J. Golden Kimball - Service As A Seventy

Service As A Seventy

In 1892, while still serving as mission president, Kimball was called to be an LDS General Authority as a member of the First Council of Seventy. He modestly and humorously attributed his new position to his father's influence:

Some people say a person receives a position in this church through revelation, and others say they get it through inspiration, but I say they get it through relation. If I hadn't been related to Heber C. Kimball I wouldn't have been a damn thing in this church."

Kimball served as an LDS general authority for forty-six years. During the time, it was customary for church leaders to frequently travel to Mormon communities in the western territories and states. Kimball gave hundreds of sermons, sparkling with humor and wit. A tall lean man, his voice was described as high and rasping. He was well known for swearing good naturedly from the pulpit, sprinkling "damns" and "hells" into his speeches. Although the habit was of concern to other church leaders, and subjected him to counsel from his brother, and brother in law, LDS President Heber J. Grant on many occasions, this common touch made Kimball one of the most beloved leaders in the history of the Church. Asked how he could get away with the way he spoke, Elder Kimball is said to have replied: Hell, they can't excommunicate me. I repent too damned fast.

This "folksy" style was backed by intelligence and deep spirituality, and Latter-day Saints would travel long distances to hear him speak at conferences.

"J. Golden" stories have become a type of folklore for members of the LDS Church. One of the best known has Church President Grant writing a "clean" radio speech for Kimball and ordering him to read it. However, once on the air, Kimball struggled with Grant's handwriting and finally exclaimed, Hell, Heber, I can't read this damn thing. Most of these stories are apocryphal—he didn't live long enough to have done and said all of the things attributed to him—but some of the most amusing were actually true, and others were probably true.

Western author Wallace Stegner recorded in "Mormon Country":

J. Golden was the one high dignitary who could keep any audience from sleep. They called him the Will Rogers of the Church. That was a mistake. He should never have been compared with anyone, because J. Golden was an original. Throughout the Mormon Country he is already a legend. Anecdotes and stories float through every Mormon hamlet, and there is even a kind of fraternity of storytellers specializing in J. Golden stories. But like all originals, he defies transcription. He was himself, no less, no more, and nobody knew it better than he.

Kimball was acting as the senior President of the Seventy when he was killed in 1938, at the age of eighty-five, in a single-vehicle automobile accident in the Nevada desert 50 miles (80 km) east of Reno. He was buried at Salt Lake City Cemetery.