LEAVING HOME . . . The twins were nine the year their father, Heber C. Kimball, died in the main house where he lived with several of his wives. The two were each others truest friend, sharing confidences and birthdays, even when sometimes they seemed to mismatch, maturing at different speeds. Heber had taken the twins and their mother, plural wife Ann, to the theater once where, according to family story, the boy dozed off. Take the girl next time, their father suggested to Ann, but leave the boob home. Later after fathers death, when Alice began attending dances, her crowd considered Andrew too young to tag along. He didnt get his growth as soon as I did, commented Alice. Never you mind, Andrew would protest bravely, you will look up to me yet. Then in 1873, at fifteen, Andrew left home and mother and sisters, to be on his own. Nothing would do, Alice complained to her twin later, but you must go away from home. Over the next several years, he tended stock for older brother Sam who was setting up in Grouse Creek, worked on a ranch in Grantsville, hauled hay for half-brother Heber Parley, did railroad construction work, worked at a tannery, was a locomotive fireman for the Utah Western Railway, and clerked at a shoe store, assisting mother from his wages. In her way, Alice had set out on her own too, marrying at seventeen while likely allowing her widowed mother little role in the decision. Andrew later acknowledged times during these growing years when he was out and about the streets learning to smoke and to swear; it was the kindness of a Bishop who took hold of me and acted the father, which greatly encouraged a change for the better. By 1878, the year before his mother died, Andrews name appears in Deacons Quorum minutes of the Nineteenth Ward, and he even had himself rebaptized to renew covenants. These things all came up in a dispute with Alice years later in 1898, after Andrew and his wife, Ollie, with their six children, reluctantly left their life-long homes in Utah to fill his call by Church authorities as president of the St. Joseph Stake in southeastern Arizona. They took with them Alices restless sixteen-year-old son, Coulson, who, like Andrew before, longed to set out on his own. But their rented quarters proved cramped, Ollie was pregnant again, and they found Coulson aggravating. In November, Andrew wrote his sister that he was sending the boy home. To say I was surprised, Alice wrote back sharply, would be a mild way of putting it. Fiercely protective of her children, she expected her twin to show interest in this son, and now declared that though he had his faults, he is just as good as you was at his age. When Andrew suggested that Coulson took after his father, whom Alice had divorced, she flatly contradicted him. You are very much mistaken, she wrote. You boast of your plain way of speaking, she noted of a not uncommon Kimball trait, so I have tried to adopt your way and write plain. Quite simply, he is more like you when that age than any one I know of. Andrew responded defensively. I have always been a clean boy, he explained of his past, but there has been times when I was a little uncertain about sacred things. You, my sisters and my sainted mother, tried to get me to have my endowments in the Temple, but I told you I was unworthy. I did not mean that I had done anything wrong, but I had not been under an environment that would prepare me for such a sacred ordinance; because I refused, Mother thot I had done something wrong, and until I told her I would take the right course in life she could not die in peace. I have kept my word and my angel mother is honored today. Thats all, Alice. It was only at age twenty that Andrew took that right course in life. Twenty was how long it took to accept for himself the religion into which he was born. Not every son is able to take his parents faith and make it feel like his own. Once his, Andrew held to it with life-long tenacity. . . [Twins: Heber C. Kimball and Ann Alice Gheen in Church Library M270 K49h v.4 (Semi-Centennial Talk and Alice Kimball Smith Journal Entries). Leaving Home: Alices letter of 22 Nov 1898 in MS 23099 bx.3 fd.9 (nothing would do) and pencil draft in 1907 correspondence notebook MS 24040 bx.5 fd.4 p.228 (helped mother). Andrews jobs are listed in Edward Kimball, Father of a Prophet, p.16, and in loose clippings from an early diary in MS 23099 bx.1 fd.2. Church Activity: MS 6092 fd.32 Nineteenth Ward Lesser Priesthood Record Book for Sep 13, Oct 18, Oct 25 1878; Andrews diary for 3 Jan 1898; undated letter to James Watson and loose entries cut from a journal, MS 23099 bx.1 fd.2. Andrews son Spencer wrote: For a time he was less active and did little in the Church, but toward the end of his teens he came to himself and became active (MS 24040 bx.5 fd.4 p.220). Dispute Over Coulson: Alices letters of May 15, Nov 22, Dec 16 1898, MS 23099 bx.3 fd.6, and Andrews reply quoted in Father of a Prophet, 11-12.] . --website librarian . ANDREW KIMBALL < Heber Chase Kimball-Ann Alice Gheen . LIBRARY --https://dropbox/s/o1rtilf91aztgl4/Heber%20%26%20Ann%20Alice%20Gheen%20-%20Kimball%20Family%201992.pdf?dl=0 --https://dropbox/sh/h9f87547x8y8zvc/AADL-Nwm2BCMUSToQmdz680Na?dl=0
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 05:05:01 +0000
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