Spencer W. Kimball - Marriage and Early Career

Marriage and Early Career

Hoping to become a schoolteacher, Kimball planned to attend university in 1917, but received an army draft notice later that year. During this time he courted Camilla Eyring, a schoolteacher at Gila Academy, where Kimball had attended high school. They began dating in August 1917 and exchanged letters regularly after Kimball left for Brigham Young University in September 1917. In October, Kimball was notified that his call into the army was imminent, and that he was to leave university and return to his hometown. He returned home, though after a succession of such notices his army group was never actually called up for duty. He and Eyring had continued to date, and by late October had decided to marry. Because of their employment commitments and lack of money, the couple could not afford to travel to the nearest LDS temples in Utah, and thus were married civilly on 16 November 1917 in Pima, Arizona. Seven months later, the couple made the two-day journey by train to Salt Lake City where they were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple on 7 June 1918. They eventually had four children: Spencer LeVan (1918–2003), Olive Beth (b. 1922), Andrew E. (b. 1927), and Edward Lawrence (b. 1930).

In 1921, Kimball received employment at the Thatcher branch of the Arizona Trust and Savings Bank, where he was eventually promoted to assistant cashier at $225 per month, a high salary at the time. The Arizona Trust and Savings Bank failed in 1923 in the aftermath of the Depression of 1920-21, evaporating Kimball's $3000 investments in bank stock and forcing him to take a lower-paying job at another bank. In addition to regular employment, Kimball did a variety of local jobs to earn extra income for his wife and children, including playing the piano and singing at local events, stringing with Camilla for local newspapers, distributing for an herbal laxative company, and clerical work for local stores. Shortly after his marriage, Kimball's father called Spencer to serve as stake clerk for the St. Joseph Stake. In the 1920s, local stake clerks still performed the extensive record-keeping and reporting duties that are now digitized and done centrally at the LDS Church's headquarters in Salt Lake City. Consequently, the position of stake clerk was essentially a part-time job, and those called to the position received a $50 per month salary.

Kimball's father died in 1924, having served as president in the St. Joseph Stake for 26 years. Church President Heber J. Grant came to reorganize the stake, and the 29-year-old Kimball was called to be 2nd counselor in the stake presidency.