(From an Interview of Francis Marion Gibbons conducted by Daniel Bay Gibbons September 26, 2001 in Salt Lake City, Utah)
My Father's Place in St. Johns Society
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| Judge A.S. Gibbons Superior Court, Apache County, Arizona |
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| Dr. Thomas Jefferson Bouldin "Doc Bouldin" was a great friend of ASG He was the sole practicing physician in St. Johns for more than thirty years |
My Father’s Friendship with Non-Mormons in St. Johns
The Priest at the time I was growing up was a very close friend of my father and they used to play chess a lot. Because my father was well educated and well read, as was the Priest, they had a lot in common and enjoyed being together and visiting. There was no antagonism on the part of the Priest toward my father, or vice versa. So my father was quite cosmopolitan in his views toward other people, although he was very strong in his beliefs and for many years served on the High Council in St. Johns, he had a variety of friends that most latter-day saints didn’t have. He was very close, not only to the Catholic Priest, but to the non-member doctor in town, Dr. Bouldin.1 Here, again, the fact that Dr. Bouldin was an educated man, as was my father, they had a lot in common and they liked to play chess and get together.
My Father’s Pool Table
My father had a pool table in his home for a long time that he could set up. He could put it away. It was one of the special enticements for what we called the “Ward Teachers” to come and do their duty. (Laughter). So they always wanted to play a little pool with my father after they had delivered the message.
My Father’s Attitude toward the Word of Wisdom
So my father would like to fraternize with Dr. Bouldin, with the Priest, with Monty Montross,2 who was the editor of the paper. I don’t think there was anyone else in St. Johns that had a rapport with these educated non-members as did my father, which was a very interesting thing. I believe that this was another factor that entered in as to my father’s attitude toward the Word of Wisdom. He was very liberal in his views in that respect.
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| Page from Doc Bouldin's medical practice ledger with entries for ASG, AC and other Gibbons family members Source: Apache County Historical Society |
My Attitude toward the Word of Wisdom
I’ve thought about this a lot as to my attitude toward the Word of Wisdom. I never drank a cup of coffee in my home. But, as I mentioned to you earlier, there was a time when I was working in the store and a time or two I would have a cup of coffee at the restaurant near the store on a Saturday morning when I was faced with eighteen hours in the store. And I had sampled cigarettes. But, notwithstanding the liberal attitude of my father, I never really had a desire to smoke on a regular basis or to drink coffee. My brother Andrew was quite different. I think that because of my father’s attitude, my brother Andrew picked up the tobacco habit quite early. It was a difficult thing later on in his life to give it up. Of course, when I was in the Navy, coffee was endemic. Everywhere you went aboard ship there was a pot of coffee that was brewing and most of the guys on ship practically lived on coffee. But it never interested me. I never picked it up and I never, thank the Lord, developed a habit of smoking.
Impact of My Father’s Status on the Rest of the Family
But to get back to St. Johns. These non-member contacts on the part of my father and his role as the Judge, which was the principal civic office in the County, put him in a rather different category than most of the latter-day saints. My father’s status as the Judge was something that I think rubbed off on the whole family. Any number of times I’ve heard my mother say in a rather braggy way, something that she would never countenance in me, that she was the First Lady of Apache County. (Laughter). I think that subconsciously all of the children had that feeling – that they were the children of the premier man in the County. That fact, taken together with my father’s extraordinary mental capacity and his articulate language, kind of set us a part and maybe gave us a certain feeling of conceit and superiority. I don’t know that that’s altogether a bad thing, but I think that it was a fact that has to be recognized. I can remember so distinctly seeing the letters that came to my father addressed to “The Honorable,” “Hon. A.S. Gibbons”, and the fact that people looked on my father as “the Honorable Judge A.S. Gibbons”, the fact that there was a natural deference shown toward him on the part of other people elevated his status in my eyes and I’m sure in the eyes of the whole family. Such was my father’s mentality that it was generally assumed in the family, at least it was for me, that he knew everything. He was the fount of all knowledge and all wisdom. If ever you needed an information, all you had to do was go to Dad and he would tell you. In a sense, I think that may have had somewhat of a negative effect upon the children, I think probably on all of us. I think particularly my brother. I believe my brother felt so inferior to my father that it had a negative impact upon him, and that he therefore felt a certain sense of incompetence. I never had that feeling myself. At the same time, I had the feeling that my father’s mental status was such that he would be a tough guy to meet on even terms. And I think that that worked both ways.
My Father Pegs Me as a Businessman
I think that because of the very mediocre scholastic record I had in High School, that my father didn’t think I had much upstairs. I mean, he didn’t think I was dumb, but he didn’t see in me any special mental acuity. I think that he kind of had me pegged as a business man, because I had done well with Bayless, once I had an opening there, and I was very saving – I saved my money – worked hard, and had the respect of A.J. Bayless, who owned the chain of grocery stores. And I think that very naturally my father saw in me a future businessman. That perception – and here again I’m drawing some inferences – I think that that perception was fed in large part by the fact that I went to business school. I had saved my money and I payed all my fees at Business College after I had graduated from High School. Then, because there was an opening at the Bayless office, I was hired by Bayless to work there and Bayless had kind of taken me under his wing. I was just an eighteen year old kid. I worked in the office, and I used to drive around in his big convertible Packard to go to the stores to deliver cost changes and so forth. And so I think when my father saw that he just assumed that that was my career path and I think that, probably, he knows what has gone on since, but if he hadn’t known what went on afterward, I think that my father would be quite surprised to see how I turned out – to see how I did well – in fact, even at the risk of sounding egotistical, that I excelled as a practicing attorney, and I think that he would have been equally surprised to see what happened as to my Church career. So, that’s quite apart from St. Johns, but it seemed appropriate to mention it.
DBG: While on the subject, did Grandpa have business acumen?
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| ASG loved to own Buicks |
My Father’s Lack of Business Acumen
FMG: No. No, as I have judged it – and maybe I’m being a little presumptuous in judging him as to his business acumen – my father seemed to have the idea that he could find one of the Seven Cities of Cibola, and that he would find his great wealth all of a sudden. He invested in sheep with a man named Haws, and they lost everything. He invested in a grocery store in St. Johns with a man named Jones, and that went down the toilet. He wanted to go into another business enterprise, and to that end he wanted to mortgage his house, but the house was held in joint tenancy and my mother absolutely refused to sign. And as a result he probably avoided another business collapse. I’ve always felt that had my father turned all his money matters over to my mother that he would have been well off, because she was very careful. I think that they would have done much better. So, my father never really did well financially. In St. Johns, of course, he probably made more money than almost anybody in town because it was an important position. He always had good income. He always drove a good car. He liked Buicks, which was one of the finest cars that was manufactured at that time. When we moved to Phoenix he was driving a new Buick that was only a year old. So they lived well. I’ve already described our home, which was well furnished, and we always had a nice car. There was money. When he went into the practice in Phoenix it was during the height of the Depression, but he did well and he had money. But he didn’t accumulate it. I don’t think he ever grasped the idea that if you start from scratch, the only way that you’ll ever do anything in a financial way is to begin to build up a little nest egg. And he was looking for one of the Cities of Cibola. So, in answer to your question, my perception is – no, my father did not have any business sense. (Laughter). It wasn’t there.
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| Justice Jesse Addison Udall of the Arizona Supreme Court wrote: "I particularly remember my schooling . . . at St. Johns because the teacher, Andrew Gibbons, was a very capable and gifted man and one of those natural born teachers and leaders of boys. He made all of the lessons, especially anything pertaining to mathematics or government, most interesting. . . . He was so dynamic and interesting that I felt that . . . [it] was rather a turning point in my life. In later years, this same Andrew Gibbons studied law and eventually became a splendid lawyer and a capable judge. . ." |
My Father’s Extraordinary Mental Capacity and Teaching Ability
His thing was in the realm of the intellect. I’m honest to say, I’ve met a lot of smart people in my life, brilliant people, but I can honestly say that I’ve never met one who I would consider even the equal of my father in terms of pure mental capacity. He was a superior teacher. I was very interested not long ago in reading a little biographical sketch3 of Jesse Udall,4 who was one of D.K.’s sons and a brother of Levi, and Jesse became a member of the Supreme Court of Arizona, succeeding Levi, and was a Mission President and Stake President. In this little biographical sketch, Jesse Udall states that he never met anybody the equal of my father in terms of his ability to teach and to inspire. To teach and inspire.5 And I’ve heard many, many people say that. Unsolicited comments about my father’s capacity as a teacher. He had a marvelous vocabulary and he had a font of knowledge, and when he taught a class he could bring in things and give an elaboration that gave meaning and substance to the subject that he was treating. So that was his forte’. But not money. Not money management. He just didn’t have it.
DBG: I gather, then, that the teaching that Grandpa did in St. Johns was done in this Stake Academy where you had your Church meetings.6
FMG: Yes. Uh huh.
DBG: Tell me more about that building.
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| St. Johns Stake Academy Adeline Christensen Gibbons recalled that she attended school in the room used for Sunday services, and that the children would sit on the floor and use the wooden pews as desks, with the teacher standing at the back of the chapel. |
The St. Johns Church Academy
FMG: Well, as I mentioned, it was red brick. Two storeys. Very plain lines. Substantial building. He would have had his classes in that building, because the Church had its own educational system at that time. So, as I’ve mentioned, the assembly room was on the second floor, and then on the main floor were the separate classrooms. And so that is where he would have held out. He taught history, he taught Spanish and probably other courses there in the Stake Academy. That building was surrounded by a lawn. In my day, there were a lot of trees and there was a gazebo there on the Church grounds. We called it the bandstand. On special occasions – the fourth of July or the twenty fourth – they’d usually have a band there, and they’d usually have a speaker who would discourse on some special subject. My father would, I assume, participate in that because there was no one in town that could touch him as far as his ability to speak is concerned.
Notes
1 Dr. Thomas Jefferson Bouldin: The St. Johns medical doctor. Born 12 August 1878 in Warren County, Tennessee and died 16 September 1939 in St. Johns, Arizona. Doc Bouldin is listed as a resident of St. Johns in the 1910, 1920 and 1930 censuses, and was active in medical practice and community affairs for that entire period, including the period during which ASG served as County Attorney and on the Superior Court bench. In 1919 he treated a typhoid outbreak in St. Johns. See Apache County Herald, 26 June 1919. He delivered FMG in the family home in St. Johns on 10 April 1921. See, History of the St. Johns Arizona Stake , page 247. It is said that Doc Bouldin never turned anyone away, and after he died and his estate was settled, there were literally tens of thousands of dollars outstanding on his books. History of the St. Johns Arizona Stake , page 142. See, also, Apache County Historical Society, “Dr. Bouldin - Apache County Superintendent of Health” at http://apachecountyhistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/2013/07/dr-bouldin-apache-county-superintendent.html
2 Cory F. Montross (1872-1937): A close friend of ASG, C.F. “Monty” Montross founded the St. Johns Observer in 1910. The Observer offices were located on the second floor of the Merchants & Stockgrowers Bank on the south side of Commercial Street in St. Johns. History of the St. Johns Arizona Stake , pages 145 - 146. The Observer offices were almost adjacent to those of The St. Johns Herald , a paper which had been started in the 1880's. History of the St. Johns Arizona Stake , page 145. Montross’s Observer was apparently formed to be a rival newspaper to the long-established Herald. The St. Johns Stake History reports: “In 1910 C.F. Montross, a newcomer in St. Johns, started The St. Johns Observer. Although he looked the part, his background hardly cast him in the role of a small town editor. Reportedly, he was a graduate of Princeton University and at one time had played big league baseball.” History of the St. Johns Arizona Stake , page 146. After the death of Monty Montross, Isaac Barth purchased both the Observer and the Herald and, combining both operations, carried them on as The St. Johns Herald-Observer. History of the St. Johns Arizona Stake, page 147. See also St. Johns Cemetery records at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/az/apache/cemeteries/stjohns.txt
3 Jesse Addison Udall, 1893-1980 . Orem: Remember When Histories, Journals, 1981.
4 Jesse Addison Udall: Son of D.K. Udall. Born June 24, 1893, in Eagar, Arizona, a son of David K. Udall and Ida F. Hunt. Andrew Jenson, LDS Biographical Encyclopedia , Vol. 4, p.604. Bishop of the Thatcher Ward in 1930. Andrew Jenson, Encyclopedic History of the Church , p.870. President of the St. Joseph Stake from 1938 to 1942, and again from 1948 to 1958. Conference Report , April 1938, p.81; October 1942, p.3; April 1948, p.113; and October 1958, p.39. President of the California Mission from 1958 to 1960. Conference Report , October 1958, p.38; and October 1960, p.39. Jesse Udall was a close personal friend of President Spencer W. Kimball. Edward L. Kimball; BYU Studies Vol. 25, No. 4, pg.60, 62 (After his call to the Twelve, Spencer W. Kimball urged Jesse Udall to attend general conference when he was first sustained "so I will be sure to get a few votes."). Jesse succeeded his brother Levi as a Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court, serving from 15 June 1960 until 15 January 1972.
5 “I particularly remember my schooling in the eighth grade at St. Johns because the teacher, Andrew Gibbons, was a very capable and gifted man and one of those natural born teachers and leaders of boys. He made all of the lessons, especially anything pertaining to mathematics or government, most interesting for young people who were just entering into young adulthood. I learned for the first time that by study and concentration I could obtain grades that were toward the top of my class. He was so dynamic and interesting that I felt that the work I did in the eighth grade was rather a turning point in my early life. In later years, this same Andrew Gibbons studied law and eventually became a splendid lawyer and a capable judge of the Superior Court of Apache County, Arizona. Incidentally, our classroom was the old Tithing Office Building in the St. Johns Ward. This shows our proximity to the pioneer days.”
Jesse Addison Udall, 1893-1980, pg 10.
6 This may be incorrect, as Jesse Udall recalls ASG teaching in the old Tithing Office. See Udall, supra.
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