GREAT GREAT GREAT  UNCLE EUGENE

We're talking about Ormus Arba (Arb's) brother here...two years younger than Frank...and wow!  If you want a good read, go in your "Our Lambson Family" book to pp. 159-169...its a treat.  But forthwith are a few brief samples.

First, there are several mentions of Arba:

"Arba Lambson, Eugene's oldest brother, who had been involved in the sheep and cattle war on the Tonto Rim and the Tewksberry feud, moved with the family to Mitchell.  Arba and Rose had two children at the time.

Gene remembers as a boy that his brother, Arba, always wore two guns. One day Arba came in and threw the guns on the bed.  While Gene and Frank were playing with the bullets in the scabbard, one exploded, sticking in the ceiling."

and

"Eugene remembered an experience involving a friend of his older brother, Arba.  The man's name was Doug Perry, a known outlaw.  He had stolen fifteen head of horses from a grading company that worked for the railroad at Grants and had driven the horses to a valley above the Mazon ranch right next to their fence line and camped there.  The next day a posse with a U.S. Marshal came and subpoenaed Arba to help track the horses.  Being a friend of Perry's, he didn't want to go but was deputized.  They trailed Doug Perry to some place around Atarque where Perry abandoned the horses, and all were recovered...he was never heard of again."

"That summer a man named Nass Gallagher who owned the Six Mile ranch in the Zuni Mountains came upon a group of outlaws camping just above the Lambson place.  They asked Nass who lived there and he said Apollos Lambson.  They said they knew him and would be welcome at his home.  So they packed up and went down to the house.  After taking care of their horses, they visited and played music late into the night.  Several of them were musically talented and Nass Gallagher was a fine banjo picker.  Arba played the fiddle, Frank sang, and some of the sisters played harmonicas.  It was a great time."

"One night twelve head of horses were stolen by some men named Freeman.  Arba strapped on his six-shooter and caught one of them on on horseback, telling him if those horses weren't back by the next day he would kill him.  The horses were back in the corral the next morning!  Eugene said his brother Arba was  not afraid of anyone."

That's a load right there, but I feel obliged to share a couple of uniquely Eugene stories.  There are many.

"Eugene told about a Jersey cow they owned that came home dry of milk for several days in a row.  His father told him and his brother Frank to follow the cow and watch it closely the next morning.  They did.  The cow stopped in some brush and stood there as if in a trance.  They sneaked up to see what was going on and were surprised to see a five foot snake wound around her leg and hooked to her udder.  They couldn't believe their eyes.  They killed the snake and dragged it home to tell their dad."

"Eugene, Frank, and their father took a herd of goats into the Zuni mountains for the summer pasture, when Eugene was nine.  Frank and his father went to work on the Boone sheep ranch...and left Eugene to take care of the goats.  His dad had given Eugene a new knife for his birthday, and while whittling on a green aspen he cut the end of a finger almost off.  Even though there were no Indians known to be in the mountains, Eugene looked up to find an old Indian man walking up to him.  The old man asked what was the wrong.  When Eugene told him, the old Indian walked a few steps away and pulled up a plant.  He chewed the roots and put them on Eugene's finger and wrapped a red bandana around it.  He told him in three days to remove it and his finger would be healed.  The Indian simply vanished before Eugene could even thank him.  Eugene always felt this was one of the three Nephites.  This is believable since in his later life he served a number of Lamanite missions.  He could have easily bled to death as a young boy."

Well, that's it for today, but fear not...there's plenty more where those came from;-)!