"With his gaunt figure, magpie voice, and fiery vigor, J. Golden Kimball (1853-1938) embodied the down-to-earth humor he so unselfconsciously provided his people. He was loved by all Latter-Day Saints. Even religiously disinterested 'jack-Mormon' farmers and wayward youths emptied fields and pool halls to gather around the radio to hear his sermons. . . As he toured the Mormon settlements of the West, 'Uncle Golden,' as people of no particular relation often called him, charmed congregations with frank talk and refreshing, if slightly irreverent, quips occasionally peppered with salty language."
The J. Golden Kimball Stories, compiled by Eric A. Eliason from original fieldwork and previously unpublished archival resources, shares the beloved and iconoclastic Uncle Golden's opinions on death, marriage, love, hell, and God. A couple of my favorite stories:
--"J. Golden Kimball began one of his conference addresses supposedly by saying, 'Brothers and sisters, how many of you have read the seventeenth chapter of Mark in the New Testament?' When many hands went up, Kimball said, 'Well, you're the people I want to talk to today. There are only sixteen chapters in Mark and my sermon for today is on liars and hypocrites!"
--"J. Golden Kimball was once asked his opinion of women wearing cosmetics, which some church leaders in the early part of the 1900s frowned upon. J. Golden Kimball, 'Well, a little paint never hurt any old barn.'"
--"In his last years, J. Golden Kimball met a friend in the street who said to him, 'How are you Golden? How are you getting along?' 'Well, to tell the truth, I'm not doing so good. Getting old and tired. You know, Seth, I've been preaching this gospel nigh onto sixty years now, and I think it's time for me to get over to the other side to find out how much of what I've been saying is true.'"