George Willis Skidmore sat at his desk in the front of his class at the Lewiston public school in Utah. The students were busily copying the assigned writing lesson into their copybooks. The children ranged from six years of age up to about sixteen. He liked teaching and he liked children, but looking out over the room he knew he would have to find some other occupation. The winter months of these four walls were too long to bear.
He remembered the letter from Pa in his pocket that he had picked up at the post office this morning. He slipped it quietly out of his pocket and began to read.
Dear George,
I want to know if you are willing and prepared to
take a mission to preach the Gospel when your school lets out. I know it would be of great benefit to...
George could hardly restrain himself from jumping up and shouting, YES! A mission to preach the Gospel! Of course he would go; he would go anywhere. How wonderful that his father thought him ready to go at only twenty years of age. Most boys had to wait until they were 21. But he had grown up faster than most. He had earned his own cash money since he was thirteen. He had paid for his own college courses at sixteen by selling apple peelers from Montgomery Wards. Oh, he was ready. He was ready for an adventure.
That afternoon, he dismissed class a little early and started to walk through the March snow to the main highway. He hoped he could hitch a ride to Richmond. Six miles was a long way to walk in the snow. He wanted to tell Pa in person that he was ready and worthy to go. He knew it would make him proud to give a bishop's interview to one of his own sons.
It was hard to keep his thoughts on his students while he waited for his official call from the Prophet of the Lord. He was glad to close the Lewiston school that March.
George went home the next Sunday. Pa told him he must interview with Apostle Merrill, and so George went to see him the next day. All departing elders from Cache Stake were required to have a personal interview with him. Apostle Merrill told George to go to the temple that week to receive his endowments, then go to Salt Lake City for General Conference.
According to instructions, George went to the Logan Temple on March 31, 1898. Pa and Aunt Malinda, his stepmother, went with him. They stayed overnight in Logan with his brother John who was going to college there. They took the train home to Richmond, late the next day. When they arrived, George found a letter awaiting him from the famous Box B, the post office box of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. In it was a letter signed by President Wilford Woodruff calling him on a mission to the Southern States. He was told to attend April Conference in Salt Lake City and leave to the mission field from there.
Suddenly George had a lot of things to do. He said good byes to all his friends and relatives at a farewell party that night. He copied off his genealogy to turn in to the church historian's office. He didn't have a lot to pack since he could only take what he could carry in his "grip" or traveling bag.
Pa and George's brothers, Justin and Charlie, went with him to the conference. A large crowd of people came to the train depot to see him off to Salt Lake. The next week, he attended conference, turned in his genealogy and was ordained a Seventy by President Andrew Kimball of the St. Joseph Stake.
George was blessed that he would go in peace and return in safety from his mission; that the children would follow after him as they did the Savior; and that he would have great success that would be a satisfaction to himself and an honor to his father's name.
After General Conference and missionary instructions, George left for his mission field. He took a train to Chattanooga, Tennessee, with thirteen other elders. They arrived in Chat¼tanooga four days later. They visited the National Cemetery there, honoring those who fought in the Civil War. He saw his first black man. In the afternoon, George saw his first gun fight. One man was killed. That evening, he picked up his Price Albert missionary suit at the mission commissary.
The mission president informed George that he would be going on to Florida to preach. His companion was named Elder Snowball. They were to have the privilege of opening the mission in Osceola County, Florida. They took the train as far as they could, then walked many miles through the woods to get to their destination. Occasionally, they would be given rides along the way in wagons or buggies. They asked for food or a place to rest at houses along the way. Some days, they ate and slept well. Other days, they fasted and slept in the woods using their grips for pillows. The good people that took them in and fed them would sometimes do their laundry as well. They held meetings along the way at school houses and preached about baptism and the Holy Ghost. Sometimes they would walk as far as 25 miles in a day with only two biscuits to eat, then at the end of the day be offered only a bare floor to sleep on. They reached Osceola county on May 9.
In the town of Kissimmee, Florida, they were instructed to set up headquarters. But when the people of that town found out their intentions, they raised a mob that was quite earnest in wanting to kill them. George and his companion talked it over with the sheriff and decided to leave town until the people cooled off. They went into the countryside to preach. About once a week they would go into town to get their mail and leave as quickly as possible.
Elders Skidmore and Snowball settled into a pattern of walking long distances from settlement to settlement, preaching wherever they were invited. They walked in all kinds of weather, rain and heat, through miles of sand, and on other days miles of ankle deep mud. They tried to stop at lakes to bathe before entering towns. Once when George was bathing in a lake they happened upon, he felt a stabbing pain in his leg. He stood up to brush away the pain and realized that a young alligator had bitten him. He swung his hand at the animal and it snapped again, biting his little finger this time. With much splashing and shouting, he raced to the shore. When he was safely on dry land he realized that the alligator was just a baby. He felt a little silly.
After George had dried off, dressed, and calmed down, he realized that his missionary adventures had begun. He thought back to his little room of school children in Cache Valley, Utah and imagined how they would love to hear about the alligator, and the swamps, the mobs and the gun fights in the wilds of Florida. He half hoped the gash on his little finger would leave a scar to verify his tales.
His wish was granted. For the rest of his life he carried the scar from his fight with the alligator.
The information in this account was taken from the original missionary journals of George Willis Skidmore which are now in the possession of his son Robert Dean Skidmore, of Yuba City, California. James B. ¼Skidmore remembers the scar on his father's finger from the alligator. His feelings about being called on a mission and leaving the schoolroom, I projected from the promptness with which he responded to his father's letter and the fact that he was a young man from a small farming community. After his mission, he gave up teaching and traveled quite a bit in his new career as manager of the Logan Knitting Mill. Other references which helped me to visualize the times he lived in and the school system are: A. J. Simmonds, öthe Big Range: A Centennial History of Cornish and Trenton, Cache County, Utah 1870 1970òogan: Utah State University Press, 1970). Charles S. Peterson, "Changing Times: A View from Cache Valley, 1890 1915," Faculty Honor Lecture (Logan: Utah State University Press, Nov. 1979).