Sunday morning, we checked out of our Holbrook motel and drove southeast for about an hour to the little town of St. Johns to attend church in a meetinghouse built in the 30's.
This little berg has significance for the Lambson family because the families of Steve's great-grandparents settled there. Two of their children, Armus Arba Lambson and Rose Stradling, married and started their married life in St. Johns. Paulos Byron, Steve's grandfather, was one of their sons. Sadly, Rose died in childbirth and Armus Arba was killed soon after - rumor has it he was either a gunslinger or horse thief. Their children were shipped up to Provo, Utah to live with Rose's sister Mary and her husband George. And Paulos Byron, as far as we know, never returned to visit family in St. Johns again. He grew up in Provo, married, and lost his wife at a young age and their three young children were also raised by Mary and George because Paulos abandoned his family in grief. Steve's dad, Virgil George, was now two generations separated from family in St. Johns. By the time Steve and his siblings came along, St. Johns was just a vague place in Lambson lore and whenever anyone would ask "are you related to such-and-such Lambson from (fill in the blank)?", Steve would simply have to answer "maybe".
From an earlier blog, you already know how he met Neal Lambson - a third cousin. Well, at church on Sunday, we met Neal's older brother, Delbert. And HE, even more than Neal, looks like Steve. He looks like Virgil George and Paulos Byron.
After meetings, we visited the St. Johns cemetery and drove all around looking at tombstones for Lambsons and Stradlings. We found mostly Stradlings. Then, as we were preparing to leave, we happened upon a small ramada sheltering a cemetary directory! AND, we found where Armus Arba was buried! The headstone is not elevated so no wonder we couldn't find it driving around....and it is clearly newer than 1903.
We then drove about thirty miles south of St. Johns to check into our hotel in Springerville and to have dinner and spent the rest of the evening with Beverly and Chuck Martin in Eager which is right next to Springerville.
Beverly is MY relative - our great-grandparents were cousins - whom I found via Family Search a couple of years ago. She was adopted by a Latter-day Saint family but her maternal aunt kept in touch with her to let her know her Fraedrich heritage. Beverly and Chuck are amazing folks. He was a mission president in the Ivory Coast in the nineties. We had a great time with them and we will visit again after our mission to work on family history together.
No comments:
Post a Comment