Between 1976 and 1998 a few Utah newspapers printed short items about the Latter-day Saint congregation at Arbon, in Power County, Idaho: a missionary farewell, the funerals of its leaders, a call to Taiwan and an Eagle Scout. Read with one more obituary from 2002, they give a picture of a small branch led by the valley's farmers, and they show why old clippings can leave a reader unsure whether Arbon had a ward or a branch.
A branch since 1951
The congregation began as the Arbon Branch in 1900 and became a ward in 1908, with Joseph N. Arbon as its first bishop (see the first congregation). A ward is led by a bishop; a branch, the smaller unit, by a branch president. By the Church History Library's unit records, the ward was disorganized in April 1951 and continued as the Arbon Branch; the site's Arbon history notes that accounts of the date differ. The site's records name Joe Arbon, Willard J. Andersen and, from 1967, Dave Lusk among its presidents. Until 1968, by the Lusk family's account, church in the valley was not held in winter; Dave Lusk saw the building made ready for winter meetings.
A farewell in 1976
Three Utah papers dated April 29, 1976, reported the same Sunday at Arbon. In what appears to be its Clarkston news, the Cache Citizen noted a missionary farewell in the Arbon, Idaho, ward chapel for David Jensen, who was leaving for a mission at Nashville, and added: "He is the first missionary to be called from that ward." The Box Elder Journal gave his full name, Elder David Gary Jensen, and his field, the Tennessee Nashville Mission. Both the Journal and the Tremonton Leader said that Elder Devere Harris attended at Arbon Valley. The Leader called him a Regional Representative "representing the General Authorities" and added that he had presided that weekend at the Idaho State University Stake conference in Pocatello.
The Cache Citizen does not say what it meant by the first missionary, and the claim cannot hold for the valley as a whole. The site's Jenson history records Don Jenson in the Eastern States Mission in 1926 and 1927, with Arbon given as his home, and Craig Parkinson, who grew up at Arbon, served in the Florida Mission from 1960 to 1962, though his obituary does not say from which congregation.
The men who led it
Edwin Craig Parkinson died on December 31, 1986, at 46. Born in Salt Lake City in 1940, he moved to Arbon as a child and was raised by his grandparents, Eddie and May Davis, whose farm he bought in 1967; May's own memories of close calls are among the site's Stories. He farmed most of his life in Arbon Valley, spending the winters in Pocatello, where he worked for several years at the Chevron bulk plant. He had been Young Men's president, a "counselor in the Arbon Branch Presidency," and a teacher in the Primary and Sunday School. His funeral was set for the Pocatello LDS Stake chapel, with "President Vance Ward of the Arbon Branch" conducting. His grandmother, Rosa May Davis, survived him.
That Vance Ward was probably Vance Elmer Ward (1948–2026), who farmed with his brother Darrel, according to the site's Ward family history. A Logan funeral notice of August 1984 had already named "Branch President Vance Ward" and the "Arbon Valley LDS Branch."
David L. Bird died in Salt Lake City on June 3, 1997, at 61. Born in Malad in 1936, a son of Matthew F. and Louise Perry Bird, probably of the Bird family of Buist at the valley's south end, he grew up on the family farm in Arbon Valley and graduated from Logan High School. He married Barbara Petersen in the Logan Temple on June 3, 1955, forty-two years to the day before his death. After several years in Logan the couple moved to Arbon Valley for good in 1973. His obituary spoke of his love for the farm, his neighbors and friends, and his "constant thirst for knowledge," and said that of all his church work he would be remembered for his "10 years as branch president" of the Arbon Valley LDS Branch. It does not give the years; since Vance Ward presided in 1984 and at the start of 1987, Bird's decade probably fell before or after that time.
Collene T. "C. T." Hansen died in Mesa, Arizona, on December 12, 2002, at 93. His obituary called him a man of Clarkston, of Arbon and of Mesa. He farmed in Cache Valley and later in Arbon Valley for fifty years, was a scoutmaster in the Clarkston Ward for twenty years, and served as a "counselor in the Arbon branch presidency for several years." He was almost certainly the C. T. Hansen whose neighbors, led by Dave Lusk, did his spring farm work in 1968 while he was laid up after a tractor accident; his wife, Sadie Buttars Hansen, was likewise almost certainly the Sadie B. Hansen who told that story.
Ward or branch?
The Utah papers did not always use the branch's own word. When the Logan Herald Journal reported on October 28, 1988, that Joseph Clyde Jenson Jr., son of Joe and Ann Jenson of Arbon, had accepted a call to the Taichung Taiwan Mission, it said he would speak that Sunday in the "Arbon Valley LDS Ward." His parents were probably the Joe and Ann Eddy Jenson who, the site's Clyde Jenson history says, ran the family farm in the Summit area. Ten years later the Ogden Standard-Examiner listed Mark N. Purdy, 18, son of Steve Purdy of Arbon and a senior at American Falls High School, among four new Eagle Scouts, giving his unit as "Troop Arbon LDS Ward."
Against these, the 1984 funeral notice, the obituaries of its leaders in 1987 and 1997 and the 2002 obituary of a former counselor all call it a branch, and so does the valley's own listing of its churches, kept on this site as the LDS Branch. No source found says the branch became a ward again in these years, so the "ward" of 1976, 1988 and 1998 is probably loose wording in those notices rather than a change at Arbon. What the papers leave open is when each of these men served, and what the 1976 correspondent meant by a first missionary.
The story as reported
Cache Citizen, April 29, 1976, page 4. The original article is under copyright; this is our own report of what it said.
ARBON, Idaho — Latter-day Saints at Arbon held a missionary farewell on a Sunday late in April 1976 for David Jensen, a young man departing to serve in the church's Nashville mission.
The service was held in the Arbon, Idaho, ward chapel, the Cache Citizen reported in its community news. The paper said Jensen was "the first missionary to be called from that ward."
Diane and Claude Gibbons and their family were among those who attended, the paper said.
On this site: the first congregation, the Arbon history, and the Lusk, Ward, Jenson and Davis families.
Sources
- Cache Citizen, April 29, 1976, page 4
- Tremonton Leader, April 29, 1976, page 13
- Box Elder Journal, April 29, 1976, page 17
- Logan Herald Journal, August 14, 1984, page 4
- Ogden Standard-Examiner, January 2, 1987, page 15
- Logan Herald Journal, October 28, 1988, page 4
- Logan Herald Journal, June 5, 1997, page 4
- Ogden Standard-Examiner, November 15, 1998, page 27
- Logan Herald Journal, December 15, 2002, page 8