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Show August 1, 1998 Marriott family reunites Descendents of pioneer meet at revamped Ogden hotel bearing their name By JOE PYRAH_ Standard-Examiner staff The last time the time the Marriott family got together in numbers, Woodrow Marriott was 10 years old. The year was 1924 and a little more than 100 descendents of Utah pioneer John Marriott congregated in the Marriott LDS Church to talk about the old days and get reacquainted. "They stopped having them because they couldn't fit everyone in the building," said Wood-row, who turned 84 in June. Woodrow Marriott, a grandchild of Utah pioneer and Marriott township founder John Marriott, and another 200 descendents are reliving the reunion experience this weekend, appropriately enough in the newly remodeled and renamed Ogden Marriott Hotel, formerly The Ogden Park Hotel, at 247 24 St. "It's a very rare event for everyone to get together like this," said Marriott family historian Jacalyn Westergard. Frances Selley and Marilyn MacLean, cousins in the Marriott line, met last year for the first time at a smaller reunion and found each other again this year. "It's the little things that are amazing to me," MacLean said. She said that John Marriott used to walk around his farm every night, enjoying the feeling of the earth between his fingers. It's something many of his descendents also find appealing. "I tell my kids that I get my work done in the winter so that, in the spring, I can play in the dirt," Selley said. The family took a page from history Friday night and followed a program based on the records from their 1924 reunion program, Westergard said. The family is focusing on Marriott history, holding genealogy seminars and dedicating a gravestone to Susannah Marriott, John Marriott's first wife, who died 140 years ago this year. They are also trying to update family names and transfer them from handwritten books to a new computer database. Westergard said there are 5,000 to 8,000 descendents of John Marriott. John Marriott crossed the plains with Mormon pioneers in 1851 and settled on a piece of ground now known as the Marriott township. Located just west of Ogden City, the township is in the middle of a debate over whether to incorporate with the nearby Slaterville township to form a city. A vote will be held in the two townships Tuesday to determine an outcome. The Marriott family supports incorporation, Westergard said. "It is our hope that the memory of these pioneer names and identity of these communities not be forgotten. The Marriott and Slaterville names would disappear from the map, so to speak, if this vote is not successful," wrote Westergard in a press release. The Marriott Hotel chain was started in 1957 by J. Willard Marriott Sr. It has blossomed into a $10-billion-a-year company with thousands of hotels, the first of which was built with the help of Woodrow Marriott. He said he still has the receipt of the $36-million check he wrote for the 500-room hotel. Despite the family's strong history in the area, The Ogden Marriott Hotel is the first Marriott Hotel in Ogden. 480 |