Article contributed by Edres Bryant Barney
Pima — Charles Rosebery Rogers was born in Pima on December 2, 1888, the third and second son of Louisa Christina Rosebery and Joseph Knight Rogers. His mother had left all ten children at home when his father died in an accident. Within a year his brother Charlotte and Joseph were married, leaving Charles at home as the eldest son.
They lived on a half-finished farm on Rogers Reservoir, three miles southwest of Pima, where two little mules did all the work. For six years, Charles did every kind of hard labor imaginable: digging stumps, digging ditches, gathering timber, leveling the land, working in mines, logging mountains, and so on.
Gladys Hawes became his bride on October 1, 1915, in the Salt Lake Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
After turning 30, he served in the following positions: 6 years as janitor, 3 years as schoolteacher, 2 years as constable, 2 years as Pima City Sheriff, 4 years as magistrate, and 12 years as Graham. He served as a county attorney, Arizona’s assistant attorney general for four years, and as a town employee for the city of Pima for 25 years. These duties and his 40 years of law practice kept him busy.
Charles was the first person from Graham County to become an attorney and the first person from Graham County to serve as county attorney, holding the office for a record number of years.
Charles and Gladys spent 1965 serving missions of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the Hill Cumorah Mission in New York, and in 1967 they were called as ministers in the Mesa Arizona Temple. They were the parents of four daughters and one son.
This and other personal and family histories can be viewed at the Eastern Arizona Museum in Pima. The museum is open Thursday through Saturday from 10am to 3pm.
