Leneve Kimball (Martin)

I am happy to write this little tribute to my Dad. Dad loved good music, and he could play almost any musical instrument, including the piano and organ. He composed many piano selections but these were never recorded. I enjoyed hearing him play, and enjoyed the stories which he told with the music. He played the slide trombone in the high school orchestra. The slide trombone is a difficult instrument to play because there is not set place for the notes on the slide. No one could play the slide trombone as well as Dad. Dad had an ear for music and could hear the slightest mistake. He also had “the beat,” and it would disturb him greatly to see, or hear, a song led with the wrong beat to the music. Dad could sing and read every part of music and he had a beautiful powerful voice. He participated in many musical events. He was well known for his musical talents and abilities in Cowley, WYoming, where he grew up. ( From about 1892 to 1929). He was around 36 years old when he left Wyoming. As a young man, Dad participated in operettas, choruses, choir groups, quartets--his specialty, and solos. When we moved to Draper, Utah, he sang in a quartet with my music teacher (high school music teacher), E. L. Christiansen, who later became a general authority, and my math teacher, Ray Barton. I can’t remember the fourth member of the quartet. This quartet performed all over the Salt lake Valley and, was included in campaigns for Roosevelt, in the presidential election at that time. (They blackened their faces and sang Negro Spirituals. Venice, who was five or six at the time, was very frightened when Dad blackened his face.) Dad, and my sister LeNeve, sang in the Salt Lake City Tabernacle Choir while we lived in Utah. When we moved to California Dad was invited to sing in the Contando Club, an exclusive group of singers in Southern California. Dad’s church callings were usually connected with music, and he faithfully performed them as long as he was able. (Although he was never in a bishopric--still they made him a high priest.) Dad was a superior farmer. He was trained and skilled in his vocation. He could stack hay faster than anyone, and his irrigation techniques were better than anyone else’s. His crops were good and yielded good produce. In his field there was no one who could surpass Dad, but he had reverses. When I was born Mother developed heart disease and, that same year, we (Dad, Mother, LeNeve, Leno, and I) all had the 1918 flu. (This was in Cowley, Wyoming--many people died with the flu.) Dad contracted rheumatism and he was so bad they had to roll him in sheets to move him. He went to a place called Thermopolis, Wyoming, and bathed in the sulphur hot springs there. (Because of this, and Mother’s heart problem), the expenses piled up. Eventually he did get well and was able to go back to work. Dad got a job working at the carbon plant to supplement his farming. He worked hard. When he came home from the plant each night he would be black all over, except for his eyes. Eventually the carbon plant closed. We were approaching the depression. Dad got a job hauling children to school, but his car would freeze up, and he would have a tough time. He wasn’t able to raise all the hay he needed for his livestock for the winter so he had to purchase more in Fannie, Wyoming, which was thirteen miles from Cowley. The weather was 40 degrees below and didn’t warm up in the day time. Dad had to walk beside his wagon load of hay as he drove the team of horses back home from Fannie. He would be nearly frozen when he arrived. When I was almost eleven years old, Dad decided to sell everything he had so he could pay his debts and move to Utah where it was warmer, and we children would have a better opportunity for an education. Dad and LeNeve left in February 1929, The rest of us (Mother, Leno, Venice, David, and Hazel) followed later by train. David was a tiny baby. Dad leased a farm in Draper, Utah. he had 40 head of cows to milk, night and morning, chickens, calves, and a garden. He raised sugar beets, alfalfa, and grain. he was doing very well financially until he had an accident as he hauled a load of sugar beets to the beet dump. It was a cold, icy day and the horses slipped as they were going up the ramp. The horses, wagon, beets, and all fell on top of Dad, crushing him beneath. It broke his bones so badly (splintered six ribs, broke his collarbone, arm and cracked his hip bone) that he was never able to do farm work again. Dad made friends easily, and had an outgoing personality, so a friend talked him into learning the insurance business, and to move to California, as living expenses were cheaper there. (It was about 1931-Dad was about 40 years old.) It was during the depression, so this sounded good to Dad and, anyway, he had always wanted to live “where the roses bloom”. (Here again, Dad went ahead of mother and the children. He rented a house on Cypress Street in Santa Ana, California, and then sent for us--Mother, Leno, Hazel, Venice, and David. LeNeve stayed in Utah to marry Rodney Kimball, a return missionary who had served in Germany. Mother hired two men to drive us to California. They had a large sedan. The tires were not good and they had 36 flats between Utah and California. Venice remembers waiting out on the hot desert for the men to return with a tire they were having fixed in the nearest town. Everyone was thirsty but the only water around was a stagnant pool with tadpoles swimming around in it. We made it to California. Not long after, Leno got a job working at a service station.) Dad was not successful in selling insurance so he got a job milking cows. (He milked so many cows that his hands swelled, cracked, and bled.) Finally he managed to get into the Electrolux vacuum cleaner business, and he made a good living for his family, compared to other families during the depression. We never wanted for food, nor the necessities of life. Dad served a stake mission while in California and spent a good deal of time and money helping the full-time missionaries. Although Dad loved to read he didn’t do much reading during those years. I can’t remember a time when he even sat down to relax, except in church meetings. (He always attended church. Venice remembers that Dad liked to play checkers and would sometimes go down town in Santa Ana, California, and play checkers with a man there. That is how he relaxed sometimes.) Before the radio and television, Dad real all the time. He read The Saturday Evening Post, The Country Gentleman, True Detective Stories, The Denver Post--a newspaper which he purchased once a week on Saturday, and other magazines and books. Mother and Dad had many books which they had to give away when the family moved from Cowley, Wyoming, to Utah. I remember some of their books. I love to look at them when I was a child. One was called, The Sinking of the Titanic, another had something to do with the Bible, particularly with the book of Revelation because I liked to look at the beasts. The beasts had wings and one had a face like a man. Another book that I remember had a picture of a grandmother and grandfather back in a corner eating out of a trough, like pigs. A little boy in front was building something. His mother said, “what are you building?” He answered, “I am building a trough for you and dad to eat out of when you get old like Grandpa and Grandma.” Dad helped Mother do the washing every week when their family was young in Cowley, Wyoming. We had a hand powered washing machine. By pushing a lever back and forth, it would agitate the clothes. Dad always read while he pushed the lever. Dad and mother moved from California back to Utah with Leno and his family, during World War II (1941). Leno had purchased a small farm (ten acres--the University Mall was built across the street from his farm. The little houses he built are still there. He built a home for himself and also a home for Mother and Dad. Leno moved because, during the war, all home building had stopped and his overhead door business stopped with it. He started his overhead door business in Santa Ana.) Dad went to work at the steel plant just outside of Provo, Utah. He worked there until he fell and hurt himself. (Part of his problem was lifting three hundred pounds of cement all at once to show how strong he ws. He held a one hundred pound sack in his teeth, and a one hundred pound sack under each arm.) He didn’t ever regain his health and his old problems returned. He went back to reading, but it was always the scriptures, church books, church publications, and the newspaper. He wanted to learn more about the gospel. Dad loved to dance. He was a good dance director. He taught me the Charleston and the Black Bottom before we left Cowley. (He taught Venice to tap dance too.) As children we loved to watch Dad and Mother dance. They had a open-air pavilion in Cowley only a block and a half from our home. We were allowed to go to the dances and watch them dance during the summer time. (After we moved to California Mother broke her foot and was never able to dance again.) Everyone in Cowley liked Dad (also in Utah and California). He dressed smartly, and always looked clean and neat. He was a sportsman, except for fishing. He liked to be on the move. With fishing you have to sit and wait for the fish to bite. Dad loved rodeos. We attended often in Powell, Wyoming, and once in a while in Cody, Wyoming. Dad loved animals. (Besides his horses, cows, chickens, and other farm animals), he had two cats. Whenever he returned home, the cats would meet him at Crosby’s corner. Crosby’s corner was a block away from our home in Cowley, Wyoming, and they would ump upon his shoulder as he turned the corner. He loved horses and took pride in his horses. In Draper, Utah, when he milked 40 head of cows night and morning, the cows would go down to the pasture a mile away from the barn. In the evening Dad would whistle to them (They knew his whistle) and one by one they would start to file their way back to the barn so he could milk them. (Dad sang as he milked. He said the cows gave more milk when he sang. As Dad worked about the farm in Draper, he sang a little song to the tune of the meadow lark--”Draper is a pretty little dtown.”) Dad was not a cowboy. He wore bib-overalls when he worked on the farm. He wore dress clothes for other occasions. As a salesman he always wore dress clothes so he looked like a gentleman. Dad did a lot of trading. In pioneer days people didn’t have much money so they traded whatever they had for whatever they needed that someone else had. He continued to do this a lot as he became a salesman. He traded his profit on an Electrolux for my training at the Chicago College of Beauty Culture in Santa Ana, California. He traded for things that we needed in the home and services needed, even doctor’s services. Dad had a lot of determination and willpower. He had a great love for nature and all of our Heavenly Father’s creations. He was especially fond of the mountains and talked often about the Grand Tetons and the Rockies. Even after Dad had been ill for many years, he still retained his knowledge of growing things and, with Mother’s help, he had a beautiful garden when they first moved to Salt Lake City. (After the war--1946--Leno sold his small farm. By then, Leno had started his door business and moved into Salt Lake City where he had more work.) Dad love the “bright lights,” as he called them, referring to the lights of the city, and he enjoyed living on a hill in Salt Lake City where he could look down on the valley at night and see the glitter of the lights in the darkness. In the morning, when he awoke, he saw the Rockies and loved it. Dad was a story teller. I wish I had time to record all of the stories I remember. They were choice. I hope this has given you a little insight into Dad’s life. Dad loved Mother. He was always telling her that she was beautiful. Dad said Mother was the prettiest woman in town. When he married her she was 5’2” and weighed 97 lbs. She had coal-black hair and hazel-brown eyes. Dad was as rugged as the mountains that he loved and had great willpower and determination. This kept him alive when doctors said there was no way he could live. He loved life, and wanted to live. (As a lover of nature, Dad loved the mountains but he did not like the beach. He said, “There is sand everywhere, even in the food.” Dad loved his family and took great pride in them. When his grandchildren sang for him he said they sounded like the Tabernacle Choir. Dad left a legacy of strong-willed character. He loved the Gospel and he knew it was true. The most difficult thing he had to do in life was to part with Leno. (Leno died in Orange, California, about 1955--I think he was about 39 years of age.) Dad was blessed with a beautiful, loving wife, who cared for him through his long illness; two sons--Leno and David: and three daughters--LeNeve, Hazel and Venice. I feel this has been an honor, and a privilege, to write this tribute to my Dad for my sister, Venice, who is serving a mission, with her husband, Al, in the Dallas Texas Mission. (Written in 1984--Hazel lives in Tempe Arizona.) Notes in parentheses are added by Venice. She did not have her records with her so some of the dates may not be right.

I am happy to write this little tribute to my Dad. Dad loved good music, and he could play almost any musical instrument, including the piano and organ. He composed many piano selections but these were never recorded. I enjoyed hearing him play, and enjoyed the stories which he told with the music. He played the slide trombone in the high school orchestra. The slide trombone is a difficult instrument to play because there is not set place for the notes on the slide. No one could play the slide trombone as well as Dad. Dad had an ear for music and could hear the slightest mistake. He also had “the beat,” and it would disturb him greatly to see, or hear, a song led with the wrong beat to the music. Dad could sing and read every part of music and he had a beautiful powerful voice. He participated in many musical events. He was well known for his musical talents and abilities in Cowley, WYoming, where he grew up. ( From about 1892 to 1929). He was around 36 years old when he left Wyoming. As a young man, Dad participated in operettas, choruses, choir groups, quartets--his specialty, and solos. When we moved to Draper, Utah, he sang in a quartet with my music teacher (high school music teacher), E. L. Christiansen, who later became a general authority, and my math teacher, Ray Barton. I can’t remember the fourth member of the quartet. This quartet performed all over the Salt lake Valley and, was included in campaigns for Roosevelt, in the presidential election at that time. (They blackened their faces and sang Negro Spirituals. Venice, who was five or six at the time, was very frightened when Dad blackened his face.) Dad, and my sister LeNeve, sang in the Salt Lake City Tabernacle Choir while we lived in Utah. When we moved to California Dad was invited to sing in the Contando Club, an exclusive group of singers in Southern California. Dad’s church callings were usually connected with music, and he faithfully performed them as long as he was able. (Although he was never in a bishopric--still they made him a high priest.) Dad was a superior farmer. He was trained and skilled in his vocation. He could stack hay faster than anyone, and his irrigation techniques were better than anyone else’s. His crops were good and yielded good produce. In his field there was no one who could surpass Dad, but he had reverses. When I was born Mother developed heart disease and, that same year, we (Dad, Mother, LeNeve, Leno, and I) all had the 1918 flu. (This was in Cowley, Wyoming--many people died with the flu.) Dad contracted rheumatism and he was so bad they had to roll him in sheets to move him. He went to a place called Thermopolis, Wyoming, and bathed in the sulphur hot springs there. (Because of this, and Mother’s heart problem), the expenses piled up. Eventually he did get well and was able to go back to work. Dad got a job working at the carbon plant to supplement his farming. He worked hard. When he came home from the plant each night he would be black all over, except for his eyes. Eventually the carbon plant closed. We were approaching the depression. Dad got a job hauling children to school, but his car would freeze up, and he would have a tough time. He wasn’t able to raise all the hay he needed for his livestock for the winter so he had to purchase more in Fannie, Wyoming, which was thirteen miles from Cowley. The weather was 40 degrees below and didn’t warm up in the day time. Dad had to walk beside his wagon load of hay as he drove the team of horses back home from Fannie. He would be nearly frozen when he arrived. When I was almost eleven years old, Dad decided to sell everything he had so he could pay his debts and move to Utah where it was warmer, and we children would have a better opportunity for an education. Dad and LeNeve left in February 1929, The rest of us (Mother, Leno, Venice, David, and Hazel) followed later by train. David was a tiny baby. Dad leased a farm in Draper, Utah. he had 40 head of cows to milk, night and morning, chickens, calves, and a garden. He raised sugar beets, alfalfa, and grain. he was doing very well financially until he had an accident as he hauled a load of sugar beets to the beet dump. It was a cold, icy day and the horses slipped as they were going up the ramp. The horses, wagon, beets, and all fell on top of Dad, crushing him beneath. It broke his bones so badly (splintered six ribs, broke his collarbone, arm and cracked his hip bone) that he was never able to do farm work again. Dad made friends easily, and had an outgoing personality, so a friend talked him into learning the insurance business, and to move to California, as living expenses were cheaper there. (It was about 1931-Dad was about 40 years old.) It was during the depression, so this sounded good to Dad and, anyway, he had always wanted to live “where the roses bloom”. (Here again, Dad went ahead of mother and the children. He rented a house on Cypress Street in Santa Ana, California, and then sent for us--Mother, Leno, Hazel, Venice, and David. LeNeve stayed in Utah to marry Rodney Kimball, a return missionary who had served in Germany. Mother hired two men to drive us to California. They had a large sedan. The tires were not good and they had 36 flats between Utah and California. Venice remembers waiting out on the hot desert for the men to return with a tire they were having fixed in the nearest town. Everyone was thirsty but the only water around was a stagnant pool with tadpoles swimming around in it. We made it to California. Not long after, Leno got a job working at a service station.) Dad was not successful in selling insurance so he got a job milking cows. (He milked so many cows that his hands swelled, cracked, and bled.) Finally he managed to get into the Electrolux vacuum cleaner business, and he made a good living for his family, compared to other families during the depression. We never wanted for food, nor the necessities of life. Dad served a stake mission while in California and spent a good deal of time and money helping the full-time missionaries. Although Dad loved to read he didn’t do much reading during those years. I can’t remember a time when he even sat down to relax, except in church meetings. (He always attended church. Venice remembers that Dad liked to play checkers and would sometimes go down town in Santa Ana, California, and play checkers with a man there. That is how he relaxed sometimes.) Before the radio and television, Dad real all the time. He read The Saturday Evening Post, The Country Gentleman, True Detective Stories, The Denver Post--a newspaper which he purchased once a week on Saturday, and other magazines and books. Mother and Dad had many books which they had to give away when the family moved from Cowley, Wyoming, to Utah. I remember some of their books. I love to look at them when I was a child. One was called, The Sinking of the Titanic, another had something to do with the Bible, particularly with the book of Revelation because I liked to look at the beasts. The beasts had wings and one had a face like a man. Another book that I remember had a picture of a grandmother and grandfather back in a corner eating out of a trough, like pigs. A little boy in front was building something. His mother said, “what are you building?” He answered, “I am building a trough for you and dad to eat out of when you get old like Grandpa and Grandma.” Dad helped Mother do the washing every week when their family was young in Cowley, Wyoming. We had a hand powered washing machine. By pushing a lever back and forth, it would agitate the clothes. Dad always read while he pushed the lever. Dad and mother moved from California back to Utah with Leno and his family, during World War II (1941). Leno had purchased a small farm (ten acres--the University Mall was built across the street from his farm. The little houses he built are still there. He built a home for himself and also a home for Mother and Dad. Leno moved because, during the war, all home building had stopped and his overhead door business stopped with it. He started his overhead door business in Santa Ana.) Dad went to work at the steel plant just outside of Provo, Utah. He worked there until he fell and hurt himself. (Part of his problem was lifting three hundred pounds of cement all at once to show how strong he ws. He held a one hundred pound sack in his teeth, and a one hundred pound sack under each arm.) He didn’t ever regain his health and his old problems returned. He went back to reading, but it was always the scriptures, church books, church publications, and the newspaper. He wanted to learn more about the gospel. Dad loved to dance. He was a good dance director. He taught me the Charleston and the Black Bottom before we left Cowley. (He taught Venice to tap dance too.) As children we loved to watch Dad and Mother dance. They had a open-air pavilion in Cowley only a block and a half from our home. We were allowed to go to the dances and watch them dance during the summer time. (After we moved to California Mother broke her foot and was never able to dance again.) Everyone in Cowley liked Dad (also in Utah and California). He dressed smartly, and always looked clean and neat. He was a sportsman, except for fishing. He liked to be on the move. With fishing you have to sit and wait for the fish to bite. Dad loved rodeos. We attended often in Powell, Wyoming, and once in a while in Cody, Wyoming. Dad loved animals. (Besides his horses, cows, chickens, and other farm animals), he had two cats. Whenever he returned home, the cats would meet him at Crosby’s corner. Crosby’s corner was a block away from our home in Cowley, Wyoming, and they would ump upon his shoulder as he turned the corner. He loved horses and took pride in his horses. In Draper, Utah, when he milked 40 head of cows night and morning, the cows would go down to the pasture a mile away from the barn. In the evening Dad would whistle to them (They knew his whistle) and one by one they would start to file their way back to the barn so he could milk them. (Dad sang as he milked. He said the cows gave more milk when he sang. As Dad worked about the farm in Draper, he sang a little song to the tune of the meadow lark--”Draper is a pretty little dtown.”) Dad was not a cowboy. He wore bib-overalls when he worked on the farm. He wore dress clothes for other occasions. As a salesman he always wore dress clothes so he looked like a gentleman. Dad did a lot of trading. In pioneer days people didn’t have much money so they traded whatever they had for whatever they needed that someone else had. He continued to do this a lot as he became a salesman. He traded his profit on an Electrolux for my training at the Chicago College of Beauty Culture in Santa Ana, California. He traded for things that we needed in the home and services needed, even doctor’s services. Dad had a lot of determination and willpower. He had a great love for nature and all of our Heavenly Father’s creations. He was especially fond of the mountains and talked often about the Grand Tetons and the Rockies. Even after Dad had been ill for many years, he still retained his knowledge of growing things and, with Mother’s help, he had a beautiful garden when they first moved to Salt Lake City. (After the war--1946--Leno sold his small farm. By then, Leno had started his door business and moved into Salt Lake City where he had more work.) Dad love the “bright lights,” as he called them, referring to the lights of the city, and he enjoyed living on a hill in Salt Lake City where he could look down on the valley at night and see the glitter of the lights in the darkness. In the morning, when he awoke, he saw the Rockies and loved it. Dad was a story teller. I wish I had time to record all of the stories I remember. They were choice. I hope this has given you a little insight into Dad’s life. Dad loved Mother. He was always telling her that she was beautiful. Dad said Mother was the prettiest woman in town. When he married her she was 5’2” and weighed 97 lbs. She had coal-black hair and hazel-brown eyes. Dad was as rugged as the mountains that he loved and had great willpower and determination. This kept him alive when doctors said there was no way he could live. He loved life, and wanted to live. (As a lover of nature, Dad loved the mountains but he did not like the beach. He said, “There is sand everywhere, even in the food.” Dad loved his family and took great pride in them. When his grandchildren sang for him he said they sounded like the Tabernacle Choir. Dad left a legacy of strong-willed character. He loved the Gospel and he knew it was true. The most difficult thing he had to do in life was to part with Leno. (Leno died in Orange, California, about 1955--I think he was about 39 years of age.) Dad was blessed with a beautiful, loving wife, who cared for him through his long illness; two sons--Leno and David: and three daughters--LeNeve, Hazel and Venice. I feel this has been an honor, and a privilege, to write this tribute to my Dad for my sister, Venice, who is serving a mission, with her husband, Al, in the Dallas Texas Mission. (Written in 1984--Hazel lives in Tempe Arizona.) Notes in parentheses are added by Venice. She did not have her records with her so some of the dates may not be right.