In September 1953 a short item in the Malad news of the Ogden Standard-Examiner announced that Mr. and Mrs. John H. Bolingbroke Sr. of Pocatello would celebrate their golden wedding anniversary on September 16. It gave the outline of their lives: a wedding at Malad, some forty years of farming and stock raising in Arbon Valley, and retirement to Pocatello. The valley news of the years between fills in part of that outline.
From Malad to Pauline
John Henry Bolingbroke was born at Malad on March 24, 1875, the oldest son of Henry Mitchel Bolingbroke, one of the valley's earliest settlers. Beatrice Thomas was born at Malad on October 15, 1882, a daughter of Ephraim and Margaret Thomas. The 1953 notice said they were "both born and reared in Malad" and lived there until they married.
They were married at Malad on September 16, 1903. The county marriage record, as the Western States Marriage Record Index gives it, has that date, and so do the 1953 notice and Beatrice's obituary; it is the anniversary the couple kept fifty years later. The family history on this site gives September 15, 1904.
Shortly afterward, the 1953 notice says, they moved to Arbon Valley. Malad was the seat of Oneida County, and the valley was part of that county until Power County was formed in 1913. The family account on this site says John took over his father's homestead after Henry Mitchel died in 1905. The papers place the ranch at Pauline, at the north end of the valley. John's brother David Lusk Bolingbroke had married Beatrice's sister Mary Ellen, and the family account tells how the two families shared the house in summer and took turns wintering in Malad so the children could go to school.
Summers at the ranch, winters in Malad
The American Falls Press shows that pattern in its news from Arbon and Pauline. In early June 1917 it reported that John Bolingbroke and his family had moved back out to their home at Pauline after spending the winter at Malad. In October Beatrice returned from Malad with word that "plums and apples are going to waste there in the orchards," and the same column said Mrs. Dave Bolingbroke had moved to Malad, "where she will reside during the school months and will send her children to school."
The cattle still had to be fed through the winter. On November 27, 1917, the Pauline notes reported:
Richard Thomas and Bill Richards have returned after about six weeks of sight-seeing in Idaho and Montana. I guess they must think that Pauline is as good as anywhere, as they have returned for the winter to feed cattle at John Bolingbroke's ranch.
The Richard Thomas named here may have been Beatrice's younger brother Richard, though another Richard Thomas had also received a government patent for land near Pauline in 1915. In the spring the Press reported the families' return:
Messrs. Dave and John Bolingbroke have moved their families back to the ranch after spending the past winter in Malad.
The family's ties to Malad went beyond the school winters. In November 1918, in a column that also told of a mother and daughter who had come out from Malad because of the influenza epidemic there, John and Beatrice went down for the funeral of a niece who had died of pneumonia. In December 1923 the Press reported that Mr. and Mrs. John Bolingbroke had gone to Malad, "where they will make their home this winter."
Public business and family news
John's name also turns up in the county's public business. In July 1915 he was paid for road work. When the Press printed the Power County draft order numbers for the men registered in September 1918, John Henry Bolingbroke of Pauline, then 43, was on the list, and so was his brother David. In 1920 he was on the year's jury list from Pauline. In July 1922 he was named one of three judges of election at the Pauline schoolhouse for the August primary, and in August the Democratic county convention at American Falls chose J. H. Bolingbroke of Pauline as one of its eight delegates to the party's state convention at Hailey.
The couple had four children: Eph, born in 1904; Evelyn, in 1906; Beatrice, in 1908; and John Jr., in 1915. In November 1923, when pupils of the rural schools began sending their own news to the Press, the school news reported that the two daughters had visited the Pauline school.
Retirement and the golden wedding
John retired in 1945, according to the 1953 notice and Beatrice's obituary, and the couple moved to Pocatello. Both sons stayed at Arbon. The site's family accounts differ on which son took over the home ranch: John's history says John Jr., and Eph's says Eph. It was in Eph and Zella Bolingbroke's home that the valley saw its first television in 1952.
For the golden wedding, the notice said, the couple would be honored at an open house at their Pocatello home on the anniversary itself. It named their children: Mrs. Rufus Lawson, who was the younger Beatrice, and Mrs. Douglas Nielsen, probably Evelyn, both of Pocatello, and Eph and John Jr., both of Arbon. There were ten grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
The last years
John Henry Bolingbroke died less than two years later, at 80. The Salt Lake Tribune printed his death notice on July 1, 1955, Beatrice's obituary appears to say he died in June 1955, and his Find a Grave memorial gives June 29, 1955. The family history on this site gives January 29, 1955. The 1955 notice is badly jumbled in the digitized text; as far as it can be read, it gives the marriage as 1904, as the site's family history does, and the move to Pocatello as 1943, where the 1953 and 1960 notices give 1903 and 1945.
Beatrice Bolingbroke died in a Pocatello hospital on Friday, January 8, 1960, at 77. Her obituary repeated the outline of the golden-wedding notice: the 1903 marriage, the move to Arbon Valley, farming and stock raising, and retirement in 1945. As far as its jumbled text can be read, it also named her a member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the church now called Community of Christ. She was survived by her four children, two sisters and ten grandchildren. Both are buried in Mountain View Cemetery in Pocatello.
The story as reported
Ogden Standard-Examiner, September 11, 1953, page 13. The original article is under copyright; this is our own report of what it said.
MALAD — A Pocatello couple who spent four decades raising crops and livestock in Arbon Valley will mark fifty years of marriage next week. Mr. and Mrs. John H. Bolingbroke Sr. will observe their golden wedding anniversary on September 16.
Both grew up in Malad, where they were born, and they made their home in the town until they married on September 16, 1903. Not long after the ceremony the newlyweds left for Arbon Valley. There they farmed and ran stock until 1945. That year Mr. Bolingbroke retired, and the couple settled in Pocatello.
The Bolingbrokes will be honored on the anniversary day with an open house at their Pocatello home, from 2 to 10 p.m.
The couple have four children. Their daughters, Mrs. Rufus Lawson and Mrs. Douglas Nielsen, live in Pocatello. Their sons, Eph and John Jr., both live at Arbon. The family also includes ten grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
On this site: the Bolingbroke family, with the histories of John Henry, Eph and David Lusk Bolingbroke, and Pauline and West Fork.
Sources
- American Falls Press, July 29, 1915, page 4
- American Falls Press, June 5, 1917, page 2
- American Falls Press, October 9, 1917, page 4
- American Falls Press, November 27, 1917, page 2
- American Falls Press, March 29, 1918, page 8
- American Falls Press, October 18, 1918, page 3
- American Falls Press, November 26, 1918, page 3
- American Falls Press, April 16, 1920, page 6
- American Falls Press, July 27, 1922, page 4
- American Falls Press, August 17, 1922, page 1
- American Falls Press, November 15, 1923, page 8
- American Falls Press, December 13, 1923, page 11
- Ogden Standard-Examiner, September 11, 1953, page 13
- Salt Lake Tribune, July 1, 1955, page 25
- Salt Lake Tribune, January 9, 1960, page 24
- Western States Marriage Record Index: John H. Bolingbroke and Beatrice Thomas, 1903
- Western States Marriage Record Index: Rufus H. Lawson and Beatrice Bolingbroke, 1931
- Find a Grave: John Henry Bolingbroke