50 years ago today - Nov 10, 1975-Monday

[Leonard Arrington]

Elder J. Golden Kimball and B. H. Roberts were intimate associates. Each was probably the best friend of the other. When Elder Roberts died [in 1933] the family and ecclesiastical officials didn't want J. Golden to speak at the funeral for fear he might tell some incriminating story about Brother Roberts, but since he was such a close friend, they couldn't very well overlook him, so they asked him to dedicate the grave. When they got to Centerville where he was to be buried, the cemetery wasn't in very good shape. When they called on him to dedicate the grave, he walked first in one direction looking hard and then in another direction and finally said, "This is a hell of a place to bury a damn good man." It was so obviously true that the next day the mayor and city council of Centerville met and appropriated all the money left in the treasury to fix up the cemetery. ...

There was tension in the Roberts home and this tension helps to explain why his children left the Church. Some of them joined other churches. One of the things they didn't like was him taking the Shipp woman [Margaret Curtis Shipp], his third wife, back with him when he was president of the Eastern States Mission.

Simon Bamberger, governor of Utah, elected in 1916, was of course German Jewish and spoke with a rather heavy accent and was very friendly toward Mormons. In fact he referred to himself as the "president of the Hebrew stake of Zion."

J. Golden Kimball was once visiting Ogden Stake along with two Smiths. The Smiths had managed to put everybody to sleep, and he was anxious to wake them up, so he started his sermon with some questions: "Anybody here that never tasted coffee?" Two old patriarchs in the back stood up. "Anybody here never tasted tobacco?"-same two patriarchs stood up. "Anybody here never had a good slug of whiskey?" Same two patriarchs stood up. "Well, brothers and sisters, I guess my sermon must be directed to all of you except these two older brethren in the rear, and my principle remarks to them is, "you sure have missed a lot!" With everybody now awake and feeling a sense of guilt, he gave them a beautiful sermon on the Word of Wisdom.

As a student at the University of Deseret B. H. Roberts walked all the way from Centerville to Salt Lake City every day. He wore homemade clothes-and not very good ones at that. Some of the students taunted him for the old farm clothes he wore. This continued for some days until he had stood it all he could. Finally someone started making remarks to him about it and he tore into him with all of his energy. He just about killed the poor fellow. They had to take him to the hospital and have a lot of repair work done on him. Query: Could that have been the occasion which caused him to be disfellowshipped from the 13th ward?

[Confessions of a Mormon historian : the diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997, Gary James Bergera, editor, Signature Books, 2018]