Between stakes: the Arbon Ward from Curlew to Pocatello, 1940–1951

On Sunday, February 11, 1940, at a quarterly conference in Snowville, Utah, the Curlew Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was dissolved, and the Arbon Ward, which had belonged to it for twenty-five years, was placed in the Pocatello Stake. Eleven years later the ward itself was discontinued. Short church notices in the Utah papers follow it through the years in between.

A ward that looked south

A stake is a group of wards under one stake presidency, which holds conferences for them all. According to Andrew Jenson's church history of 1941, the Curlew Stake was organized at Snowville on May 17, 1915, from wards of the Malad Stake, Arbon among them, and two wards of the Box Elder Stake in Utah. Its headquarters were at Holbrook, in Curlew Valley west of Malad. Its wards lay on both sides of the Idaho–Utah line; by 1940 they were Arbon, Holbrook and Stone in Idaho, and Snowville, Park Valley and Rosette in Utah. Arbon had been in Oneida County until Power County was created in 1913, and by 1930 it was the stake's only settlement in Power County.

The valley's Latter-day Saints did not all look the same way. The Meadow Ward at the Pauline end, organized in 1911 with Wilhelm F. Kowallis as bishop, had been moved to the Pocatello Stake in 1913 because Pocatello was easier for its members to reach, Jenson wrote. In December 1915 the American Falls Press reported that Bishop Kowallis had spoken at the Pocatello Stake's quarterly conference in November.

The Arbon Ward's members went south. In May 1918 the Press's Arbon correspondent described a trip to Snowville for its Old Folks Day and conference, at which ribbons were given out by age, from fifty up:

Four large cars crammed full of jolly people left from here early Friday morning returning that night. A very enjoyable time was had by all who were lucky enough to attend.

The stake also came north. In September 1923 the Press reported a Snowville party that included "several Stake officers who drove to Arbon for a two days session of conference." Colen H. Sweeten of Holbrook became stake president in 1924. As the wards at either end of the valley closed, the Arbon Ward took in their members: the Meadow Ward was disorganized in 1929 and its remaining members were transferred to Arbon, and when the Summit Ward was discontinued on May 18, 1930, sixty-one of its members went to Arbon. According to the Logan Herald Journal, Willard Anderson, the Arbon Ward's genealogical chairman, and Don Jensen went from Arbon with a Curlew Stake young people's excursion to the Logan Temple on July 31, 1939.

The last conference at Snowville

The end came the next winter. The Bear River Valley Leader of Tremonton reported that Elders Stephen L. Richards and Charles A. Callis of the Council of the Twelve had dissolved the stake "last Sunday" during its quarterly conference. The Deseret News called it the final Curlew Stake conference. The wards were divided: Snowville, Stone, Park Valley and Rosette went to the Bear River Stake in Utah, Holbrook to the Malad Stake, and Arbon to the Pocatello Stake. President Sweeten, his counselors Willard R. Smith and Arthur G. Willie, and all the stake officers were "released with a vote of thanks for their services," the Leader said. The paper put the stake's founding "some 30 years ago," with Jonathan C. Cutler as president; Jenson's date of 1915 makes it nearer twenty-five.

None of the papers found gave a reason. For Arbon, it meant a stake center at Pocatello, north of the valley, where the Meadow Ward's members had gone to conference a generation before.

The ward in the 1940s

From then on the ward appears mostly in brief lists. A badly scanned funeral notice of July 1940 seems to name Willard Anderson of Arbon as bishop, and by January 1949 he certainly was: the Salt Lake papers reported that he would conduct the funeral in Pocatello of Lester William Evans, 41. He was almost certainly Willard J. Andersen, John C. Andersen's eldest son, whom the site's Andersen family history names as bishop in the 1940s. Jenson's list of bishops, which stops in 1930, ends with the ward's first bishop, Joseph N. Arbon, serving a second term from 1925. When that term ended, when Willard took office, and whether anyone served between them is not recorded.

The Deseret News Church Section printed new callings:

In May 1944, the paper reported that Pierce Hardman had been set apart as second counselor in the Arbon Ward bishopric, with Elder Spencer W. Kimball of the Council of the Twelve officiating.
In September 1947, under the heading of the West Pocatello Stake, it reported that Vance Pope had been set apart as first counselor and Ronald Linn Rich as second counselor, with Elder Ezra Taft Benson officiating.

Vance Pope was probably the man whose family a St. George paper had placed at "their home in Arbon, Idaho" in 1946. Nothing more was found about Ronald Linn Rich. The site's Andersen family history dates the ward's move to the new West Pocatello Stake to 1945.

Discontinued, 1951

At the church's general conference in October 1951, the list of changes in wards and stakes made since the April conference included this entry under "Wards Discontinued": "Arbon Ward, West Pocatello Stake, disorganized, membership transfered to other wards."

The records do not quite agree on the date. The site's Arbon history, drawing on Church History Library records, gives April 1951. The conference list places the change after the April conference, so the two may agree if it came late that month. Yet in an interview printed in the Deseret News that September, the West Pocatello Stake's president still counted "one ward at Arbon" among his stake's units.

The Latter-day Saints of the valley kept meeting. In May 1953 the Tremonton Leader reported that Warren Hansen had been guest speaker at the Mother's Day program at Arbon, and in July the Logan Herald Journal reported that Dr. J. N. Symons had spoken at sacrament services and at a fireside in Arbon Valley. By the Andersen family's account, Willard Andersen later served many years as a counselor to Branch President Joe Arbon and then as branch president himself.

The story as reported

Bear River Valley Leader, February 15, 1940, page 1. The original article is under copyright; this is our own report of what it said.

Sunday's quarterly conference of the Curlew Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, held February 11, 1940, was its last. Presiding were two apostles from the Quorum of the Twelve, Stephen L. Richards and Charles A. Callis, and it was they who closed the stake.

Its six wards now belong to three other stakes. The Bear River Stake gains the most, taking in Snowville, Stone, Park Valley and Rosette, which raise its total to 18 wards. The Malad Stake picks up the Holbrook Ward, while Arbon's ward now answers to the Pocatello Stake.

Releases went to President Colen H. Sweeten, to Willard R. Smith and Arthur G. Willie, who served as his counselors, and to all other stake officers. The conference voted to thank them for what they had done.

Jonathan C. Cutler was the stake's president at its founding, roughly thirty years before.

On this site: the first Pauline ward, the Pauline and West Fork history, and the history of Don Jenson, probably the Don Jensen of the 1939 excursion.

Between stakes: the Arbon Ward from Curlew to Pocatello, 1940–1951

A ward that looked south

The last conference at Snowville

The ward in the 1940s

Discontinued, 1951

The story as reported

Sources

Connected histories

Pauline and West Fork

John C. & DeSena Andersen