Edward Park Lusk

Edward “Park” Lusk was born on Christmas Day, 1895, in Malad, Idaho, the son of John Winters Lusk Jr. and Annie Eliza Thomas Lusk. He was the sixth child of eventually eight children in the family.

He married Erma Bailey on 12 April 1918 in Pocatello, Idaho, when he was home on furlough from the United States Army where he was serving during WWI. Erma was the daughter of James Bailey and Annie Leishman Kerr, who were also Arbon homesteaders. She was seventeen years old while her new husband was twenty-two at the time of their marriage. 

Erma rapidly gave birth to two sons, James and Ralph, before she was twenty years old. However, tragedy hit when she died on 24 February 1922 in Pauline (Arbon), Idaho, from flu that had developed into pneumonia, at age twenty.  Her boys were aged three and one. The book, Bannock Valley, explains how painful this death was. “Erma…took pneumonia in the winter of 1922. She was so sick that she couldn’t be moved to a hospital and she passed away February 24, 1922. This was a sad time for James and Annie [Bailey, Erma’s parents]. The winter was bad, [with] lots of snow, and it was a task to dig a grave beside [Erma’s] sister Jennie’s grave. Her funeral was held in the Pauline Church house. The trip to the [Arbon] cemetery was long and cold” (p. 51). This sister of Erma’s was “Jennie,” Jane Kerr Bailey Gibbons, whose baby Bertha was buried in her arms almost ten years previous to Erma’s death.

Park’s young boys were raised by his brother, David Thomas Lusk, and David’s wife Susannah Bailey. Susannah was Erma’s sister. They had three living children of their own when the boys came to them, close to the same ages as James and Ralph, and had two more children later on. This arrangement meant that the boys were raised in Arbon Valley, close to grandparents on both sides.

Several years later, Park married Jesse Noble on 20 October 1927 in Pocatello, Idaho. She had been married and divorced previously to Earl Richards Daniels, and was the mother of three children. Edward and Jessie had one child together, Donald John Lusk, born in 1929. The boys from Park’s first marriage continued to live in the David Thomas Lusk family with their uncle, aunt, and cousins.

Edward died on 21 March 1960 in Pocatello, Idaho and was buried in the large Mountain View Cemetery there.  Jessie died on 30 June 1978 in Pocatello, and was also buried in the Mountain View Cemetery.

Sources:

Ward, Laurie Jean, Bannock Valley (Providence, Utah: Keith Watkins and Sons, 1982).

https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/KWZH-SD5

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/43473773/park-lusk

The links provided here will lead to information on other family members.