In 1934, probably in late November, Frank Phelps, an Arbon Valley farmer who appears in the valley's news from 1915 on, was caught out in the weather and froze to death. His only son, Jesse "Bud" Phelps, was 14, and he left school to run the family farm. No newspaper report from the time has yet been found. Most of what is known comes from Bud's obituary, published eighty years later, and from a genealogy posted online. The old papers show something of the life that came before.
A young man in South Arbon
The earliest mention of Frank Phelps found so far is in the American Falls Press in the summer of 1915, in the South Arbon column. It carried the news of the Highland neighborhood, in the Summit area at the south end of the valley, where a new schoolhouse was about to be built. The school district there was in Oneida County, which kept the valley's south end when Power County was formed in 1913.
On August 12 the column reported that Miss Rosie Neal had entertained a few friends at her sister's home one Sunday evening. Among the young men present were "Messrs. James Nunnelley, Clyde Johnson, Pierce Hardman and Frank Phelps." The same column reported on the crops:
The frosts have done considerable damage to crops in this section but not nearly so much as last year. A number of people are cutting their spring grain for hay, but most of the fall grain is good.
In October 1915 the Press reported that Frank Phelps had been called to Kansas "on account of the serious illness of his mother." The name of the town is garbled in the digitized text.
A genealogy website, the Paul Bartlett Van Buren Genealogy, gives more, citing a family genealogy compiled in 1964 by Felix George Foudray. It lists a Frank Phelps born August 23, 1889, the son of Jasper W. Phelps and Motie E. Foudray. His mother died on April 19, 1916, he married a woman named Rose, and he had a younger brother named Ira. In December 1920 the Press listed an Ira Phelps and his wife among the guests at an Arbon party on Thanksgiving evening. The mother's illness and death, the wife's name, the brother and Bud's age at his father's death all fit, so the genealogy's Frank Phelps is probably the Arbon man. The genealogy gives no places.
A family at Arbon
Frank and Rose Phelps had five children: one son, Jesse M., known as Bud, born at Arbon on May 24, 1920, and four daughters, Francis, Thyra, Elaine and Annabel. The Arbon column caught the family now and then. On July 16, 1920, it reported: "Frank Phelps baby was quite sick the past week but is recovering nicely." Bud was about seven weeks old then, but the column does not name the baby.
In April 1921 the column noted that "Mrs. Wright of Twin Falls visited the past few days with her sister in South Arbon, Mrs. Frank Phelps." In December 1922 it listed Frank Phelps among neighbors who had been visitors at Malad, the Oneida County seat.
The Arbon family history on this site, in its account of the valley's New Deal farm committees, lists him in 1934 with J. N. Arbon and J. L. Payne on the Arbon wheat-allotment committee.
November 1934
The genealogy website gives his death as November 25, 1934, a Sunday. He was 45. It does not say where he died or how. Bud's obituary in the Power County Press, published in March 2014, says that when Bud was 14 his father "got caught in the elements and froze to death." It adds that Bud had to quit school and give all his time to the family farm.
The Pocatello Tribune of the next day, Monday, November 26, carried a wire report under a headline announcing a blanket of snow over southeastern Idaho. Salt Lake City had its first snowfall of more than a trace that winter and the coldest temperature of the season so far. An inch of snow was reported at Pocatello. A separate report on the same page, from Ogden, told of a blizzard on Sunday night in northern Utah. Whether this was the weather that caught Frank Phelps is not known.
The Tribune's front pages for November 26 and 27 carry no report of his death. The Power County Press for that week, the likeliest place for a report, was not available to search. Where he was caught out, when he was found and where he was buried are still to be learned.
Afterward
Bud ran the farm. On June 8, 1944, he married Waunita Hutton of American Falls. He later turned from farming to driving truck from coast to coast, and the family lived ten years in Omaha before coming back to American Falls in 1961. He worked twenty years for Simplot in Pocatello, retiring in 1985, and died in American Falls on March 7, 2014, at 93. His parents and his sister Annabel had died before him.
On this site: the story of Frank Kulock, who froze within sight of his home near Pauline in 1922; the winter of 1948–49; and the histories of Summit and Arbon. If your family knows more about Frank Phelps or the day he died, the site would be glad to hear it through the Contribute page.
Sources
- American Falls Press, August 12, 1915, page 4
- American Falls Press, October 14, 1915, page 6
- American Falls Press, July 16, 1920, page 3
- American Falls Press, December 3, 1920, page 2
- American Falls Press, April 8, 1921, page 2
- American Falls Press, December 7, 1922, page 5
- Pocatello Tribune, November 26, 1934, page 1
- Pocatello Tribune, November 27, 1934, page 1
- Power County Press, March 12, 2014: Jesse (Bud) M. Phelps (archived copy)
- Power County Press, March 26, 2014: Jesse (Bud) M. Phelps, corrected (archived copy)
- Paul Bartlett Van Buren Genealogy: Frank Phelps
- Paul Bartlett Van Buren Genealogy: Jasper W. Phelps and Motie E. Foudray