On the afternoon of Saturday, December 31, 1977, the last day of the year, Lucinda Sweeten gave birth to triplets, two girls and a boy, at Valley Hospital in Tremonton, Utah. She and her husband, Denver, both 19, lived in the Buist area at the south end of Arbon Valley, on the Oneida County side of the county line. Denver earned his keep as a hand on Jerry Bush's farm and also had the Oneida School District's bus route to Arbon. The Idaho State Journal carried the news on New Year's Day, 1978, in a short report from its Malad correspondent, Mary Matthews, and came back to the family three more times over the next year.
A surprise
The first report said the couple had been expecting twins. Three days later, though, Lucinda told the paper she had been expecting only one. Births of more than one baby at once had happened before among Denver's kin, the paper added. Lucinda admitted that the news of three had frightened her. What she and Denver had wanted from the beginning was a son, and now, she said, they had "our boy plus two little girls."
Shawnta was born ahead of the other two and Seth Denver after them; Shellise, Shawnta's identical twin, came in between. The papers do not agree on the minute: the first two reports put the birth at about 1:30 p.m., and the January 10 article gives Shawnta's arrival as 1:13 p.m. The three later reports all say the babies came early, though they differ on how early: about six weeks in January, almost two and a half months in the December article.
From Tremonton the babies went first to the University of Utah Medical Center in Salt Lake City. The girls made the next move first, by air, reaching Pocatello's Bannock Memorial Hospital on Monday, January 2; Seth joined them there on Saturday, January 7. With their children in two hospitals in two states, Denver and Lucinda based themselves in Malad at the home of his mother, Margaret Sweeten. From there it took an hour by road to reach the girls and two hours to reach Seth, and by January 4 they had made the first of those trips and were setting out on the second.
Getting ready for three
By January 10 the three were together at Bannock Memorial, and the Journal printed Tom Shanahan's photographs of the couple, in hospital gowns, visiting them in the new nursery. Their courtship dated to their freshman year of high school, four years before the wedding. To them the births were "just a miracle." Denver had wanted to see his children born and was in the room when they came. His whole review of the experience was "Bewildering."
Practical questions were piling up. Work on the house at Buist was already under way when the babies came, and the plans now had to stretch to hold three more people. When the babies left the hospital, though, the family meant to spend a while first under Denver's mother's roof in Malad. All the babies' laundry, for now, was going through a wringer washer that Lucinda owned. A gift of a full case of diapers, Denver guessed, would be gone in roughly a week. Lucinda had never cared for even one infant and admitted she had no notion what three would be like; still, she expected the family to find its way.
Of the babies' grandparents and great-grandparents, only Mr. and Mrs. Eph Hawkins lived out of state, in Murray, Utah. The rest were in Malad: great-grandmother Mrs. Mary Sweeten, grandfather Elbert Sweeten, Denver's mother Margaret Sweeten, and Lucinda's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Boyd Lewis.
One year old
In February 1978 the babies were at last out of the hospital and in Malad, where Lucinda's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Boyd Lewis, took them in for several weeks and helped with their care. Denver's mother helped too, though by December the paper was calling her Mrs. Margaret Thomas and gave no reason for the new surname.
On December 31, 1978, the day the three turned one, the Journal ran their photograph; the plan for the day, it said, was one cake with a candle for each child. The headline called them Malad triplets, though the family's ranch was at Buist; the story itself called them "Oneida's triplets." Lucinda described a lively house a year on. The babies got around by crawling, and Denver was their partner for roughhousing. They ate yogurt, green beans, bananas and baby food that Lucinda made herself. In her view their sunny temper came from never lacking company, and being split up was something they disliked. The twin girls kept each other busy; Seth could amuse himself alone but sometimes joined in. On clothes the parents differed: Lucinda enjoyed matching outfits for the three, while Denver wanted each child to stand apart.
In Lucinda's judgment the first few months had been the hardest test, and that test was over. Night feedings for three had cost the couple a great deal of sleep, and they had learned to live with it. For Lucinda, a horsewoman used to outdoor life, staying inside so much was a change of its own. Out walking with the children, she said, they drew little notice; it was the car, with its row of three baby seats, that made people look twice.
What is not known
The papers searched for this site say nothing more about the family. A February 1980 flood report mentions heavy flooding near the Jerry Bush ranch at Buist, but not the Sweetens. Whether the family stayed in the valley, and for how long, is not recorded here. If you know more, the site would be glad to hear from you.
On this site: the history of Buist, the Oneida County end of the valley, and of the Summit country between it and Arbon; and the valley's schools and its first school bus.
The story as reported
Idaho State Journal, January 1, 1978, page 2. The original article is under copyright; this is our own report of what it said.
Denver and Lucinda Sweeten, whose home was near Buist in the western part of Oneida County, had thought they were having twins. Instead, at Valley Hospital in Tremonton, Utah, on the afternoon of Saturday, December 31, 1977, Lucinda had three: a boy and two girls.
The time given was about 1:30 p.m. Denver and Lucinda had no other children, and the newborns were being kept in the Tremonton hospital. Lucinda's father, Boyd Lewis of Malad, was the paper's source for word on the babies. The article listed each baby's weight; the paper had no names for them yet.
Denver's living came from farm work for Jerry Bush, and Oneida School District paid him to run its bus out to Arbon.
The report opened on a light note, observing that the babies had arrived soon enough to count as three more income tax deductions for the year.
The story named the babies' family as well. Malad was home to a great-grandmother, Mrs. Mary Sweeten, and to all four grandparents: Elbert Sweeten, Mrs. Margaret Sweeten, and Mr. and Mrs. Lewis. One great-grandfather, Eph Hawkins, was farther off, in Murray, Utah.
Mary Matthews, the Journal's Malad correspondent, wrote the story.