh cold and it seems to ly in my throat and my cough is very bad again and I feel very poorly to day it has been such wet slopy weather all the past week. We received your letter and Mrs. W's [Wilkins] all right, we were rather amused at your adventure in the bush, but I don't think you did well to get into the creek after it, if you don't mind you will get cold and bring that on yourself as cannot be got rid of, I am very glad you try to do all you can to help but don't expose yourself too much. This wet damp mudy weather, I don't want you laid up. I am sending you shoes and a English paper that I've from Hannah. I've received the / paper Mrs. W. sent.
Sarah there is another thing I want to speak to you about, don't make so much of Jody, you may
make him think about you in another form when he gets a little older. You may think it all nonsense for me to talk in this way, but I have my reasons for speaking about it. Hannah took a good deal of notice of a boy once about like J0 and he got to be very fond of her so much so that she had to break off the aquantance and the boy never seemed to forget her, but I cannot tell you all in this note. We want you if you can think of anything more you may want, send us word in your next, if clock was likely to be [... ...?] we shall send all at one Time, but if not [... ...?] I suppose you will want them sent, if Jnr [David George Rogers] wants any thing now tell him to let us know and tell us when to send them up, we send the 2 letters of T.C. 's, return them when
convenient [?] we have just heard of Mr Jones Minister of St Mathews death at Sydney, acept of our best wishes from your present and future wellfaire and believe / us your affectionate Father and Mother G & L Rogers
(Lucy and George additionally adopted one child: Sarah "Sally" Ann Flowers, born about 1845. )
In 1862, George's wanderlust returned, and he and Lucy and the family emigrated from England to New Zealand, enduring a four-month voyage. At least one of the former employees from George's Longford weaving shop accompanied the family on the trip. The Rogers family settled in Auckland, as did several members of George's relatives on the Whitmore side.
Lucy and George trained their children to love literature and music and to acquire learning wherever it can be found. Lucy herself was always highly respected and dearly loved by her friends and associates. Her concern for her children and the gentle motherly advice she would offer are reflected in a letter she wrote in 1875 to her 15 year-old daughter, Sarah (see previous page).
Unfortunately, Lucy Porter Rogers suffered from chronic bronchitis which caused her to became largely an invalid for the last 12 years of her life. Despite her near constant illnesses, Lucy never complained. Lucy passed away at the age of 55 in Auckland, 9 January 1880.
Very shortly after Lucy's death, George Whitmore Rogers came into contact with LDS missionaries. After an investigation, he was baptized into the LDS Church in March 1880. In 1884, George immigrated permanently to Utah with his son George, his daughter Sarah and her husband, and her family. About 1890, George married a widow, Maria Kirsten (Kjersten) Madsen, who had emigrated to Utah from Denmark. George died in February 1901 in American Fork, Utah, where he was buried in the city cemetery.
Resource: Family records of Lucy Williams Price
Family records of Bernita Miller McCarthy
Family records of Calvin G. Price
Williams-Rogers A Family History pp 16-21.
LUCY PORTER (ROGERS)(Mother of Sarah Porter Rogers)
Lucy Porter was born 22 June 1824 in Longford, Warwickshire, England. Her parents, Benjamin
Porter and Sarah Ward, were the parents of ten recorded children, of which Lucy was the fourth.
[Lucy's granddaughter, Sarah Porter Rogers Williams Denney, several years later, noted that
Sarah Ward Porter actually had twelve children-two of whom apparently remain unidentified and without documentation.] Benjamin Porter and Sarah Ward came from the same part of Warwickshire, and had been married in 1814 in Saint Laurence Church, Foleshill, Warwickshire.
Lucy's mother taught her to be a particular and careful housekeeper. When Sarah Ward Porter
would buy a piece of meat for the family, she would carefully mark off the meat to designate a portion for each day it was to last. Lucy also learned to be extremely particular about the family laundry. In her later years, Lucy sewed baby clothing for her children and grandchildren from the finest materials, incorporating the most exquisite and finely-detailed needlework.
Lucy Porter was known to have a sweet and admirable personality. She was forced to learn a trade early, and she became a weaver. Her father, Benjamin Porter, passed away in middle age of a ruptured blood vessel in his head in 1840, when Lucy was 16. Approximately two years later, Lucy's older sister, Ann Porter Rogers, married George Whitmore Rogers, a Longford weaver.
Lucy's sister Anna unexpectedly passed away in March 1847, leaving a baby daughter, Hannah, in the care of her husband, George. As a 24 year-old spinster, Lucy was invited to come to the house of her former brother-in-law to act as his housekeeper and tend his two-year-old daughter. In May 1849, Lucy and George married in Foleshill Independent Chapel, Coventry, England.
When George became disenchanted with the silk weaving trade in the mid-1850s, he left Lucy and daughter Hannah behind and ventured to Australia. George operated a freight wagon, servicing the miners in the Australian gold rush. Sarah, an expert ribbon and silk weaver herself, owned her own loom in addition to maintaining George's five looms; in George's absence, she remained in Longford and tried to sustain the family weaving business.
In May 1854, Lucy wrote to George detailing some of the problems she was dealing with in his absence:
"Longford, England
May 17,1854
My Dear Husband,
It is mingled feelings that I sit down to write these few lines to you. I am sorry to inform you that I have had nothing but trouble of one sort or another, since you have been gone. I dare say you will say it serves me right. I might have gone with you, so it does. I have wished many and many times since that I had gone. I am sure I should have been a good deal comfortabler with you than I have been here. Let me have what trouble I may, I have no one to help me bear it like you. I have been ill a month or more and could not do any work, it cost me 10 or 11 shillings in medicine. Since you left me Mr Orton the last time I was ill He said there was nothing the matter with me, but weakness brought on overexertion and fretting which I knowed to be quite
right. I have had to pay a crown to have the 'pattern' done which you cut. I wanted to draw the money out of the Building Society but they could do nothing in it until they had a note from you. I hope you will write as soon as you receive this letter, and send me one as I expect to have the money balloted to me and I shall have to pay a fine of five shillings, if I don't take to the money. They have had a share balloted to them at the chapel. I have had some trouble at the warehouse. Henry sold a few remnants to a man who lived at Coventry. He promised before he sees them that he would not expose them, but he sold some at Coventry and the Master saw them and he came over about it. He seemed very much put about. He said he should follow the
law on him. The Master went into Lohnsons [Johnsons?] and he told him something about seeing some bits of ribbons on bonnets which he thought were some of your work, and when I went to the warehouse again the Master and Mrs. called me everything that was bad. I could not tell you half what they said. We quite thought we should lose our work but we have not. I was just getting better of a bad bout, and I was troubled about it till I was almost ill again. Little Hannah is pretty well. I send her to Miss Clarl's school now she is getting on pretty well with her learning. I pay 6 pence a week with her. Sarah [probably Lucy's sister, Sarah Porter, age 17] is with me at present, but I don't know how soon she will be taken from me for the windmill sails are at work again now. Mother is very poorly. "
In August of 1854, Lucy wrote a letter to George indicating her intent to "be on the water" and
join him shortly. "I am quite tired of the weaving, it gets worse and worse every week," she wrote. Lucy also informed George that his older sister, Hannah Rogers Randle, gave birth
to a new daughter (Lydia) who "came to town" on 10 August 1854. Although finances and work-related problems remained a constant challenge during George's absence, Lucy was always his "loving wife."
The unruly living conditions in Australia apparently caused George to discourage Lucy from traveling with the family to Australia. Instead, George returned to Warwickshire after a three-year stay "down under"; however, he remained discontented with England.
Lucy and George had no children for the first eight years of their marriage; then, beginning in 1858, they had three children:
Sarah Porter Rogers, born 11 April 1858, Longford, Warwickshire;
Ann Porter Rogers, born 26 April 1861, Longford, Warwickshire; and
David George Rogers, born 16 June 1865, Auckland, New Zealand.
MOTHERLY ADVICE SENT BY LUCY PORTER ROGERS TO SARAH, AGE 15, AT THE WILKINS' PLANTATION
Elliott AT
July 20th 1873
Sunday Afternoon
My Dear Sarah
The children are gone to school your father has gone to see the old people and I am left all alone so I thought I would try and pen you a few lines. I am sorry to tell you I have a fresh cold and it seems to ly in my throat and my cough is very bad again and I feel very poorly to day it has been such wet slopy weather all the past week. We received your letter and Mrs. W's [Wilkins] all right, we were rather amused at your adventure in the bush, but I don't think you did well to get into the creek after it, if you don't mind you will get cold and bring that on yourself as cannot be got rid of, I am very glad you try to do all you can to help but don't expose yourself too much. This wet damp mudy weather, I don't want you laid up. I am sending you shoes and a English paper that I've from Hannah. I've received the / paper Mrs. W. sent.
Sarah there is another thing I want to speak to you about, don't make so much of Jody, you may
make him think about you in another form when he gets a little older. You may think it all nonsense for me to talk in this way, but I have my reasons for speaking about it. Hannah took a good deal of notice of a boy once about like J0 and he got to be very fond of her so much so that she had to break off the aquantance and the boy never seemed to forget her, but I cannot tell you all in this note. We want you if you can think of anything more you may want, send us word in your next, if clock was likely to be [... ...?] we shall send all at one Time, but if not [... ...?] I suppose you will want them sent, if Jnr [David George Rogers] wants any thing now tell him to let us know and tell us when to send them up, we send the 2 letters of T.C. 's, return them when
convenient [?] we have just heard of Mr Jones Minister of St Mathews death at Sydney, acept of our best wishes from your present and future wellfaire and believe / us your affectionate Father and Mother G & L Rogers
(Lucy and George additionally adopted one child: Sarah "Sally" Ann Flowers, born about 1845. )
In 1862, George's wanderlust returned, and he and Lucy and the family emigrated from England to New Zealand, enduring a four-month voyage. At least one of the former employees from George's Longford weaving shop accompanied the family on the trip. The Rogers family settled in Auckland, as did several members of George's relatives on the Whitmore side.
Lucy and George trained their children to love literature and music and to acquire learning wherever it can be found. Lucy herself was always highly respected and dearly loved by her friends and associates. Her concern for her children and the gentle motherly advice she would offer are reflected in a letter she wrote in 1875 to her 15 year-old daughter, Sarah (see previous page).
Unfortunately, Lucy Porter Rogers suffered from chronic bronchitis which caused her to became largely an invalid for the last 12 years of her life. Despite her near constant illnesses, Lucy never complained. Lucy passed away at the age of 55 in Auckland, 9 January 1880.
Very shortly after Lucy's death, George Whitmore Rogers came into contact with LDS missionaries. After an investigation, he was baptized into the LDS Church in March 1880. In 1884, George immigrated permanently to Utah with his son George, his daughter Sarah and her husband, and her family. About 1890, George married a widow, Maria Kirsten (Kjersten) Madsen, who had emigrated to Utah from Denmark. George died in February 1901 in American Fork, Utah, where he was buried in the city cemetery.
Resource: Family records of Lucy Williams Price
Family records of Bernita Miller McCarthy
Family records of Calvin G. Price
Williams-Rogers A Family History pp 16-21.
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