Nicholas Hugh Watts, known to family and friends as Hugh, was born March 24, 1919 in Ogema, Saskatchewan on his parents homestead. He was the 11th child born to Nicholas Hugh Watts and Martha Euretta Gauley.

His parents moved to Polk County, Oregon when he was six months old and he would remain an Oregon resident for the rest of his life. He loved the Willamette Valley of Oregon and referred to it as 'God's country'.

Classified 4F by the Selective Service due to a hernia, he was drafted into the Navy in August 1943. He served in the Armed Guard until his discharge in November of 1945, serving in the Pacific arena during WWII.

May 17, 1945, while on a 3 day pass, he married the love of his life, Wilma Bernice Hathaway. They were to spend the next 52+ years together. They lost their first child in infancy, but went on to raise three more children; a son and two daughters.

Hugh was a sawmill worker and spent his life doing hard physical labor. When he retired from the sawmill in March 1984, he started a yard service business. He loved gardening and being out of doors. It was the perfect hobby for him. It brought him into contact with a lot of people, kept him busy and out in the fresh air, and supplemented their income enough to pursue their passion for travel.

Having lost his mother when he was 17 and his father when he was 20, Hugh cherished family above all else. In 1988, after the loss of his brothers and sisters, he and Wilma planned a family reunion to bring together his nieces and nephews. To his joy and amazement, 7 of his 1st cousins from his mother's side of the family whom he had never met, attended the reunion. After that, there was a 'Gauley' family reunion every 2 years. He looked forward to every reunion and visited his new-found family between reunions.

Hugh passed away on December 2, 1997 at his home in Keizer, Oregon from complications of COPD. He was predeceased by an infant son, his parents and all of his brothers and sisters.