Myth-Busting

There is not a lot of information recorded about my great-grandfather, Ormus Arba Lambson, nor his wife, Rose Stradling, nor their descendants, including my grandfather, Paulos Byron, and his siblings.  The history Our Lambson Family Barnabas - Boaz: Ridgewell to Ramah 1635 -1992 does not add a great deal.  In fact, there is more in the histories of Joseph and William Stradling I posted earlier, on July 21st of 2018.  However, what there is serves to reinforce the Stradling history, and debunks a myth my family grew up with, that Ormus Arba was a gunslinger and likely died in a gunfight.  What I have been able to put together, recorded below, is taken from the Lambson Family history.

Ormus Arba's father was Apollos Boaz, son of Arba Lorenzo, the source of his middle name.  How he got his first name is a little bit more humorous:

"At about twenty-two years of age, APOLLOS left Springville (Utah) to make his own life, being drawn generally toward Tooele or Rush Valley, west of Salt Lake City, where the Bates family resided.  Circumstances indicate that he had met his future wife at a much earlier age in Iowa.  It is likely that the families were in touch from that time on.  Regardless of the circumstances, he sought permission to marry Anjenette, and Ormus Bates (her father) refused.  The story goes they ran away to Levan, were married and then returned to Rush Valley to break the news to the bride's family.  The first year of their marriage was spent in Rush Valley where their oldest son was born in December 1867.   APOLLOS wastwenty-four years old.  We assume the supposed rift was immediately mended as he gave his first son the name of both his father-in-law and his father, Ormus Arba, his second son the name of Ephraim (Ormus Bates' middle name) and his third son, Bates.  In 1869 they were married in the Salt Lake Endowment House returning to live in Levan, Utah where their next two children were born." (P. 67)

"...In 1875 APOLLOS was called by the L.D.S. general authorities to help in the coloniozation of the Arizona Territory outposts.  In 1876 they arrived with their teams and wagons at the small Mormon fort near Winslow...

It was in this general area that our first recorded word of mouth history from FRANK comes.  He told of his older brother Arba, and is work in Sunset with the Hashknife Ranch.  'Arb' was one of several young Mormons hired to take care of the cattle in the rustler-infested territory.  It was in that place and at that time, Ormus Arba developed a reputation as a gun fighter and a fine fiddler." (P.68)

"On to the Zuni  Mountains APOLLOS went with his sons ARBA, EPHRAIM, FRANK, AND GENE...And  on south they would go, down into the blistering Sonoran Desert country of the Gila River Valley of Arizona...It was there in the year 1894, that his last child was born; and it was there that his beloved wife died.  ...FRANK was eight years old, and bis oldest brother (ARBA) was twenty-seven.

With Anjenette's death, APOLLOS was left with six children from thriteen years down; and eight years later, ARBA, his oldest son, died from "consumption," which may be construed to mean any number number of respiratory lung ailments.  ARBA left a young family and his widow, Rose Stradling Lambson." (P.70)

Here the Lambson and Stradling histories disagree, and the Stradlings have it right...Rose died before ARBA, in July of 1902, and was buried in Provo, and the children were taken to live with Rose's sister Mary (Stradling) Cook and her husband George in Provo.  Arba would die not eight months later in St. Johns, Arizona and is buried there.

The one other item relating to ARBA attests to his musical ability:

"Little history can be found for ARBA, the first child of APOLLOS, at this time.  Fannie, his sister, stated that he was not just a fiddler, but was 'extremely good'". (P. 73)

So, Ormus Arba was named to create peace between his father and grand-father in law, was not a gun-slinger, but a gun-fighter, fending off cattle rustlers, was a good musician, and died of consumption, not a bullet, at the young age of 35.  Myths busted.