(Interview of Francis Marion Gibbons conducted by Daniel Bay Gibbons September 19, 2001 in Salt Lake City, Utah)
My Literary Awakening
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| Francis Marion Gibbons as a schoolboy in St. Johns, Arizona |
Books in the Homes of Parents and Grandparents
DBG: Dad, tell me about books in these three homes: the homes of your grandparents and your home.
FMG: Well, in our home my father had a nice set of Shakespeare. I think it probably went to Andrew. My father was an avid Shakespeare reader. He loved it. And he had a sizeable library there in St. Johns. I can’t tell you the other books that he had, yet knowing my father I’m satisfied that they were the classics, and he enjoyed reading the classics. In the Gibbons home, there were a lot of books, but I can’t tell you what they were. I know this, that in addition to regular reading in what you might call classical literature, my Grandma Gibbons liked novels. She loved a good novel. In the Christensen I can’t think of one book that I’ve ever seen. Now in “The Room” there could have been a little bookshelf there, but I never focused on it, never paid any attention to it. The Christensens were not intellectuals. The Christensens were practical people. Knowledge was for the purpose of doing something, achieving things. On the Gibbons side, reading was a joy. It certainly was with my father all of his life.
DBG: It sticks in my mind that I’ve heard two things about Grandpa’s reading. One, someone mentioned to me once that he liked Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.1
FMG: He loved it.
DBG: And another that he was reading Shakespeare the week between his accident and his death.
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| Works of Shakespeare owned by Judge Andrew Smith Gibbons Currently owned by Daniel Bay Gibbons His wife wrote: "Andy was a great reader. He loved Hamlet best of all. The night he died, he had been reading Shakespeare. It was on the table by his bed." (Adeline Christensen Gibbons, typescript biography of A.S. Gibbons) |
My Father’s Love of Shakespeare
FMG: I can believe that. Oh yeah. He loved Shakespeare. In Phoenix we had a more sizeable library. As to what it contained, I can’t tell you, because back in those days I really didn’t take a lot of interest in literature. I really didn’t. I’ve told you how I really became interested in literature.
DBG: I don’t remember that. Why don’t you tell me.
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| Library of Francis M. Gibbons at 1784 Yale Avenue, Salt Lake City, circa 1967 Standing: Francis M. Gibbons, Suzanne Bay Gibbons, Mark Bay Gibbons and Ruth Bay Gibbons Seated: Daniel Bay Gibbons and Helen Bay Gibbons |
The Awakening of My Interest in Literature
FMG: It was an occasion on my mission. I had made a trip to, I think it was Senatobia, Mississippi with President Whitaker.2 We had driven down there with Sister Whitaker and two of the lady missionaries from the office to hold a conference. We arrived early one Saturday before the Saturday evening meeting. We stayed in the home of member that had a two story home. And the second story really was one big room with screens all around. Obviously it was the room of a student. So President Whitaker and I went up there to relax before the evening meeting and he wanted to take a nap. I wasn’t sleepy, and there were a lot of books in a case there. While President Whitaker was sleeping I pulled down a copy of Pope’s Essay on Man , and I spent an hour or two reading that, and I was absolutely enthralled with that language. That was really the first time I had taken an interest in good literature. Alexander Pope.
My Early Plans for a Business Career
Of course, before I went in the mission field I was focused on a business career. I wanted to be a business man. I wanted to perhaps become a C.P.A. And I had taken correspondence courses in accounting from LaSalle. And I’d set up in my room, and I had an adding machine and I’d taken a lot of accounting in High School, and because of my work in the store I had envisioned I was going to have a chain of stores, “Franks”, and so my whole focus was in the area of business and accounting, and I’d just never had an interest in literature. But that was the spark that set me off when I read Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man.
New Direction Found on My Mission
That mission really changed my life, because when I came home from that mission I never wanted to be a bookkeeper, I never wanted to own a store. I wanted to be a lawyer, and I wanted to be a good one. And I wanted to be an educated man.
The Beginning of My Desire to Write
And interestingly enough, the desire to write never occurred until I was fifty. It was with that High Council and the Bishops in the Bonneville Stake that set me off on the path of writing. I’m still in that mode now.
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| Helen Bay Gibbons and Francis M. Gibbons, 1986 In Dad's study and writing room in Canyon Road Towers, Salt Lake City, Utah |
My Future Writing Plans at Age Eighty
Now I’ve got to tell you this. I may never have the chance to tell you this in another context. I still have problems with my hip. I have to do a lot of stretching. I have a regimen night and morning to stretch out my hip. The other day I was here in my room my hip slipped out on me, or something, and I was troubled, and so I needed to do a little stretching. I usually do it in the living room, but I decided, why don’t you stretch out here on the floor. And there’s not really a lot of room in here, so I stretched out with my feet there [north], and my head was over here [south, under the window]. And after I’d done my stretching I was resting my head on my right arm, and I looked over in the bookcase, and wedged in between two books was a little tiny pamphlet. I’ll show you. Now this is it. This little tiny pamphlet was wedged in between those books. So I just reached in for that pamphlet. And it happens to be a talk that B.H. Roberts gave around the anniversary of Joseph Smith’s centennial in the early nineteen hundreds. And so I later read it, and its got just a little section in here in which he talks about the Garden of Eden and Adam-Ondi- Ahman and the fact that this is the Old Country here, the United States. The Old Country isn’t over in the East. And it just opened up my mind to a whole new. . . .
[Tape ends here. FMG went on to discuss how this pamphlet set him to meditating about an entirely new focus for his long-planned book on The Spiritual Dimensions of America . It will no longer be a work just about the founding fathers, although that will be part of it, but about the rich history of the American continent from the days of Adam through the Jaredites, the Mulekites and the Nephites and into the present era. He then showed me a copy of the Life of Columbus, which he and Mom had recently found among the books of their library. It formerly belonged to Elder Levi Edgar Young. Many years ago Dad purchased this book and several dozen other books, as well as a silver engraved platter, from the daughter of Elder Young. Dad recalled that this daughter was concerned that the value of the books would be diminished because her illustrious father had written in them. Dad then recounted the following significant experience had after his mission with Elder Levi Edgar Young].
My Interview for Position of Secretary to the First Council of Seventy
When I was on my mission, Oscar A. Kirkham toured it. At that time Jack Anderson was doing the publicity for the mission. And so Jack had set up interviews with radio stations and newspapers along the way. And it was decided that Jack would accompany them on part of the tour, and I would pick up the tour in Jacksonville and finish it with Kirkham and President Meeks and their wives. So we worked it out that way. Not long after, when I was released from my mission and after I was released from the service – after my mission I went into the service and then I was discharged from the service in 1946 – that was the year that they held the last dance out at the pavilion at the lake in connection with June Conference. So Helen and I went out there, and we were standing at the rail looking out over the lake, but who should come up behind us, but Oscar A. Kirkham. And he had remembered me from touring the Southern States Mission, and he said, “Brother Gibbons. We (the First Council of the Seventy) have need of a Secretary to direct the office of the First Council. And when I saw you I thought of you and your work with Brother Meeks. Will you come in and talk to Elder Levi Edgar Young, who is the Senior President of the Council?” And I said, “Yes. I’ll be happy to do that.” So I went in and sat down with Levi Edgar Young, and he seemed to be very much impressed with me. And he said to me at the time, in substance, “If the decision were mine alone, I would employ you now.” And he said, “But I’ll have to talk to my brethren.” He said, “Will you come back at such and such a date and we’ll talk further.” So I went back, and Brother Young said, “Well I brought this issue up with the brethren”, and he said, “Everybody seems to be in favor but Richard L. Evans. And Elder Evans said, ‘We should not deprive this young man of the opportunity to get his education.’” And because it was not unanimous, I wasn’t hired. Now isn’t that interesting? And you can understand Elder Evans, knowing his focus on education, and why he would take that position. Then, he’s the man who ordained me a Bishop. But because of the inscription of Levi Edgar’s signature in this book, I thought you’d be interested in that. Its interesting to speculate what course life would have taken had I gone there at that time. I was interested just recently. I noticed the obituary of the man whom I would have replaced. His name was Arnold White and he later became a very successful businessman here in Salt Lake City. Brother of Woody White 65, who owns Bonwood Bowl, who is a lawyer, and Arnold White had been the Secretary to the First Council of the Seventy for many years, and he stepped down in 1946. So I thought you might be interested in that little piece of history.
DBG: Very interested. Well this has been a good session. Lets get the rest of the account starting next week.
FMG: All right.
1 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was the English author of the many “Sherlock Holmes” mysteries, including the Hound of the Baskervilles.
2 William Porter Whitaker: FMG’s first Mission President. Born April 2, 1882, at Centerville, Utah, a son of Thomas W. Whitaker and Hannah Waddoups. He was baptized July 6, 1890, ordained a High Priest June 24, 1912, by Geo. F. Richards, and a Bishop Feb. 27, 1921, by James E. Talmage. Served as Bishop of the Pocatello 4th Ward, Pocatello Stake, Idaho, from 1921 to 1924. Andrew Jenson, LDS Biographical Encyclopedia ,, Vol. 4, pages 578 - 579. He was appointed in 1940 to preside over Southern States Mission to succeed President Merrill D. Clayson. Conference Report , October 1940, page 3. In April Conference of 1941 he was one of only fifteen mission presidents serving in the entire Church. Conference Report , April 1941, page 2. By October 1942 he was one of seventeen mission presidents. Conference Report , October 1942, page 2. In 1943 Heber Meeks was appointed to succeed William P. Whitaker as president of the Southern States Mission. Conference Report , October 1943, page 7. After his mission President Whitaker was called as the President of the Pocatello Stake. Conference Report , April 1944, page 17. In October of 1946 he spoke in General Conference. Conference Report , October 1946, page 93. He later offered the closing prayer at the April 1949 General Conference. Conference Report , April 1949, page 30. President Whitaker was released as Stake President in 1953. Conference Report , October 1953, page 5.
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