Earl Lewis of Pauline: a ruptured appendix, January 1928

In the first hours of 1928 a twelve-year-old boy from the Pauline side of Arbon Valley was brought into Pocatello with appendicitis. He was Earl Lewis, son of Hyrum Lewis, and he reached the city at 3:30 in the morning on Sunday, January 1, New Year's Day. The Pocatello Tribune reported the operation on Monday in a short item headed "Undergoes Operation":

Earl Lewis, 12-year-old son of Hyrum Lewis of Crystal, Idaho, was operated on for appendicitis, at Lynn Brothers hospital Sunday morning. The appendix was ruptured and the boy was brought into the city at 3:30 a. m. for the operation.

The paper did not say how he made the trip or who brought him.

Two weeks later

Earl lived eighteen more days. On the morning of Thursday, January 19, he died at a Pocatello hospital. The Tribune printed a short notice the same day, under the heading "Boy Died Today." Peritonitis, the notice said, was reported to have followed the operation. Besides his parents he left his brothers and sisters Hyrum Jr., Neil, Paul and May. The Hall Mortuary was to send his body to Malad on Friday, January 20, for burial. The papers read for this post do not report the funeral or name the cemetery.

Crystal or Pauline

The two notices place the family differently: "of Crystal" on January 2, "of Pauline" on January 19. Both names were used for the Lewises, whose home appears to have lain on the Pauline side, between the two settlements. Hyrum Lewis registered for the draft in 1917 as a man of Pauline, but when the American Falls Press printed the order numbers that August, the same serial number appeared as "H. Lewis, Crystal." The 1920 census counted the family in the Pauline precinct: Hyrum, 27, a farmer who owned his place; his wife, Sarah, 24; and two sons, Earl, 4, and Hyrum, 2.

A first-grader at the Armstrong school

The Lewis children went to School District No. 6, the one-room school between Pauline and Crystal that came to be called the Armstrong school. When the American Falls Press printed its picture in December 1921, Earl was the only first-grader among its eight pupils, and his father was one of the three directors. The school's story is told in Eight pupils, three families.

Earl turns up in that school's news again. For Washington's birthday in 1924 the pupils planned a program for their parents, with "The Cherry Tree" to be acted out by Asa Armstrong and Earl Lewis. His younger brother Hyrum was in the same schoolroom by then. In October 1925 the county superintendent, Cora Darling, found the boys' father, Hyrum Lewis, serving as clerk of a small school that was almost certainly District 6. He reminded her that he and another man had walked through the snow to bring in the poles for the children's swing and teeter-totter (Lila Wade and the one-room schools).

The long way to an operation

Earl was not the first child from the valley to make that trip. In 1915 eleven-year-old Bard Bailey of Arbon was rushed to Pocatello with appendicitis, and his appendix burst before they reached town (The long road to the doctor). In August 1921 six-year-old Alane Andersen died about two weeks after an appendicitis operation at American Falls.

On this site: Pauline and West Fork and Crystal.

The article as printed

Pocatello Tribune, January 19, 1928, page 10. Transcribed from the page scan; a few periods that did not print on the worn page are supplied.

Boy Died Today
Earl E. Lewis, age 12, son of Mr. and Mrs. Hyrum E. Lewis, of Pauline, Idaho, died at a local hospital this morning. He had been rushed here two weeks ago suffering from acute appendicitis. Peritonitis is said to have followed the operation, which revealed a ruptured appendix. Besides his parents he is survived by the following brothers and sisters Hyrum, Jr., Neil, Paul and May. The body will be shipped to Malad Friday for interment by the Hall Mortuary.