Almost weekly between 1926 and 1928, J. Golden Kimball of the First Council of the Seventy would sit down at the office typewriter and tap out a letter to his missionary son, Max, then serving in France. These letters have never been published and only occasionally quoted. in contrast to J. Golden’s fame as a “cowboy” General Authority with a vocabulary to match, these letters show a little-known side to his personality. He was affectionate and encouraging to his son, harassed by persistent poverty, baffled by some of the choices that Max’s siblings, all older, were making, but clinging doggedly and devotedly to his Mormon faith.

Lavina Fielding Anderson