William H. Mathews, Summit-end homesteader, dies, 1946

William Henry Mathews was 74 when he died on Christmas Day, 1946, in his own house in Pocatello. The next day the Pocatello Tribune gave him a short notice among its obituaries. It said he had "farmed at Arbon for several years" before he retired. The valley's own records suggest that those years were closer to a quarter of a century, and that many of his and his wife's thirteen children grew up on a homestead at the Summit end of the valley.

Before Arbon

Ogden, Utah, was Bill Mathews's birthplace, and March 16, 1872, his birthday. His parents, Henry and Maria Mathews, made their home at Hyrum in Cache Valley. Sarah Ann Iverson became his wife in 1898. Riverside, in Bingham County, was the young couple's first home, and their first children were born there. Sarah's brothers, the Iversons, would also become Arbon homesteaders. By the obituary's count, Bill moved to Pocatello about 1905.

The homestead

The site's family research finds that he filed on a homestead at the south end of the Arbon floor, toward Summit, probably in 1909 or 1910. He seems to have been living on it by the late summer of 1911, when the Arbon column of the American Falls Press, among its threshing news, reported a small disaster:

Mr. Matthews lost his cabin last week while burning sage brush the flames getting beyond control.

The paper gave no first name, but the land records make it probable that this was Bill. The family stayed on. His brother Arthur, who had married Sarah's sister Hannah Iverson, took up the land next to his, and both brothers received their patents on June 28, 1917. A third brother, George L. Mathews of Pocatello, gave notice in 1921 that he would prove up on land a few miles north, naming Brig Bowen, Hans and George Iverson and George Parker, "all of Arbon," as his witnesses. In January 1915 the Logan Journal reported that an infant child of "Arthur Mathews of Arbon" had died in Logan while his wife was visiting relatives there.

Bill and Sarah's younger children were born at Arbon: Melvin in 1914, Gerald in 1916 and Dale in 1918. Their eldest daughter, May, married Eddie Davis of Arbon in December 1917, a wedding that had to move from Logan to Salt Lake City when the Logan Temple burned. In the 1920 census the Mathews household, ten people, was counted at the Summit end, and in 1930 they were there still.

The school news of the 1920s shows the family's children in the life of the valley. In the first issue of 1924 the American Falls Press reported that the pupils of the Valley View school had organized their school as "Arbon City," with Harold Anderson as mayor and five street "sheriffs" to keep the rows of seats clean and in order; two of the sheriffs were Howard and Melvin Mathews. In the early months of 1924 Howard made the honor roll, a Miss Nellie Matthews, probably their daughter Nellie, went with Birdie Wacaster to see the oil well, and Mr. and Mrs. William Matthews were noted visiting Pocatello and visiting at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Lourn Coburn.

The family's youngest child, Ralph, was born early in February 1925 and died later that month. He was buried in the Arbon Valley Cemetery.

Leaving the valley

When Bill's mother died in Logan in October 1932, her obituaries still listed her son William at Arbon. According to the site's family research, the family left the valley about 1934 for the Portneuf country near Inkom, and was in Pocatello by 1940. The 1946 obituary agrees that he spent his retirement at Inkom, though it gives his last home as a house in Pocatello.

He was buried in Mountain View cemetery at Pocatello. Sarah Ann Mathews died in Pocatello on May 7, 1949.

The family's ties to the valley outlasted their years on the homestead. May and Eddie Davis lived at Arbon until the late 1960s. The site's research identifies Melvin Mathews as the father of Karen Mathews, who married David R. Andersen in 1965.

What is not known

The obituary says Bill worked for "Bistlines" after he came to Pocatello but does not say what the work was. When exactly the family arrived on the homestead, when they left, and what became of the land afterward are not known from the records read so far.

On this site: the Stories entry on the 1911 cabin fire, The Logan Temple fire and an Arbon wedding, Eddie Arbon Davis and Rosa May Mathews, the Summit area, the Gem State oil well and David Andersen's obituary. If your family knows more about the Mathews homestead, we would be glad to hear it.

The story as reported

Pocatello Tribune, December 26, 1946, page 5. The original article is under copyright; this is our own report of what it said.

Death came to former Arbon farmer William Henry Mathews in his Pocatello house on Christmas morning, Wednesday, December 25, 1946. A long illness had preceded it, and he was 74.

His parents were Henry and Maria Stene Rolphson Mathews, and Ogden, Utah, was where he was born, on March 16, 1872. The year 1898 brought both his move to Idaho and his marriage to Sarah Ann Iverson, held May 28 at Riverside, where the newlyweds made their first home.

About 1905, which the paper put at 41 years earlier, Pocatello became his home and Bistlines his employer. Inkom had been his home once he stopped working, the paper said, and before that retirement he had spent several years farming at Arbon.

Sarah outlived him, as did ten of their children. Gerald Herbert Mathews lived at Nampa, William Leo Mathews at Los Angeles and a daughter, Mrs. Chester Tripp, at Richmond, Utah. The other seven were in Pocatello: Mrs. Edward A. Davis, Mrs. Victor Green, Mrs. Everett Peck, and the sons Howard Leslie, Melvin DeVoere, Dale Haden and Henry Iverson Mathews. There were 20 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Six siblings were living. Two, George L. and Arthur T. Mathews, were Pocatello men; the other four, Leonard and John C. Mathews, Mrs. Mary Larsen and Julia Mathews, made their homes in Oakland, California.

No funeral plans had been set yet; the Hall mortuary was to make them public.