On Friday, February 23, 1968, the Idaho State Journal printed the obituary of Donald Sylvester Jenson, who had died at his Pocatello home the day before, at 65. He had lived in town since 1940, but the obituary makes clear that his working life belonged to Arbon Valley, where his father had homesteaded and where he farmed until he died.
Don was born at Logan, Utah, on August 10, 1902, to Joseph C. and Alice Smith Jenson. According to the obituary, the Jensons left Logan for Arbon Valley in 1909 to take up his father's homestead; the site's Jenson family pages give the same year for the homestead entry, with a family tradition of 1907. The Jenson land lay in the Summit area, the high part of the valley between Arbon and Buist. In September 1919, when Don was seventeen, his eight-year-old brother Vaughn was killed by a disc in the family's field; the family account says Don and his brother Clyde were the only others there.
His schooling, by the obituary's account, took him to Malad for his high school diploma and then to Pocatello's Idaho Technical Institute. The Arbon news in the American Falls Press caught him as a student at Thanksgiving 1922, together with the young woman he would marry:
The Misses Margaret Allard, Madeline England, Contsance Evans, Eline Noble and Mr. Don Jenson, who are all attending school in Pocatello, came home Wednesday to spend Thanksgiving with the home folks. They returned to school Sunday.
The item does not name the school, but the Technical Institute was in Pocatello, so it was probably the one. Don then served a mission for the Latter-day Saints in the Eastern States. The obituary dates it 1925 to 1927; the family account on this site gives January 6, 1926, to December 16, 1927.
They were married in the Salt Lake Temple on February 1, 1928, and on February 3 the Salt Lake papers listed the marriage licence of Donald S. Jenson and Constance Evans, both of Arbon. Connie was a daughter of the Arbon homesteaders Thomas B. and Susannah Evans; her mother was the Mrs. T. B. Evans who kept the Arbon post office and switchboard. Marriage is what put Don on land of his own in the valley: he bought an Arbon farm then, and it was still in his hands at his death. The papers list him among the family at Arbon when his father died in June 1929, and as late as March 1931 the obituary of Connie's brother Joe Evans counted "Mrs. Don Jenson" among his sisters at Arbon. His mother died at Arbon in July 1936.
The Jensons made Pocatello their home from 1940, and by 1942, when T. B. Evans died, Connie was listed as Mrs. Connie Jenson of Pocatello. Don went on farming at Arbon from town, and he kept a hand in the valley's gatherings. The Pocatello Tribune named a Don Jensen as vice chairman of the committee for the Arbon Valley reunion held in Pocatello in February 1948 and as director of the program at the 1949 reunion. In 1950 the Idaho State Journal gave his full name, Donald S. Jenson, as the reunion's vice president; with the president, Roy Lindley, away in Mexico, Don ran the evening, and Connie directed the program.
Church work fills much of the obituary, in the valley and in town alike: he was a member of two Arbon ward bishoprics, sat on the Pocatello Stake high council, and spent many years as cubmaster of Pocatello's Tenth Ward. It does not say which Arbon wards he served in, or when. It also names his three surviving brothers, Clyde, Vernon and Merlin, and his sister Ida. Clyde, who also farmed at Arbon, is the Clyde Jenson who in 1955 lent a violin to the Utah Symphony's concertmaster.
What remains unknown is where in the valley Don's own farm lay; the obituary does not place it.
On this site: Don Jenson, with a photograph of Don and Connie, and the Jenson family.
The story as reported
Idaho State Journal, February 23, 1968, page 2. The original article is under copyright; this is our own report of what it said.
A heart attack took Donald S. Jenson at his Pocatello house on Thursday, February 22, 1968. The 65-year-old had farmed in Arbon Valley for most of his life.
His parents, Joseph C. and Alice Smith Jenson, were living in Logan, Utah, when he arrived on August 10, 1902. The family stayed in Logan through his first years; 1909 was when his father took up an Arbon Valley homestead and the move north was made. For high school he went to Malad, finishing there, and after that he took classes at the Idaho Technical Institute. The Eastern States were the field of his LDS mission. The Salt Lake Temple was the setting for his wedding to Constance Evans, known as Connie, on February 1, 1928.
Buying a place in Arbon Valley came after the wedding, and working it occupied him for the rest of his life. Pocatello had been where the family lived since 1940.
Church service ran through his life. Back in the valley he had sat in two Arbon ward bishoprics; in Pocatello he held the office of high priest in the Tenth Ward and a seat on the Pocatello Stake high council. Scouting claimed a good share of his time, the Tenth Ward's cub scouts above all, whom he led for years; he had also been a ward chorister and a Sunday school teacher. Family history and temple ordinances drew him too, and so did a day of fishing. Outside church affairs he belonged to the Farm Bureau, and at one time he had held a Democratic precinct committee post.
Connie outlived him, as did their daughters, Sue Del Mallavia and Marilyn Westenskow, and six grandchildren. Of his own brothers and sisters, Clyde Jenson (Logan), Vernon (Malad), Merlin (Nampa) and Ida Jenson (San Francisco) were still living.
Bishop Bud H. Hinckley was to lead the services, scheduled for 2 p.m. on Monday, February 26, in the LDS Pocatello Stakehouse on South Grant. Burial would follow at Restlawn Memorial Gardens. Friends could pay their respects at the Manning Funeral Chapel.
Sources
- Idaho State Journal, February 23, 1968, page 2
- American Falls Press, October 10, 1919, page 1
- American Falls Press, December 7, 1922, page 5
- Salt Lake Tribune, February 3, 1928, page 21
- Salt Lake Telegram, February 3, 1928, page 22
- Deseret News, June 18, 1929, page 6
- Pocatello Tribune, March 22, 1931, page 2
- Salt Lake Tribune, July 26, 1936, page 24
- Deseret News, April 29, 1942, page 28
- Pocatello Tribune, February 8, 1948, page 18
- Pocatello Tribune, March 13, 1949, page 9
- Idaho State Journal, February 6, 1950, page 8
- Idaho State Journal, February 19, 1950, page 47