For more than twenty years the mail on Arbon's rural route came by way of Ed Snyder, who farmed the old Evans homestead southwest of Arbon with his wife, Hannah. The American Falls Press followed the couple in its Arbon columns from their wedding in 1915 to a hard spring on the route in 1922. Their obituaries, in 1958 and 1964, tell the rest.
Hannah Evans
Hannah Williams was born at Samaria, near Malad, on August 13, 1882. In 1898 she married David Bowen Evans, and the two homesteaded in the valley, which was then part of Oneida County. Her 1964 obituary gives the wedding as July 5, 1898, in the Salt Lake Temple; the family history on this site gives June 5. They had six children. The accounts of David's death also disagree: the obituary says January 1912, and the family history, which cites his death certificate, says December 30, 1913.
By the spring of 1915 Hannah was a widow living on the ranch. The Arbon column of May 6 that year said she had "a fine line" of hats for children, misses and ladies, and that she lived at "the second ranch west above the Arbon postoffice."
That summer the same column carried her wedding:
Edward P. Snyder and Mrs. Hannah Evans were united in marriage, July 29, at Pocatello, Idaho. Mr. Snyder formerly resided at Denver Colorado, and Mrs. Snyder has lived here several years.
Ed's obituary says he was born in Nebraska in 1883 and came to Arbon Valley as a young man. Later accounts give other dates for the wedding: June 5, July 5 and July 28, 1915. The Press item, printed two weeks after the event, gives July 29. The Arbon columns announced a baby girl at the Snyder home in April 1916 and another in June 1917. They were probably Barbara and Ruth, two of the three daughters the family history lists for Hannah and Ed.
The ranch southwest of Arbon
In 1917 a roving Press correspondent who signed himself "the Pilgrim" wrote a page of news about Power County's farms and farmers. In October he described Mrs. Ed. Snyder's acre of garden on a ranch two miles southwest of Arbon. Early hail had struck it hard, though her cabbages still made heads.
Many other vegetables were completely destroyed, but the potato patch yielded enough to supply the household during the summer. Roasting ears and matured corn for seed, turnips, plenty of string beans and carrots were harvested. Mrs. Snyder has lived on this ranch seventeen years and this summer's hail storm is the second one in all this time to destroy the garden of this farm.
Seventeen years on the place fits the Evans homestead, so this Mrs. Snyder is almost certainly Hannah. Another Ed Snyder and his wife lived at Crystal, but they were a different couple. In November the Pilgrim reported that Ed Snyder, whose ranch lay two and a half miles southwest of the Arbon post office, meant to sow 90 acres of spring grain. He had "had his share of trouble with mustard weeds" and planned to fight the pest by sowing only in the spring.
Carrying the mail
Arbon's rural free delivery route, on which a carrier took the mail out from the post office to the farms, began in 1915 (see the first rural mail route). The papers name several carriers in its first years. In October 1917 the Press called Brigham Bowen "the rural mail carrier of Arbon." A notice for a carrier's examination in October 1918 added, "During the war women are eligible as carriers." During a five-day storm in December 1919, "L. B. Evans, the rural carrier, only got part way on his route, having to return home." He was Ren Evans, a brother of Hannah's first husband. In March 1920 the Press announced another examination to fill the position.
The Snyders had spent that winter in Utah and Malad and came home in April. On June 11, 1920, the Arbon column gave the news in a single line: "Mrs. Edward Snyder is now carrying the mail on the rural route." This was probably Hannah. The item does not say whether she held the appointment herself or carried the mail for her husband, and the post office's own carrier records have not been checked. In March 1921 the column reported that patrons on the route would soon have daily mail.
By 1922 Ed was the carrier. In mid-March he was back on the route after several days with influenza. Two weeks later the thaw came. The roads were "almost impassable as the snow is so rotten, that the horses break clear through," and teams had been out breaking a new road from Pauline to Arbon for the mail carrier on that road, whom the column names separately from Ed. The column went on:
The rural carrier Ed. Snyder has divided his route, his son Dave Evans taking the north and east route horseback and Mr. Snyder carrying the mail to the south end.
The paper calls him Ed's son; he was almost certainly Hannah's son David, Ed's stepson.
Later years
Ed Snyder's obituary in the Salt Lake Tribune says he was the rural mail carrier in Arbon for twenty-three years and ran a farm as well, and that the family moved to Pocatello in 1943. He died at his home there on August 12, 1958, at seventy-five. Melinda Campbell's history of Waldo Evans on this site remembers that Ed picked things up in town for families along the route. In winter he drove a truck cab set on sleigh runners, pulled by two horses, with a stove inside. It also says that Waldo, Hannah's son, took the route over from his stepfather; her history of his parents adds that he kept the homestead.
Hannah died in a Pocatello hospital on November 22, 1964, at eighty-two. Her obituaries in the Tribune and the Deseret News named her sons David of Boise and Waldo of Arbon (the Deseret News gives their surname as Evans), five daughters and twenty-three grandchildren. The digitized text garbles her first husband's name, but the 1898 marriage, the Arbon Valley homestead and the sons named Evans leave little doubt that he was David Bowen Evans.
The papers read for this post do not show exactly when Ed began on the route or when he left it. The earliest mention of the Snyders carrying the mail is that one line from June 1920.
The article as printed
American Falls Press, March 31, 1922, page 7. Transcribed from the page scan.
ARBON NEWS.
Lizzie Davis is recovering from an attack of the mumps.
Dorothy Lee also has been entertaining the mumps and is now recovering.
Mrs. Melvin Bailey and Mrs. J. R. Bailey went to Pocatello Monday, where they will remain for several days.
The U. S. mail from Pocatello did not get here last Friday due to the Bannock Creek bridge being under water. The flat near there was all submerged due to the melting snow.
Miss Elizabeth Bailey visited last week in Pauline, at the home of her sister Mrs. Anna Lusk.
Mrs. Elmer Roderick and infant daughter returned home here, last Thursday from Pocatello, where they have been visiting the past week at the home of Mrs. Julius Abter.
Brigg Bowen visited last week at the home of his sister Mrs. Jack Price and family of Pauline, who were all ill with the "flu". They are convalescing now.
Mrs. Jerry Baker came home from Malad a few days ago, where she has been visiting at the home of Mr. and Mrs. J. N. Arbon.
Arnold Mock and Len Carter, transacted business in Malad Tuesday and Wednesday.
Mrs. Marsdon Talion is ill at her home here.
Roy Porter came out from Pocatello last week to size up the snow drifts around his farm. He will move out with his family in a few days.
The weather the past week here has been warm, the snow is going fast, but the roads are almost impassable as the snow is so rotten, that the horses break clear through, and there s so much water underneath. Teams were out Thursday breaking a new road for the mail carrier. D. Roper, from Pauline to Arbon. The rural carrier Ed. Snyder has divided his route, his son Dave Evans taking the north and east route horseback and Mr. Snyder carrying the mail to the south end.
Wm. Allard and little son Billy returned home from Iowa, Friday, where they have been visiting with relatives the past month.
Word was received here of the death at Jackson, Wyoming, of Mrs. Daisy Blaine, of peritonitis. Her husband and four little children are left to mourn her loss, the youngest was five days old at the time of her death. Mrs. Blaine taught part of the term last year at the Valley View school.
On this site: David Bowen Evans and Hannah Williams, Waldo Evans, the Evans family and the first rural mail route.
Sources
- American Falls Press, May 6, 1915, page 4
- American Falls Press, August 12, 1915, page 4
- American Falls Press, April 20, 1916, page 1
- American Falls Press, June 22, 1917, page 8
- American Falls Press, October 26, 1917, page 3
- American Falls Press, November 30, 1917, page 3
- American Falls Press, April 30, 1918, page 4
- American Falls Press, October 4, 1918, page 3
- American Falls Press, December 19, 1919, page 1
- American Falls Press, March 12, 1920, page 2
- American Falls Press, April 23, 1920, page 7
- American Falls Press, June 11, 1920, page 6
- American Falls Press, March 18, 1921, page 2
- American Falls Press, March 17, 1922, page 4
- American Falls Press, March 31, 1922, page 7
- Salt Lake Tribune, August 13, 1958, page 28
- Salt Lake Tribune, November 23, 1964, page 21
- Deseret News, November 23, 1964, page 25