John Chesley

Long before he had heard of humanism, John Chesley was a humanist: independent thinker, committed to ethics, and respectful of human dignity. His humanism manifested itself one day in church, and yet there was little in his background to indicate that he would react as he did.

A native Salt Laker, he went to Douglas Elementary, Roosevelt Junior High, and East and South High Schools. He married and went to work at Hill Air Force Base where he developed his expertise in supplies, ensuring that not only Hill but other military bases had the right supplies at the right time. Hercules hired him for his expertise ten years later at its Bacchus plant in Magna, and Bestway Products seven years after that, where he remained for the next 31 years, and still runs its repair shop, although he now works only half-time on his way to full retirement. The Naval Air Reserve also used his talent in supplies for 30 years, first at its aviation unit at the Salt Lake Airport and then, when it was closed, flying him monthly to the aviation unit at Buckley in Denver and still later to Alameda in California.

Early on, however, while he was still at Hill and raising his four boys and a middle girl, he lived in a tight-knit LDS community and "went with the flow," becoming active in scouts and the rest. One Sunday, with his mind wandering during the service, he sat upright as a young American Indian girl gave a 2 ½ minute talk, concluding that her people had been "bad people." He wondered, as an independent thinker, about the ethics of teaching her to disrespect her own culture and the dignity of her people. He never went back to church.

This episode occurred just before he divorced his wife, moved to Farmington, and undertook to raise his five children alone, first the oldest two and a year later the remaining three. He did marry again, but this one ended in a mutual and friendly divorce, his second wife moving away and marrying twice since then. Enough is enough, he thought, and has not married again. His five children all live close by.

Although he remembers Hugh Gillilan speaking at his father's memorial service in 1965, he recalls being introduced to humanism only about three years ago while he was listening to talk radio at work and heard Flo Wineriter explain the humanist philosophy. John recognized immediately that this was exactly what he believed. He called Flo, who sent him some literature, and the rest, as they say, is history. He joined Humanists of Utah, and, in his semi-retirement, has been doing an enormous amount of reading. He says he hungers for knowledge. Religion, he believes, is a carry-over from ancient times; science "blows it out of the water." He is currently engrossed in the Dictionary of Creation Myths by David and Margaret Leeming, and highly recommends National Geographic's Atlas of World History.

--Earl Wunderli