Andrew returned to Salt Lake City to bring his family to Arizona, after a round of farewell parties and the shedding of many tears at their leaving. Ollie kept a detailed record of the family’s move to Arizona:304
Salt Lake City, May 3rd 1898 After bidding relatives and friends good bye at the depot at 8:45 a.m. we left Salt Lake City for Arizona. There was in the company Andrew and I and six children, namely Clare, Gordon, Delbert, Ruth, Spencer and Alice, and Coulsen [Andrew’s nephew]. . . . I felt very badly at leaving relatives, freinds, and the home of my birth, but Andrew having been called to go to Arizona to preside over the stake it was our duty to go. We sold some of our furniture and gave the rest away and took a few things with us. It was raining hard. We traveled along all day and when night came we made our children beds on their seats and they went to bed. As the sleepers were all taken for that night I slept as best I could with Alice in my chair. She [had whooping cough and] was very restless all night.
Wednesday May 4th Most of us awoke up sick, Andrew and Bro Wood being the only ones that were not seasick. We arrived at Pueblo and layed over for forty five minutes which we were glad of to get a little rest from the cars, it was and had been snowing so it was bad under foot. We took train again and rode along all day and that evening I took a berth in a Pulman sleeper. I took Ruth, Spencer and Alice and we took a lower berth. I enjoyed it, it was a little crowded though. [At Albuquerque Andrew got me cocoa from the depot.] [brackets in original] Alice coughed quite badly several times during the night. She has whooping cough. The others of our company stayed in the other [chair] car.
Thursday May 5th I got up at five oclock as we had to change cars at 6:45 and the children all had to be washed and dressed. We changed cars and rode on to Deming [New] Mexico, arriving there 9:45 a.m. Went to the Comercial Hotel. Took a room with two beds so that we all took turns and had a nap and rested up a little. [I weighed myself and found I weighed 137 pounds.] Had dinner there took train in the evening at 7:45 for Bowie arriving there at a little after eleven P.M. The Hotel was full so we went to the waiting room and stayed until Andrew went and seen a man he was acquainted with, and he gave up his room so we Sister Layton, Clare, myself and baby slept in his bed and we got our bedding out of the baggage and made a bed on the floor for the other four children. The room was real small but we managed for the rest of the night. The men folks slept in the warehouse on the floor.
Street scene in Thatcher, Arizona Territory, c. 1898.
Friday May 6th We left Bowie [at 8] on a small dirty car, and arrived at Thatcher at ten ten. We were met by a large crowd of Adults and children each person having a boquet of flowers. They were lovely roses, and as we stepped on to the platform of the car the flowers we[re] thrown at us. It was a lovely sight. They all intended singing but the wind was blowing so hard that it was postponed We were received with kindness and taken home in a carriage to the home of Counslor Charles Layton where we soon partook of a sumptuous dinner I enjoyed it hugely, as it was the first good, warm, meal that I had enjoyed since leaving Salt Lake City. After dinner Andrew took me to see ex Pres Layton who was very sick. Also to the home of Sister Phillips and from there to the home of his other Counselor Bro Johnson. We then took our traps and went to the house Andrew had rented for us as baby had the whooping cough and as t[w]o little ones of Sister Laytons had not had it. We stayed over there in that empty house, but had our meals at Bro Laytons.
Saturday 7th One room was plastered today making things in a mess. The house was very dirty so we got one room cleaned out and moved our trunks and traps. We borrowed some bed springs and slept on the floor. When we awoke this morning we found Ruth had come down with measles. Was completely covered with them. We had quite a number of callers today. Bishop Zundel called in the afternoon, he is the Bishop of Thatcher Ward. Went to bed early. . . .
Tuesday, May 10th Andrew borrowed a team and wagon and He Coulsen Del baby and I went over to a place called Pima six miles from here and bought several pieces of furniture as there was none here. They had shipped from Salt Lake an organ, range, bed springs, chairs, and about ten boxes.305 On the way we took our washing to Sister Wright. We bought a bedroom suite, one bedstead, a table, pair of bedsprings, a baby buggy. Had dinner with Bro and Sister Weech and then came home.306
Kimball family as it moved to Thatcher, 1898. Back, left to right: Gordon, Olive, Clare, Andrew, Dell. Front: Ruth, Alice, and Spencer.
Notes
304. Written on both sides of three sheets of tablet paper. A second version by Ollie provides a few additional details. Andrew Kimball, Papers, Church History Library.
306. The trip was almost surely by D&RGW from Salt Lake City to Pueblo, then AT&SF to Rincon, where they changed trains three hours before arriving in Deming. There was a ten-hour wait for the SP train they took from El Paso to Bowie. From Bowie to Thatcher the train was the GVG&N. More than three full days elapsed (leaving Salt Lake City on Tuesday 8:45 a.m. and arriving Thatcher on Friday 10:10 a.m.). The trip was roughly the same as going from Salt Lake to Chicago, about fifteen hundred miles. In 1905 the rail line from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City was completed, shortening the trip for people traveling from the Gila Valley to Utah by several hundred miles.
