33 Andrew

At age sixty Andrew stood six feet tall and weighed 160 pounds. He stood erect and dressed well. He had dark hair and an expressive face. When he spoke, others listened. Young people saw in him “a grand man.”⁴³⁶ He wore a moustache and much of the time rimless spectacles for astigmatism.⁴³⁷ People noted his dark eyes and characterized them as “piercing” or “snapping.”

Andrew led his family in physical exercises before they went to bed. He also for a time taught physical culture, or calesthenics, at the academy for both boys and girls.⁴³⁸ He installed a heavy punching bag at home for his boys and himself.⁴³⁹

Andrew and Ollie both had trouble with their teeth. Under chloroform she had her upper teeth removed. She complained that the plate replacing them “changed my looks altogether. I did not look natural at all.”⁴⁴⁰ Andrew had some teeth pulled in Salt Lake City, and an Arizona dentist billed him for two extractions, five gold teeth, and repair of a plate.⁴⁴¹ Some who described Andrew many years later recalled that he was missing a lower front tooth, so that he whistled when he spoke.⁴⁴² Smart-aleck children called him “Whistling Andy.”⁴⁴³

Runaway horses constituted a risk of daily life. One time Ollie’s horse got stuck in a canal, the harness broke, and the horses lunged, but she escaped harm.⁴⁴⁴ Another time she managed to regain control of her runaway horse before the buggy tipped over.⁴⁴⁵ Later in a similar situation the carriage did tip over on a sharp turn, and Ollie got a badly sprained left wrist.⁴⁴⁶

Elder Abraham O. Woodruff wrote of an accident that occurred while he attended stake conference in Thatcher:

returning to prest. Kimball’s in thatcher for dinner. . . . The single tree dropped on the heels of one of the horses and the tongue dropped. The horses took fright and kicked bro. Kimball who was driving and alone in the front seat was thrown out and then the lines were gone. Bro. Seymour b. young and I threw ourselves as the team ran through the brush. As soon as I picked myself up I went and raised bro. Young up who had his nose broken and badly hurt. I then went and picked bro. Kimball up.

Dec. 3, 1898. Last night after we had been gathered and brought home I dressed bro. Kimball’s and bro. Young’s wounds, made them as comfortable as possible and retired. . . . bro. Young was not able to attend any of the meetings today. Bro. Kimball could not attend this afternoon meeting on account of the accident we met with.⁴⁴⁷

Farmwork had its share of hazards. In July 1909 as he climbed onto the haystack, Andrew fell from a fence, rendering himself unconscious and crippling him for weeks. Then, in November a 150-pound weight being used as an anvil fell on his right foot. A month later the foot still pained him.⁴⁴⁸

One time Andrew suffered heat stroke while working in the fields and spent several days with a terrible headache in the back of his head. In 1920 he suffered several weeks with appendicitis, a recurrence of a long-standing problem. He dipped his morning toast in olive oil, which he bought by the gallon, finding that the oil helped his stomach trouble.⁴⁴⁹ Once or twice a week, whenever Ruth Talley’s mother churned butter, young Ruth took buttermilk in a Snowdrift shortening bucket to the Kimball home. Andrew found the buttermilk soothed his stomach. The buttermilk came free, but Andrew always gave Ruth a dime, a large reward.⁴⁵⁰ He also drank a glass of hot water each morning.⁴⁵¹ The malaria he had contracted on his mission bothered him occasionally, and he had a recurrent sinus infection.

The Kimballs suffered various illnesses along with their neighbors—a minor outbreak of smallpox in January 1901,⁴⁵² diphtheria, typhoid fever, flu, and especially “summer complaint,” or diarrhea. These and other ailments took many lives in the community.⁴⁵³ Those who could do so escaped to Camp Columbine on Mount Graham in the summer to take refuge from the heat and illness.

In 1917 the schools in Thatcher closed for two weeks for an epidemic of measles, with a hundred cases reported.⁴⁵⁴ During the great 1918 flu pandemic, schools were closed for more than two months (October to December 1918). Andrew stopped Church public meetings, but urged that people should still visit the sick, though with caution. Around this time shared sacrament goblets were replaced by trays of individual glasses.⁴⁵⁵ In 1919 there was more flu, and in 1920 schools closed again for a week.⁴⁵⁶

Over the years Andrew attended hundreds of funerals, once four in one day. He almost always spoke, even at his daughter Ruth’s funeral. During the flu epidemic funerals were often held at the graveside.

Andrew stands in his farmyard with hay rake and mower, automobile, house chimneys, windmill pump, and wood pile.

Respect

Andrew believed children should be taught respect. He said to Clare, when her boy Spencer Brinkerhoff responded with “Yeah,” “Clare, don’t you teach your children to say, ‘Yes, sir,’ and ‘No, sir’?”⁴⁵⁷ Andrew advised another woman that she should teach her sons to tip their hat in respect when they met a member of the stake presidency.⁴⁵⁸ Even the less-active Mormon boys treated Andrew respectfully and would greet him cordially.⁴⁵⁹

Punctuality and Debt

Andrew taught that keeping appointments you have made is an aspect of honesty.⁴⁶⁰ He considered promptness to be a significant virtue. Similarly, paying debts meticulously was a matter of honor. He said to a man who had, as a missionary, borrowed money twelve years before, “If I were you I’d pay that debt if it took the skin off. If you cannot pay it all at once, then resolve to pay $15 or $20 a month. . . . I cannot see how you can look the world in the face with this obligation hanging over you.”⁴⁶¹ Andrew worked hard to be free from debt himself and noted he felt good when he was able to make substantial charitable contributions.⁴⁶²

Andrew paid $250 on a note he had cosigned with his nephew H. Chase Kimball. He offered also to pay off the balance of $35, but the note-holder asked for an opportunity first to write a letter to Chase chiding him. Chase responded to his uncle: “You told me to go to hell and . . . accused me of being dishonest and forcing you to pay my debts. This I deny, you are only paying that which you justly owe. . . . I sold you the car you bought for a reasonable price, you was well paid for all your stuff. . . . all I ask is a square deal.”⁴⁶³

Andrew gave his son Dell advice about doing business with relatives, a matter in which he had had unfortunate experiences, both before and after giving this advice: “In dealing with relations, be more careful than in dealing with strangers. Have everything written in Black and White with a perfect understanding about everything.”⁴⁶⁴

Disagreements

George Albert Smith once wrote to Andrew: “I am glad you settled your differences with Brothers Moody and Lee. You cannot afford to have them feel hard toward you. . . . it takes a man of great courage and humility to ask his brother to forgive him . . . when he feels in his own mind that he is right and the other man wrong.”⁴⁶⁵

Several times men in his high council and others “withheld the hand of fellowship” from Andrew. The most difficult incident was the banana plantation fraud,⁴⁶⁶ but other such occurrences were related to the Enterprise Canal and the railroad contract.

Andrew spoke plainly,⁴⁶⁷ sometimes alienating people, including family members. His sister Alice opined: “One great fault with you, you talk too plain and folks don’t like it. Kindness and a little policy is a much better way.” A friend wrote, “[Your brother Sam] told me of the little difficulty between you and him, and he asked me to write you and say that he has repented and have you write him a conciliatory letter.”⁴⁶⁸

At a funeral for a man named Hyrum Smith, who had been shot by a jealous rival over a girl’s affection, Andrew made some harsh statements about him. When he learned the full circumstances, however, he went to the boy’s mother and apologized. On another occasion Andrew jumped to an erroneous conclusion that John A. Lee had misappropriated Lebanon Ward funds and had to make amends for his mistake.⁴⁶⁹

Gordon, Spencer, and Dell with Old Dick.

Andrew once said to his daughter-in-law, “Clara, I don’t know what some women are coming to! Why, the other night I saw a woman wearing silk stockings as sheer as the ones you have on. You could see right through them to her bare legs!” Clara, annoyed, ignored his transparent criticism, thinking her stockings were just fine.⁴⁷⁰

Clara also wrote that she felt hurt when Andrew referred to her and Gordon’s buying “such an expensive car” while owing Andrew money on a note. She responded that it was not an expensive car and, besides, Andrew had not indicated that he needed the borrowed money right away.⁴⁷¹

One time Andrew Peterson and his wife, Ella, alternated their attendance at stake conference. Andrew said from the pulpit, “Ella, where’s Andrew?” She replied, “He is home taking care of the children so I could come.” Andrew said, “Well, he should be here!” Peterson was not the only high councilor absent, and he took some offense at being singled out. Andrew, however, did not see anything wrong with the public rebuke.⁴⁷²

At a ward conference in Eden a child started to make noise and Andrew told the mother to take the child out. After the meeting the mother confronted Andrew and complained about what she considered his rudeness. He apologized.⁴⁷³

One of his relatives called him a “crank.”⁴⁷⁴ Andrew wrote that he was willing to repent if he was wrong and to forgive if he was the one who had been misjudged.

Jim Talley, a diamond in the rough, weighed 350 pounds. He smoked and did not attend church meetings, though he sent his children. Handling his team on the Enterprise Canal, Jim let loose with a string of curses. Andrew admonished Jim, and he felt both embarrassed and resentful. He said, “You take care of your business and I’ll take care of mine.” A coolness still prevailed when Loren Nelson, a boy living with the Talleys, dived into shallow water and broke his neck. Jim, as the boy’s “foster father,” and Andrew, as stake president, accompanied Loren on the train to Tucson, where better medical treatment might be available. While on the train, Loren died. The shared experience changed their relationship. Each saw the other in a new, more generous light.⁴⁷⁵

Self-Confidence

Dell said of his father, “His bearing was one of confidence and assurance, not the least bit awed. . . . [He considered himself] no better than anyone else, but just as good as anybody.”⁴⁷⁶

A. C. Peterson, who as principal of the academy worked closely with Andrew, characterized him as a bundle of nervous energy, quick and vigorous in action.⁴⁷⁷ He was a take-charge person. For example, when five or six railroad cars left the tracks near Thatcher, Andrew quickly arrived on the scene, conferred with the engineer, and directed spectators.

Another example was when John Nash’s wife bore a daughter while he was away on a mission. After several months Andrew asked about giving the little girl a name and blessing. It took a long time to get letters back and forth to John in Australia, and family members disagreed about what she should be named. Andrew then took the baby up and named her after his wife: Olive Henrietta Nash.⁴⁷⁸

When Andrew and Gila College president Leland H. Creer visited Taylor, Arizona, to encourage students to come to the college, he learned that Rhoda Wakefield’s baby had not been named. Andrew said, “We will name him and call him Kimball.” However, because it was Creer’s birthday, they decided on Leland Kimball Wakefield and Andrew blessed and named the child this.⁴⁷⁹

Family and Activities

Andrew built a swing, some rings, and a teeter-totter in the yard for his children. He often took them with him on his travels to the various wards, both for their pleasure and to relieve Ollie.

The children experienced a variety of fun activities and cultural opportunities that were available in their community—attending circuses,⁴⁸⁰ going to baseball games, seeing movies, watching traveling dramatic troupes, going to home talent plays, listening to musical groups, and attending lectures and debates sponsored by the Polysophical Society.⁴⁸¹ On one occasion Andrew cancelled the Saturday sessions of stake conference for a Chautauqua adult education presentation.⁴⁸²

Much entertainment was homemade. Surprise parties “on” someone were frequent. Ollie often played piano and sang; sometimes she sang duets with Clare. Andrew did not sing much, but he often gave recitations, such as “Asleep at the Switch” or Marc Antony’s funeral oration over Caesar.⁴⁸³ Young and old alike played parlor games, sang, took hayrack rides, and danced (although the high council urged that round dances be limited to every other one).⁴⁸⁴ An ice factory in town made it easy to fetch a block of ice and freeze some ice cream.

The Cluff ranch, five miles away, had a large pond where groups could swim. On one occasion Andrew took Spencer, who could not yet swim, on his back out into the deep water. He then brought Spencer back to shallower water where the boy could touch bottom and Andrew resumed his swimming. Spencer then stepped into a hole and immediately found himself foundering. Andrew, a good swimmer,⁴⁸⁵ came to the rescue in time, but Spencer never forgot the traumatic event.⁴⁸⁶

Another destination for outings was the flume, built in 1907 to float or slide lumber from a sawmill high in the mountains to a place where it could be loaded onto wagons. A person sat in the mossy trough made of boards and let the force of backed-up water push him down the hill.⁴⁸⁷ In places the flume’s trestle stood as much as eighty feet above the ground.⁴⁸⁸

Academy girls’ outing at the lumber flume, 1913.

The 24th of July (Pioneer Day) called for recognition. At a formal program, places of honor were reserved for those who had seen Joseph Smith and those who had crossed the plains. In 1906 there were still seven in the St. Joseph Stake who had known the Prophet. Philemon C. Merrill spoke: “The last words I heard him utter were while going to Carthage. He turned around and said, ‘Brethren, do you love me?’ We said, ‘Yes.’ Then said he, ‘I love you so well that I will lay down my life for you.’ These are the last words that I heard him utter.” And there were still twenty-two in the stake who had crossed the Great Plains before completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869.⁴⁸⁹

Public Relations

Andrew promoted with enthusiasm and energy any cause he espoused. From the beginning he acted as an advocate for Gila Valley. In the Deseret News he reported a sweet potato of thirty-six pounds, corn sixteen feet high, and five crops of alfalfa a year.⁴⁹⁰ He received many letters inquiring about moving to this place of wonders.⁴⁹¹

Skills

Andrew had a wide range of skills—leatherworking, plumbing, carpentry, painting, and wall papering. He worked for pay on the academy building, the tithing barn, and the public school buildings.⁴⁹² He sometimes hired out as a carpenter. He slaughtered his own hogs, doing the killing, scalding, scraping, hanging, and gutting.

At Andrew’s funeral, President Heber J. Grant, a lifelong friend, mentioned not only Andrew’s moral qualities, but also his skill with tools. As a boy Andrew’s skill in carving with his pocketknife called forth admiration from his young companions.⁴⁹³

Andrew “was a worker. He thought his job out and then did it beautifully. He was fast, accurate and unhurried. [He said,] ‘People won’t ask how long it required to make the chest or build the cupboard, but how well it was done.’”⁴⁹⁴ Andrew was “very definite and precise—very well organized.”⁴⁹⁵ He always looked for a better way.⁴⁹⁶

Andrew and son-in-law George Nelson slaughter a hog, 1917.

The Thatcher Sunday School organized a Home Improvement League, and Andrew became its president.⁴⁹⁷ He took pride in the appearance of his property.⁴⁹⁸ He kept his yard neat, fence painted, and flowers and trees planted. As an orchardist and farmer he concerned himself about variety and quality. His ten acres, usually planted with alfalfa, yielded as many as five cuttings.⁴⁹⁹ Sometimes he planted grain. Andrew later purchased an apple orchard and produced apples for sale. He also planted unusual trees, such as catalpa, chinaberry, eucalyptus, cypress, and pecan. He entered produce and animals in the county and state fairs and several times won prizes.

Andrew had his cows’ milk tested for quality, 1903.

In 1901 the Kimballs owned two horses, two cows, three calves, two hogs, and twelve chickens. Andrew sought to upgrade his stock and his crops. Later they had as many as forty-nine purebred hogs from high-quality stock purchased from the University of Arizona in 1917. At one time he had a bull and nine cows. Andrew had the University of Arizona test milk from four of his cows for butterfat content. In 1903 the milk contained a high 4½ percent butterfat. Andrew sold milk to the neighbors or separated the cream and churned it to butter. The skim milk he fed to the hogs. Andrew once took a cow in payment of a debt, but the next day it was missing. It had got out of Andrew’s corral and followed a homing instinct, fording the river on its way home.⁵⁰⁰

Andrew could do any farm work, except milking the cows. For that his fingers were too stiff. As his three sons grew up their work on the farm freed him a good deal for his stake and community work.

Public Speaking

Men tended to do all the public speaking in general Church meetings during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While Ollie presided and spoke with some frequency in the Relief Society context, she noted, at age forty, that when she had been called on to speak in the St. David ward conference “[I] was nearly frightened to death as I had never spoken before the brethren before.”⁵⁰¹

Andrew, on the other hand, spoke many hundreds of times on a great range of topics—religion, of course, but also agriculture, irrigation and reclamation, taxation, politics, history, and so forth. Those who heard him characterized him as an interesting speaker,⁵⁰² “forceful and vital,” a man who could pound the pulpit and grow red in the face on occasion.⁵⁰³ One who heard him as a child said that he frightened her, “Whenever he stood up on the podium to speak I felt the trembling; he spoke with a voice that was mighty and strong.”⁵⁰⁴ Another child remembered him as “a wonderful speaker, capable of making people laugh or weep.”⁵⁰⁵

Stake officers on their way to a St. David ward conference.

In his Church talks Andrew spoke more about conduct than doctrine. The minutes of a regular meeting with the leaders of young people (from 1898 to 1901) show he spoke to that group at least briefly on a wide variety of subjects: administration of the sacrament, prayer, kindness to animals, education, marrying out of the Church, gambling, Church publications, elocution, obedience, marriage, tithing, cutting hair short, respect for leaders, punctuality, chastity, temple marriage, Sabbath breaking, hymn singing, Word of Wisdom observance, and tithing. Upon his return from general conference in Salt Lake City twice a year, he undertook to relay the messages he had heard there to the members of his stake. He had a knack for reporting what was important and keeping the audience interested.

He addressed disparate groups, both the Safford eighth grade graduates in 1916 and students at the University of Arizona in 1920. In 1921, Andrew established a prize out of his own pocket for extemporaneous speaking at the academy.⁵⁰⁶

Andrew spoke for nearly every good cause. He organized the Red Cross Christmas seal campaign in Graham County in 1919. He chaired the European Relief Council to raise $1,000 in Graham County; they ended up raising $1,500. He used his influence with the railroad to have a depot built at Thatcher.⁵⁰⁷ He raised money for the fight against tuberculosis, for the Arizona Children’s Home Association, and for the Near East Relief Fund.⁵⁰⁸ He spoke out on bonding for an electric light plant,⁵⁰⁹ to save the Pima bridge,⁵¹⁰ and on the need to limit county expenditures.⁵¹¹ He helped organize the Gila Valley Board of Trade in 1905. He was first vice president of the Arizona State Board of Trade in 1916, then president. He even judged the 24th of July parade floats.⁵¹² In 1920 a plague of rabbits came out of the desert and began destroying crops, so Andrew organized a rabbit hunt. He obtained $500 from the governor for shotgun shells and poison. Through the bishops he asked men to bring shotguns. Together the hunters used 2,888 shells and killed 2,000 rabbits, as counted by their tails.⁵¹³

Sense of Humor

Andrew did not show much of a sense of humor.⁵¹⁴ It is said that before his marriage he was rather melancholy, but for his later years “sober” would be a better characterization. Granddaughter Olive Mitchell said she never remembered hearing him laugh or joke.⁵¹⁵ But while he found life unquestionably serious, he was not grim. His early writings for the newspapers under the name Drummer Boy showed a playful use of words. While not a joker, Andrew was genial, outgoing, and mixed easily with non-Mormons.⁵¹⁶

Once when Andrew performed a wedding he advised the bride, “Stella, when your husband comes in from work, have the table set whether you have started dinner or not, because it will make him think that dinner is on its way.”⁵¹⁷ When Andrew was working in his yard and young Elva Richardson passed by he would tease her, “Hello, Madge’s skinny little sister.” It pleased her to be noticed in that teasing way.⁵¹⁸

In a report to the Deseret News about his mission he wrote,

We have roads to travel on sometimes and sometimes they get lost, but by the aid of a compass, we travel in Indian style, and are sure to come out somewhere. The country is well supplied with wild fruits, such as plums, persimmons, woodticks, strawberries, centipedes and poisonous chiggers, black fleas, bedbugs and hickory nuts, tarantulas, scorpions, pecan nuts, tree lizards, grapes and acorns.⁵¹⁹

Kindness

Andrew resented destructive or unkind pranks. One Halloween some boys moved the footbridge from across the irrigation ditch near the Kimball home. Andrew came along in the dark and fell into the canal. He thought it was not funny and denounced the dangerous prank in a Church meeting. Another time, on New Year’s Eve, Ollie wrote, “We were very much annoyed when we found the gate post taken up and the fence out of its place this morning done by some mischievous boys in the night. They also turned our wagon up on its side [and] took the bridge from the ditch.”⁵²⁰

Andrew was thoughtful of people. When he visited the Central Ward, a Bishop Allred invited Andrew to lunch, even though Sister Allred had been sick in bed when he left. As they approached the house Sister Allred saw her husband and the stake president coming. She crawled out of bed, and in the kitchen she opened a jar of peaches and found some cold biscuits and set them on the oilcloth-covered table. Andrew brushed aside apologies and exclaimed how much he enjoyed a simple meal, saying over and over, “This is just what I would have chosen.”⁵²¹

He respected animals, too, and “was infuriated if he saw a man beating a balky horse, or kicking his dog, or starving his other animals.”⁵²² He promoted a formal kindness-to-animals organization among children in the community.

In reminding the boys to care for the livestock, Andrew or Ollie would sing a ditty, “As soon as you’re able, go down to the stable and water your horses and feed them some corn. For if you don’t do it, the stable will rue it, and you will be punished, as sure as you’re born.”⁵²³

When his sons’ neglect allowed a cow to bloat and die, Andrew was upset, but he did not scold the boys because he recognized their contrition.⁵²⁴

Family

In 1898, when Andrew’s family moved to Arizona, his twin sister, Alice, sent her sixteen-year-old son Coulsen to live with them. Alice wanted to give her son a father figure to relate to and asked that Coulsen be treated kindly but firmly.⁵²⁵ Soon, however, Coulsen returned to Utah under a cloud. He wrote, probably at his mother’s instance, that he appreciated what the Kimballs had done for him and conceded that he was sometimes quick-tempered and argumentative.⁵²⁶

In 1900, Alice asked that Coulsen be allowed to return to Arizona.⁵²⁷ She thought Andrew had been too harsh with him. She wrote, “You are a little tough on Coulsen. You should remember your own younger days.” Coulsen did return and worked on the Enterprise Canal, but he still had difficulty meeting Andrew’s expectations. He left the work camp, but later returned to the camp to try again.⁵²⁸

In 1901, Coulsen wrote from Utah that he was ready to start on his mission, and he was coming to Thatcher to get a temple recommend from his bishop and from Andrew.⁵²⁹