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The Blood in Their Veins: The Kimballs, Polygamy, and the Shaping of Mormonism
This meticulously documented, deeply engaging book represents a unique approach to Utah and Latter-day Saint history, drawing on previously untapped private letters and diaries of members of the large and widely known polygamist family of the prominent Latter-day Saint leader, Heber C. Kimball.
The story includes compelling accounts of Helen Kimball Whitney, who married Joseph Smith polygamously at fourteen and became, according to Emmeline B. Wells, “one of the best known and most estimable women of the Church,” and of her son Orson F. Whitney, who forswore his embrace of reincarnation only six years before his call as an apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Another daughter, Alice Kimball Smith, married a man who was tracked to a brothel and arrested for armed robbery and assault in 1883, after which Alice turned to family friend and apostle Joseph F. Smith and became his fifth wife. Heber’s son, J. Golden Kimball, one of the most beloved and colorful personalities in Mormon and Utah history, is brought to life in another sketch. The Kimballs had to navigate the ticklish business of explaining or obfuscating polygamy to disapproving family in the East, including the extended claim by Heber’s wife Christeen to her New Jersey family that she had married a Mr. Chase monogamously. Two of Heber’s sons, both stake presidents, contemplated plural marriage in the first decade of the twentieth century, well after the church publicly disavowed the practice.
Additional light is shone on the now-defunct Latter-day Saint practices of adult adoptions and speaking in tongues, Mormon-settler relations with the Utes and Pahvants, the 1856 handcart rescue, the John Hyrum Koyle “Dream Mine,” the Jackson County, Missouri, Temple Lot suit of 1892, and federal pursuit of polygamists.
The story includes compelling accounts of Helen Kimball Whitney, who married Joseph Smith polygamously at fourteen and became, according to Emmeline B. Wells, “one of the best known and most estimable women of the Church,” and of her son Orson F. Whitney, who forswore his embrace of reincarnation only six years before his call as an apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Another daughter, Alice Kimball Smith, married a man who was tracked to a brothel and arrested for armed robbery and assault in 1883, after which Alice turned to family friend and apostle Joseph F. Smith and became his fifth wife. Heber’s son, J. Golden Kimball, one of the most beloved and colorful personalities in Mormon and Utah history, is brought to life in another sketch. The Kimballs had to navigate the ticklish business of explaining or obfuscating polygamy to disapproving family in the East, including the extended claim by Heber’s wife Christeen to her New Jersey family that she had married a Mr. Chase monogamously. Two of Heber’s sons, both stake presidents, contemplated plural marriage in the first decade of the twentieth century, well after the church publicly disavowed the practice.
Additional light is shone on the now-defunct Latter-day Saint practices of adult adoptions and speaking in tongues, Mormon-settler relations with the Utes and Pahvants, the 1856 handcart rescue, the John Hyrum Koyle “Dream Mine,” the Jackson County, Missouri, Temple Lot suit of 1892, and federal pursuit of polygamists.
506 pages, Hardcover
Published June 2, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 28, 2025
Andrew Kimball’s The Blood in Their Veins offers a compelling and deeply textured exploration of the Kimball family, one of the most prominent lineages in Latter-day Saint history. Centering on the children and descendants of Heber C. Kimball—who himself had forty-three wives and sixty-five children—the book navigates a vast narrative landscape. In doing so, it illuminates not only the intimate lives of the Kimballs but also broader currents in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Mormonism, including polygamy, priesthood adoption, colonization, mental health, family politics, visions, missionary service, and church leadership.
Given the sheer scope of its subject, the book necessarily revisits certain events and themes, and its early chapters occasionally meander as they establish context. Yet these structural choices are less weaknesses than unavoidable concessions to the complexity of the task. Kimball’s storytelling ultimately succeeds in weaving together an expansive, intergenerational narrative that feels both coherent and immersive.
Among the many figures who come to life in these pages, a few stand out. J. Golden Kimball, legendary for his wit and frankness, emerges here with unexpected depth, revealing struggles with mental health, finances, and family life that complicate his familiar public persona. Helen Mar Kimball—often remembered solely as Joseph Smith’s young plural wife—receives particularly sensitive treatment. Her experiences on the trek west, her endurance within a polygamist household, and her grief as children married outside the faith or met tragic ends (including the suicide of a son) render her far more than a historical footnote. Kimball also reintroduces less familiar figures, such as Abe Kimball, who grew up separated from his father among the Cutlerites before surprisingly embracing polygamy in Utah; Sol Kimball, a blunt political agitator and family organizer; and Alice Ann Kimball Smith, whose disastrous first marriage ended in scandal before she remarried Joseph F. Smith, thereby bringing another larger-than-life figure into the family.
The narrative balances tragedy, poignancy, humor, and relatability. The Kimballs emerge as outspoken, flawed, and profoundly human—a family whose struggles and resilience mirror many of the tensions within Latter-day Saint history itself. Kimball’s achievement lies in refusing to sanitize their lives. Instead, he highlights the very messiness that shaped Mormonism in practice, even as it was being idealized in theology and culture.
The Blood in Their Veins is one of the most engaging Latter-day Saint histories I have read this year. Both scholarly and accessible, it not only enriches our understanding of the Kimballs as individuals but also uses their family’s saga as a lens for examining the broader contours of Mormon experience. It is a welcome contribution to the field and will reward anyone interested in the complexities of faith, family, and identity in the Mormon past.
Given the sheer scope of its subject, the book necessarily revisits certain events and themes, and its early chapters occasionally meander as they establish context. Yet these structural choices are less weaknesses than unavoidable concessions to the complexity of the task. Kimball’s storytelling ultimately succeeds in weaving together an expansive, intergenerational narrative that feels both coherent and immersive.
Among the many figures who come to life in these pages, a few stand out. J. Golden Kimball, legendary for his wit and frankness, emerges here with unexpected depth, revealing struggles with mental health, finances, and family life that complicate his familiar public persona. Helen Mar Kimball—often remembered solely as Joseph Smith’s young plural wife—receives particularly sensitive treatment. Her experiences on the trek west, her endurance within a polygamist household, and her grief as children married outside the faith or met tragic ends (including the suicide of a son) render her far more than a historical footnote. Kimball also reintroduces less familiar figures, such as Abe Kimball, who grew up separated from his father among the Cutlerites before surprisingly embracing polygamy in Utah; Sol Kimball, a blunt political agitator and family organizer; and Alice Ann Kimball Smith, whose disastrous first marriage ended in scandal before she remarried Joseph F. Smith, thereby bringing another larger-than-life figure into the family.
The narrative balances tragedy, poignancy, humor, and relatability. The Kimballs emerge as outspoken, flawed, and profoundly human—a family whose struggles and resilience mirror many of the tensions within Latter-day Saint history itself. Kimball’s achievement lies in refusing to sanitize their lives. Instead, he highlights the very messiness that shaped Mormonism in practice, even as it was being idealized in theology and culture.
The Blood in Their Veins is one of the most engaging Latter-day Saint histories I have read this year. Both scholarly and accessible, it not only enriches our understanding of the Kimballs as individuals but also uses their family’s saga as a lens for examining the broader contours of Mormon experience. It is a welcome contribution to the field and will reward anyone interested in the complexities of faith, family, and identity in the Mormon past.
July 6, 2025
I thought this book must have been a challenge to put together. It is a lengthy book, but I read through it quickly. The only reason I did not give it five stars was being unable to keep track of who everyone was at different points in the book. I could have done any better.
This book helped me understand more clearly how difficult life was on the western frontier. So many things were life threatening. So many died younger than they would have otherwise. Life was harsh. So many were sick, suffered dearly, and yet they carried on. So many children never made it out of their infancy, or childhood even. Wives died. Husbands died. So many struggled to find work, to have hard cash to buy things. It was not an easy life, and that desert could not have been conquered by anyone other than a community willing to put their own interests aside while working for the benefit of the whole. That group of people who broke the desert and made a successful community there deserve lasting credit for what they gave up to make it work out.
Feeling out of sorts back then, being depressed, was not something people understood. While life and survival is always a struggle, for some more than others, members of the Kimball family struggled with it, as did so many others, would be my guess. People today struggle with depression, and yet they have so much more, material speaking, to be grateful for than did the early pioneers. After reading this book, if anyone had a right to struggle with feeling down and discouraged, it was the pioneers. They had a hard life. I still tip my hat to them for their toughness. I credit the author with sharing material that gives me fertile ground to think. Well done.
This book helped me understand more clearly how difficult life was on the western frontier. So many things were life threatening. So many died younger than they would have otherwise. Life was harsh. So many were sick, suffered dearly, and yet they carried on. So many children never made it out of their infancy, or childhood even. Wives died. Husbands died. So many struggled to find work, to have hard cash to buy things. It was not an easy life, and that desert could not have been conquered by anyone other than a community willing to put their own interests aside while working for the benefit of the whole. That group of people who broke the desert and made a successful community there deserve lasting credit for what they gave up to make it work out.
Feeling out of sorts back then, being depressed, was not something people understood. While life and survival is always a struggle, for some more than others, members of the Kimball family struggled with it, as did so many others, would be my guess. People today struggle with depression, and yet they have so much more, material speaking, to be grateful for than did the early pioneers. After reading this book, if anyone had a right to struggle with feeling down and discouraged, it was the pioneers. They had a hard life. I still tip my hat to them for their toughness. I credit the author with sharing material that gives me fertile ground to think. Well done.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews