Early Life
Kimball was born in Salt Lake City, Utah Territory to Andrew Kimball and Olive Woolley, sister of Mormon pioneer and eventual Mormon fundamentalist John W. Woolley. When Spencer was three, his father was called as president of the St. Joseph Stake and his family relocated to the town of Thatcher in southeastern Arizona.
During his childhood, Kimball suffered from typhoid fever and facial paralysis (likely Bell's palsy) and once nearly drowned. Four of his sisters died in childhood, and his mother died when he was eleven. Though short in stature – he stood only 5 ft 6 in (1.68 m) as an adult – Kimball was an avid basketball player, and was the star and leading scorer on most of his school and recreational teams. During summer holidays, he often worked at a dairy in Globe, Arizona milking cows, cleaning stalls, and washing bottles for $50 to $60 per month, plus room and board.
Kimball graduated from high school in May 1914, and one week later was called to serve as a missionary in the Swiss-German Mission. However, less than two months later his mission call was halted by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and the subsequent outbreak of World War I. Kimball was reassigned to the Central States Mission and spent most of his mission in the towns and rural settlements of Missouri, finishing in 1916.
Read more about this topic: Spencer W. Kimball
Famous quotes related to early life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)