In 1915 the American Falls Press printed a regular column of news from South Arbon, the homesteads around Highland at the high south end of Arbon Valley, the area known as Summit. Among the threshing crews, ball games and visits, two names keep turning up: the Misses Elmira and Delone Smith. Their obituaries, written some seventy years later, give the homestead years a phrase each. The old columns show a little more.
A Logan family at Summit
The sisters were born in North Logan, Utah: Emma Elmira on October 19, 1898, and Chloe DeLone, who went by Delone, on June 8, 1901. Their parents were Edward Girdlestone Smith and Chloe Ann Beirdneau Smith. In 1909, when the whole valley was still part of Oneida County, Edward filed on a Summit homestead a few weeks after his brother-in-law Joseph C. Jenson, on a quarter that met the Jensons' at one corner, and the census of May 1910 found the two families living next door to each other. The Jenson family history tells their side. Edward proved up and received his patent, the government's deed to the land, in May 1916.
Delone's obituary says only that the family moved to Arbon Valley when she was a young girl, "where they homesteaded." Elmira's says she lived in Arbon Valley, "where she received her early education."
The Smiths were Latter-day Saints. The Saints at the south end had organized a branch in 1913 that met in private homes, and on Sunday, May 23, 1915, its services were held at the residence of "Mr. E. G. Smith," as the South Arbon column put it.
The summer of 1915
That same column, of June 3, 1915, carried Elmira's news and, further down, the district's plans for a school:
Thelma Nunnelley and Elmira Smith just received the good news that they had passed the eighth grade examination in this district.
The people of this district have bonded for $2,500 and expect to have a new school house in the center of the district and run two school wagons this fall. They also expect to hire two teachers.
Elmira was sixteen. The new building went up that fall as Highland School, the first schoolhouse on record at Summit. Two weeks after the examination news, the column reported that Guy Benson had treated "his school pupils" to a picnic on June 11 at the Frank ranch in the mountains. Benson, a young Logan man who taught in the valley until he moved to Malad in 1916, had married the girls' older sister, Hazel, in January 1914, and in September the paper found him at work on the new school building.
Through the summer the column followed the sisters about the neighborhood. Early in July it reported that Delone had gone to Logan to visit relatives. The column of September 2 named them twice:
Mrs. H. E. Chapman, Mrs. Herman Noth, Misses Elmira and Delone Smith and Miss Amy Johnson were visitors at the Nunnelley home Friday.
Misses Ella and LaNetta Ferguson have been the guests of Misses Elmira and Delone Smith.
The Nunnelleys, a Kentucky sawmill family, had moved onto their Summit homesteads in 1909, the year Edward Smith filed on his, and their first winter is told among the Stories. Later in September Edward Smith and Elmira left for a two weeks' visit to Logan.
The next June the Arbon column reported: "E. G. Smith and W. A. Nunnley came in today with a new Studebaker car each. They are the proudest men in Arbon." This was probably the girls' father, since W. A. Nunnelley was his neighbor at Summit.
Two roads from Summit
The South Arbon column of 1915 also mentions Guy Larsen, son of Peter M. Larsen of Mendon, very probably the Peter Larsen who was one of the first homesteaders at Summit. His obituary says the family moved to Arbon when he was nine, about 1905, but the 1915 columns still had the Larsens coming and going from Cache Valley. That spring Guy's saddle horse stepped in a badger hole and broke its leg. Early in July the column reported that he had gone home to Utah after spending the spring in the valley, and on September 2 that Peter Larsen and his son Miles had come from Cache Valley to harvest their grain and look after their cattle. By November the paper called Guy "Mr. Guy Larsen of Bull Canyon," the canyon at Summit where the Nunnelleys ran a sawmill. In August 1918, at Malad, Delone married him. She was seventeen.
They stayed. Her obituary says they farmed and ranched in Arbon Valley for many years, and his says he served Arbon as justice of the peace, school trustee and fire warden. Her parents later went back to Logan, where Edward G. Smith died on December 28, 1929, at fifty-nine. The Logan Journal listed his five children, among them Mrs. J. Guy Benson of Malad, Mrs. Brown of Logan and "Mrs. Guy Larsen, Arbon, Idaho." Ten years later, when Guy's father turned seventy-five, the Logan paper named Guy and Delone among the guests from Arbon. In later years they lived at Malad, where Guy died at his home on July 1, 1961. Delone stayed on in Malad, active in the Relief Society and the Malad Valley Square Dance Club, and died on November 9, 1982, at eighty-one.
Elmira's road led back to Utah. Her obituary says she graduated from Brigham Young College in Logan. She married Merl William Brown in Logan on February 22, 1922; he died in 1933. She lived in Provo, Ogden and Logan, served as president of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Auxiliary in Logan, belonged to the Daughters of Utah Pioneers and worked for many years in the Logan Temple. When Delone died, Elmira was named among her survivors. She died in Logan on December 17, 1986, at eighty-eight.
Neither obituary names Summit, but the 1915 columns show both girls there: an eighth-grade examination passed, a schoolhouse being planned, visits with the neighbors and trips back to Logan.
The article as printed
American Falls Press, June 3, 1915, page 4. Transcribed from the page scan.
SOUTH ARBON NEWS.
About a week ago, Lee Van Horn, in jumping off a horse stepped in a hole and strained his knee so he has hardly been able to walk since.
Emmet Lee is suffering from a severe cold.
The people of the L. D. S. church had services at the residence of Mr. E. G. Smith, on the 23rd
Rev. Struges preached his first sermon to his little congregation at Highland, Sunday morning, May 23rd.
There was a slight frost in this section of the country on the night of the 22nd but it did no damage.
Roy Humphrey spent Sunday at the Lee home.
The spring rains continue and the crops are looking fine. They are a month earlier than usual.
The South Arbon ball team beat the North Arbon team again this week. The score was seven to eight. They are going to play the Daniels team on the 30th.
Mr. Nunnelley is repairing his saw mill and intends to start sawing in a few days.
Thelma Nunnelley and Elmira Smith just received the good news that they had passed the eighth grade examination in this district.
Mr. and Mrs. J. R. Stott have been visiting Mr. and Mrs Tom Stott
Harry Chapman is kept quite busy in his blacksmith shop. If a few more ranchers get mule teams he will have to hire an assistant.
Miss Lillie Blaine has gone to visit her parents who live at American Falls
Willie King has been in Malad for the past week.
Mr. James Lickingteller was fortunate in getting water on his homestead at a depth of forty-one feet. The people on the west side of the valey have had to go from two hundred and thirty to four hundred and sixty feet for water.
W. W. Harvey has a Fairbanks engine, horses and hogs for sale. If he can dispose of his property he is going to leave this part of the country.
Tracy Lee has moved onto his homestead and has been living in a tent while building a home.
Sydna Cram is still in the hospital in Ogden and is reported as being in a very critical condition.
Ed Hooker and Gus [illegible] are logging in Bull canyon and are going to get their building done before the rush at harvest time.
Ben Turner has purchased four work horses.
Among recent visitors were: Miss Sarah Karr at Mrs. Gus Brahmstadt's, Frank Burke and family at Frank Turner's, Mrs. C. A. Baker and Mrs. Herman Noth at Mr. Nunnelley's.
W. H. Smith is putting in telephone poles this month.
The Sunday school at Valley View has been discontinued.
Roy Smith has gone to Malad to get a new Ford.
Little Dorothy Lee has been sick and has been out of school for the past week.
Clyde Johnson is going to take a load of hogs to Malad this week.
The South Arbon ball team recently played the North Arbon team, also the Bull canyon team, and won both the games.
Several people from this part of the country attended the commencement exercises at the Mountain View school house in the district south of here on the 19th of May. After the program there was a ball game between the Buist and Malad boys. Free lunch was served after the game and there was a dance in the evening.
Mrs. Nina Johnson had a fine cow and a horse to die the first of May. The horse died of honorable old age and the cow was poisoned.
P. W. Lee, who has been in Portland, Oregon, under the care of a specialist for some time has returned to his homestead but is still in very poor health.
Mrs. Joe C. Jenson and three children have been quite sick.
Robert, the little son of Mr. and Mrs. Emmet Lee, has been sick but is much better.
Miss Anna Peterson has returned to Arbon after spending the winter months with home folks in Logan, Utah.
Guy Larsen had a fine saddle horse to step in a badger hole and break its leg.
The pupils of the eighth grade finished taking their examinations on the [illegible] of May.
The people of this district have bonded for $2,500 and expect to have a new school house in the center of the district and run two school wagons this fall. They also expect to hire two teachers.
The Highland Sunday school is progressing nicely.
Born To Mr. and Mrs. Tom Stott, on the 6th of May, a baby girl.
Artie King, who has been in Malad for some time was here for a visit with his parents the middle of May.
Jack Folsom and bride have arrived from Dayton, Wash and intend to make this their home.
Mr. and Mrs. Clive Hatfield are rejoicing over the [illegible] of a girl on May 4th.
Sydna Cram has been seriously ill for some time and has been in the hospital in Ogden for two weeks.
Joe Jenson has gone to Oregon on a business trip.
W. A. Nunnelley, Rob Anglo and James Nunnelley went to Stone in Mr. Nunnelley's new car last Saturday.
Mrs. E. A. Logan and Rev. Sturges were callers at the Nunnelley home last Saturday.
Joe Smith, from Logan, Utah, has been visiting relatives in Arbon this week.
On this site: the history of Summit, the Jenson family next door, Highland School and the first congregations at Summit.
Sources
- American Falls Press, June 3, 1915, page 4
- American Falls Press, June 17, 1915, page 1
- American Falls Press, July 8, 1915, page 2
- American Falls Press, September 2, 1915, page 8
- American Falls Press, September 16, 1915, page 2
- American Falls Press, November 18, 1915, page 2
- American Falls Press, June 29, 1916, page 6
- Logan Journal, December 28, 1929, page 3
- Logan Herald Journal, December 2, 1939, page 5
- Logan Herald Journal, January 18, 1960, page 3
- Ogden Standard-Examiner, July 3, 1961, page 11
- Ogden Standard-Examiner, November 11, 1982, page 44
- Ogden Standard-Examiner, December 19, 1986, page 40