The Orisons of Summit: a family between Arbon and Logan

From 1911 to 1990, Idaho and Utah newspapers followed the Orison family between two places: their homestead at Summit, the high ground between Arbon and Buist, and Logan, in Cache Valley, where they came from. The earliest mention of them in the valley papers read for this post is a near miss by lightning in September 1911.

From Logan to Summit

Charles Henry Orison was born at Richmond, Cache County, Utah, on January 17, 1882. Jean Ann McNeil was born in Logan on August 31, 1878, a daughter of Archibald and Jane Bell McNeil; her mother had been born in Edinburgh, Scotland. The papers do not agree on when the couple married or when they came to the valley. Her obituaries of 1941 say that after her marriage in 1904 she moved to Arbon with him. His obituary in the Logan Herald Journal in 1971 gives the wedding as April 5, 1906, and says he homesteaded in Arbon Valley in 1910; their daughter Jean was born in Logan that May. This site's land research dates his homestead entry to 1909, and the patent to his Summit land was signed June 9, 1915.

By the fall of 1911 Charles was in the valley. The Arbon column of the American Falls Press for September 28, 1911, which assured readers the valley was "a fine dry farming district and a fine place to live, as there is no sickness here" carried this, among its notes on the threshing:

J. N. Arbon has finished threshing. His total crop was 3,256 bushels. Some of his grain went nearly 34 bushels per acre, and some as low as 17 bushels.
Mr. Fellows and Charles Orison came near getting a shock of lightning recently. They were standing within thirty feet of a post that was reduced to splinters.

The children the papers name are Archie M. (also A. M. and Arch), Annie Virgie, Jean, Charles H. Jr., David Dale and Mac Duane. Charles Jr. and Dale were born at Arbon, Dale in February 1916. Cache Valley stayed close. In July 1915 the Press reported that Charles Orison and W. T. Ferguson and their families had gone to Logan for a few days. The Summit farmers' road to market ran over Jenson Pass to Malad, and in December 1922 the Press had Charles in Malad with John Carlson and Pierce Hardman "on business matters."

The children marry

In 1928 both daughters married. Virgie married Harvey Andersen of Arbon, and Jean married Max Hatfield (Hadfield in some notices), with whom she later lived at Dayton, Washington. The Summit history lists Archie among the missionaries the Canyon Branch sent out, in 1929. On November 11, 1933, the Salt Lake Telegram listed a marriage license for Archie M. Orison, 28, and Anna Evans, 21, both of Arbon; she was a daughter of Lorenzo B. "Ren" Evans.

Family obituaries still placed Jean Ann at Arbon: her mother Jane McNeil's in December 1931, and her brother Charles McNeil's in 1934, which called her Mrs. Annie Orison.

School years in Logan

In May 1938 the Logan Herald Journal reported that the family had lived during the past school year at 185 North Second East in Logan, and that their son Dale had been a Logan High School student.

Dale, 22, was struck by a car on the night of Saturday, May 14, 1938 (Stories). The Logan Herald Journal said he was crossing a street in Malad. The Ogden Standard-Examiner said he had been visiting at the home of Brig Jones, a Cherry Creek farmer, and stepped onto the highway from the lane; the Salt Lake Tribune said he had called to see Miss Sylvia Jones and probably stumbled as the car reached him. Two men traveling from Canada to California were in it. The Tribune said the driver and Miss Jones, just coming home, gave first aid while the other man went to Malad for a doctor and an officer; the Ogden paper said the men brought him to Malad. The sheriff held them until Sunday afternoon, when the accident was found to have been unavoidable. His father was called from Logan and stayed with him. Dale died in the Malad hospital on Monday morning, May 16, without regaining consciousness.

His funeral was held in the Logan Fourth Ward chapel, with Don Jensen of Arbon (probably Don Jenson) in charge; Bishop Joseph Arbon and Thomas H. Richards, president of the Malad Stake, spoke. The next January Charles Jr. married Sarah Mae Ashton at Malad.

The papers give different dates for the family's return to Logan. Jean Ann's obituaries say they had come back about five years before her death; Charles's says he came to Logan to live in 1940. She died at their home, 218 East Fourth North in Logan, on Sunday, March 2, 1941, at 62, after two months' illness with a heart ailment. Her obituaries listed her sons A. M. and Charles Jr. and her daughter Virgie at Arbon, Mac Duane in Logan, Jean at Dayton, and nine grandchildren.

Arbon and Logan, 1943–1990

In July 1943 an Associated Press report from Pocatello told how Arch's eight-year-old son Duane, watching his father load a truck at the family's ranch in Arbon Valley, was engulfed by a slide of wheat and suffocated before his father could remove the siding from the granary to reach him (Stories). The next week the Logan Herald Journal reported that a son of the Orisons of 218 East Fourth North, "originally from Arbon," had finished an automotive mechanics course at Fort Monroe, Virginia. His first name is broken in the scan; he was probably Mac Duane. In July 1949 Mac Duane and Jewell Anderson Orison, then of Arbon, lost their son Danny Charles, born May 2, who died in a Logan hospital at three months.

Charles married Elsie Gunnell in 1943 and later Lucy Ora Hall. He was a temple worker for 25 years and died in a Logan hospital on March 23, 1971, at 89. His obituary listed Arch M. Orison of Arbon first among his children. Jean, who had divorced and in 1956 married Gilbert Hunt at American Falls, died at Pocatello in 1973. Charles Jr., of Logan, died in September 1990, at 77. Born in Arbon, he had been "educated in the Arbon Valley school system" and farmed most of his life.

The article as printed

American Falls Press, September 28, 1911, page 1. Transcribed from the page scan.

ARBON NEWS.
Mr. G. W. Houke raised 1844 bushels from 80 acres.
E. H. Davis secured 3,076 bushels of grain from his dry farm.
A. O. Anderson has gone to Mendon, Cache valley for a few days.
B. D. Lindley is tending separator for the Dawson Bros. steam outfit.
E. H. Davis and Elizabeth Arbon have gone to Brigham City for fruit.
Threshing is on in full blast as yet, but quite a number have finished.
Mrs. Emmett Lee has gone to Brigham City for a winter's supply of fruit.
William Ferguson and company returned from Malad with a new threshing machine.
J. T. Guthrie is doing some fine work with his thresher. He is now at the Sorenson ranch.
Arbon valley is a fine dry farming district and a fine place to live, as there is no sickness here.
Mr. Victor Randall has finished threshing. His crop yielded 1224 bushels of Turkey Red from forty acres.
Thursday last we had a fine rain, refreshing the atmosphere and putting the ground in fine shape for seeding.
Lucien McLeary has returned from Washington, where he went during harvest. He is now getting ready to seed his ranch with Turkey Red.
J. N. Arbon has finished threshing. His total crop was 3,256 bushels Some of his grain went nearly 34 bushels per acre, and some as low as 17 bushels.
Mr. Fellows and Charles Orison came near getting a shock of lightning recently. They were standing within thirty feet of a post that was reduced to splinters.
W. H. Jeans and C. F. Eller of American Falls paid us a visit recently. They were on their way home from Malad, returning by way of Arbon and Landing.
Lyman Fargo, Earl C. White and son and Mr. Pickle were up from Pocatello on business recently. They came in an automobile and stopped at the Payne hotel over night.

On this site: the Orison family album and the Stories entries for the 1911 lightning, Dale Orison and Duane Orison.