Letters from the 'swearing apostle,' J. Golden Kimball

Jonathan Golden Kimball (1853-1938) – son of Heber C. Kimball, missionary/mission president in the Southern States, member of the First Council of the Seventy – is remembered mostly for his legendary “salty” tongue in scores, if not hundreds, of mostly apocryphal stories. Even without the very occasional swear word which is the punchline for most of the surviving stories, his humor and storytelling in General Conference and other venues made him a favorite speaker. I’ve recently read through a volume of his letters from 1900 and discovered (well, for me it was a discovery) that his writing style was as engaging as his speaking style. There is little that reveals a person’s intimate self like his correspondence with friends.