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Original home of George and Aurilla Chappell in Lyman, Utah

The summer of 2004, I moved back to Lyman, Utah, my boyhood home.  My medical practice in Richfield, Utah had become overwhelming and seeking an opportunity to slow down, I took a position at the Wayne Community Health Center in Bicknell, Utah.  Our new home, located on my Grandfather Lee Chappell’s old farm was almost complete before I realized our living room window framed in perfectly the view across the way of George Armstrong and Aurilla Sperry Chappell’s old home.  The home, vacant since the late 1960’s, has slowly fallen into decay.  One of the three tall pine trees has died, a tall reminder of the inevitable effects of time. However, even though the old crab apple tree has fallen over, live shoots off the trunk still bud into leaves each spring and often produce fruit in the fall.

About 4 years after moving to Lyman, while helping my wife research her family, my attention turned to my own roots.  While I had heard family stories of my great grandfather and grandmother it wasn’t until then that I really began to appreciate the fascinating life of George Armstrong Chappell, Jr. and Aurilla Sperry. They and their parents lived and participated in some of the most interesting events of the past two hundred years; early Mormon history, the great American immigration, the colonization of the American West with its associated trials and triumphs, the Transcontinental Railway, Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch, automobiles and electricity.  I really felt this was a story to tell, not only to preserve a memory of these people for their descendants, but also to tell of the fascinating times and places in which they lived.

While descendants have recorded memories of George and Aurilla, neither kept a journal or left much written by their own hands. Pictures of the two are even scarce!  While I have tried to do as much primary research as possible, much of their story must be pieced together from the histories of their contemporaries. I have provided references but, unfortunately, I’m not certain of the validity of some of these sources.  Where information is lacking, I’ve tried to provide my best interpretation of events.  I would invite others who may have additional information about George and Aurilla to please post your comments. 

The chapters posted on this blog are the unedited work I’ve completed to date.  Each chapter is in many ways a complex research project and I anticipate it will be several more years before the work is complete. I hope to eventually compile this information into a published book, but in the meantime, I hope those who read this blog will find it interesting and informative.

Jeff Chappell