Judge Andrew Smith Gibbons, by his wife, Adeline Christensen Gibbons

Andrew Smith Gibbons, son of Andrew Vinson Gibbons and Elizabeth Harris Gibbons, and grandson of Rizpah Knight and Andrew Smith Gibbons, the pioneer, was born in Glendale, Utah, in 1880. When he was two years old, his family was called to Arizona to help settle St. Johns, and they moved there in December. (Everything that happened to him, happened in December), 

The Gibbons family lived first in a little place we called "Downfield." Andy's father, A.V. Gibbons, farmed down there, and then he built a house in St. Johns and they moved into town. This was when Andy was still a little boy. He and I went to school together in the white schoolhouse upon the hill. He was four years older than I was. When they later divided the school district to separate the while children from the Mexicans, we attended school down in the Assembly Hall. We sat on the floor and our desks were the benches they used in church. We grew up together in the same town. He like to play baseball and belonged to he St. Johns team which played Snowflake.

He worked hard at farming with his father. One day, Brother Stradling came up from the field to report to A.V.: "Andrew, did you know that that boy of yours, as soon as he puts the nosebags on the horses, crawls under the wagon and goes to reading?" "Well," replied A.V., "if that's the worst thing he ever does, I don't care." 

Andy was a great reader. Among his favorite works were those of Shakespeare. He loved Hamlet best of all. The night he died, he had been reading Shakespeare. It was on the table by his bed. He said that years before, when he went to Stanford, he couldn't spell, and he had to ride to school on his bicycle, so he took his speller and learned to spell as he rode back and forth to school. He never wasted a minute. 

When he finished school, he got a job teaching school in Alpine. Some of the boys in his class were as big as he was. He taught there for one year. Then he went to Stanford, California, for one year of high school. When he came home, he taught school again, at the St. Johns Academy. I never did go to any of his classes that he was teaching. 

We used to both be in the home plays together in St. Johns. That's where I started going with him, when he would take me home after the rehearsals. When he returned from California, we started going together. I went with him for a couple of years. We were married on December 28, 1904, and he continued to teach school. He was a wonderful teacher. Everybody said that. He also taught in Sunday School and Mutual, and at the time of his death he was a High Priests' instructor, and held a monthly class in Mesa, also. 

We had the two children, LeVon and Andrew, when the St. Johns Board of Education came down one night and asked him if he would go to college and get a college degree so he could teach in high school. This was really a church call, because the president of the board of education was Stake President D. K. Udall, and other board members were his two counselors. We left St. Johns with $1,000 and the two children to begin a four-year college course. He enrolled at the University of Utah, but as he was majoring in mathematics, and the best math teacher was at B.Y.U., we moved to Provo where he could study. He graduated from the B.Y.U. in 1911. 

After he got through college (completing the four-year term in three and a half years), he learned that there was no opening for him to teach in St. Johns, so he taught school at West High School in Salt Lake City for two years. There were no other openings available except 'way up north in Canada or Wyoming. After two years at West High, they wrote and asked him if he would teach math at the B.Y.U., so we moved back to Provo. 

Pauline was born May 13, 1912, in Salt Lake City, during his first year at West High. He taught at B.Y.U. for two years, and then we moved back to St. Johns (in 1915, I guess, because Pauline was two years old). He didn't go in as Principal for the first year. He taught part-time, (Spanish and English), studying law all this time. 

It was in December that he went down [to Phoenix] to take the bar examination. (Pauline was then just three). He went down just to see what he could do. When he left, he said: "I have no idea that I'll pass, but I want to see what I lack that I'll have to study for." He passed. He telephoned me and said he passed with a score of 93%. Returning home. he finished the school year, teaching the same two subjects. 

Ruth was born in St. Johns in 1918, and Frank in St. Johns just three years later. Doctor Bouldin was the doctor. 

When Ed Greer resigned as County Attorney, they appointed Andrew S. Gibbons as County Attorney, where he served for about a year. Then Judge George H. Crosby resigned as judge and Governor Hunt appointed him as judge. He was the judge in St. Johns for a number of years, from 1918 to1931. When he was defeated for reelection, a law firm in Phoenix wanted him to go down there, and he became a partner in Cunningham and Carson. I don't know how many years he was with them, but then he went by himself and worked a number of years. 

Just before he died, he once said: "You know, I think I'll quit this law business and go back to teaching." He liked it. 

Everything Judge Andrew Smith Gibbons ever did of any importance seemed to happen in December. He was born in December. He moved to Arizona from Utah in December. We were married in December. He passed the bar in December. And he died in December.

Source: Personal Documentary Record of Francis M. Gibbons, Volume II, (Salt Lake City, 1992).