On the morning of Friday, September 24, 1965, Richard Sorensen Christensen, a 47-year-old dry farmer from Brigham City, Utah, was killed at harvest in Arbon Valley when the combine he was running tipped over on a hill and rolled onto him. His death was reported in the following days by three Utah newspapers, and their accounts are the ones retold here.
A morning's harvest
The fullest report is the one the Box Elder Journal of Brigham City printed on its front page two days later. By its account, he had gone to Idaho early that morning to harvest grain for Ray Adams, a friend who also lived in Brigham City, and when that work was done he moved on to the next farm, owned by Morgan Smith of Crystal, Idaho. Crystal is one of the valley's communities, a high basin of springs and creeks farmed mostly without irrigation. The Box Elder Journal, the only paper to name Smith, gives his home as Crystal, but none of the papers says exactly where the field lay. They place it only in Arbon Valley, near or "below" Pocatello.
As Christensen tried to turn the combine around on a hill, the paper said, the machine tipped over, threw him to the ground and rolled on top of him. The accident was thought to have happened about 10 a.m., but he was "not found until 12 noon." The paper said he had apparently been killed instantly.
A short wire report from American Falls, the Power County seat, printed on the front page of the Logan Herald Journal the same Sunday, gave the account of Power County sheriff's deputies. They said "the leveling mechanism on the combine apparently failed" while the machine was making a turn on a steep downhill grade, and that it crushed him when it rolled over. A leveling mechanism was the part meant to keep a combine level as it worked across sloping ground. On September 30 the Tremonton Leader put it in nearly the same terms: the combine had "failed to adjust mechanically to the contour of the hill" and tipped over on him. The Brigham City paper said only that he was turning on a hill. The mechanical failure comes from the deputies and from the Tremonton paper.
Who he was
Richard Christensen was born on May 1, 1918, in Bear River City, Utah, the son of Hyrum E. and Inger Sorensen Christensen. He grew up there and attended Box Elder High School. On September 20, 1939, he married Leone Bunot in the Salt Lake Temple. He dry farmed at Bear River City and at Promontory, in Box Elder County. In the LDS church at Bear River City he had served as secretary of the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association, the YMMIA, and in the Sunday school superintendency. After he moved to Brigham City, he was a Sunday school teacher and superintendent and a ward clerk, and at his death he was a counselor in the bishopric of the Brigham City Eighth Ward. He left his wife, a daughter and two sons, his parents, two sisters and a brother.
The Tremonton Leader told how the news reached that brother. Chester Christensen of Bear River City was up Logan Canyon hunting elk when word came that Richard had been killed in Arbon Valley. The Box Elder Journal said the funeral was set for Monday, September 27, in the Brigham City Eighth Ward chapel, with burial in the Bear River City cemetery.
What the reports leave open
The accounts show a Brigham City man cutting Arbon Valley grain for a Brigham City friend in 1965 and then moving on to the next farm. They do not say whether Ray Adams owned or rented his Idaho ground, whether Christensen was being paid for the work or helping a friend, or how he came to be cutting the Smith grain. No Idaho newspaper report of the accident has been found for this post.
The story as reported
Box Elder Journal, September 26, 1965, page 1. The original article is under copyright; this is our own report of what it said.
ARBON VALLEY, Idaho — A Brigham City, Utah, man died at harvest here on Friday morning, September 24, 1965, when the combine he was driving overturned on a hillside and came down on top of him.
The dead man, Richard Sorensen Christensen, was 47. Besides dry farming, he held a leadership post in his Brigham City ward of the LDS Church.
Ray Adams, another Brigham City resident and a friend of Christensen's, had grain to be cut in Idaho, and Christensen was said to have made the drive up early that day to harvest it. Once that job was done, he crossed to the next farm over, which belonged to Morgan Smith of Crystal, Idaho.
On the Smith place he was swinging the machine around on a hillside when the combine went over. He landed on the ground, and the combine rolled onto him. Nobody came upon him until noon, roughly two hours after the accident is thought to have taken place at about 10 a.m. He seems to have died at once.
Born May 1, 1918, at Bear River City, Utah, he was a son of Hyrum E. Christensen and Inger Sorensen Christensen. Bear River City was his boyhood home, and his high school was Box Elder High School. He and Leone Bunot were wed in the Salt Lake Temple on September 20, 1939. He worked dry farms at Bear River City and at Promontory.
His church service at Bear River City included a term as YMMIA secretary and a place in the Sunday school superintendency. Once settled in Brigham City, he took on ward duties as a Sunday school teacher, as head of the Sunday school, and as ward clerk. When he died, he sat in the Eighth Ward bishopric as one of the bishop's counselors.
Those left behind were his wife; a daughter and two sons; his parents, who lived in Brigham City; a brother, Chester E. Christensen of Bear River City; and two sisters, one in Salt Lake City and one in Ontario, California.
The funeral was set for Monday at 1 p.m. in the Brigham City Eighth Ward chapel. Friends could call at the Olsen Funeral Chapel on Sunday evening and again on Monday before the service, and the body was to be laid to rest in the Bear River City cemetery.
On this site: the history of the Crystal area, the Stories entry on the first combines of 1915, and the Tragedies list, which includes C. T. Hansen's tractor accident of 1968.