Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920
Biography of Olive Minerva Bullock Kimball, 1866-1932
By Lindsey Marquis and Jess Cacciola, Undergraduates, Saint Anselm College
Olive Minerva Bullock was born on August 24, 1866 in Columbia Cross Roads, Bradford County, Pennsylvania. She was the youngest of three children born to Asa Allen Bullock and Luceila Sweet Bullock. She graduated from a public school in Pennsylvania. Bullock worked as a teacher in Pennsylvania prior to her marriage. On August 15, 1888 Olive M. Bullock married Reverend John Kimball. At the time of their marriage John was a pastor of a church in Bethel, Vermont. According to census and birth records of their children, Olive and her husband lived in Turner, Maine until approximately 1900. Olive and John Kimball had four children. Helen Luciela Kimball, their oldest child was born in 1889, Dorothy Sweet Kimball was born in 1895, and their youngest child Carol Wrexiville Kimball was born in 1897. Olive and John also had a son, John Langdon Kimball, born in 1893. However, the child died when he was just four months old.
In 1901, Olive M. Kimball became a licensed pastor. She was co-pastor with her husband in Glover and Lyndonville, Vermont and they preached there together for three years. Olive was also part of the Young People's Christian Union of the Universalist Church. Through this organization, Kimball led many devotional meetings and became the vice president of the organization. Census records show that Olive and her family lived in Marlborough, New Hampshire in 1910. It was here that Olive truly began to flourish as she became the superintendent of public schools in Marlborough. She was the first female superintendent in the state.
It was also in New Hampshire that Olive became involved in suffrage. She became a speaker at suffrage, temperance, and educational events. She spoke at several Woman's Christian Temperance Union events in 1905. In November of 1907, it was reported that Olive M. Kimball was the chairman of a suffrage club in Marlborough. She was also the president of the Woman's Universalist Missionary Association of New Hampshire. She was secretary of the New Hampshire Woman Suffrage Association under vice-president Ella H.J. Hill of Concord in 1907.
According to the census, by 1920 Olive and her husband had moved to Vermont. While living in Vermont, Olive and her husband were still active in the church, and Olive still gave talks on important issues. In 1932, Olive and John Kimball died when their car was struck by a passenger train. They are buried together at Williamstown Village Cemetery in Williamstown, Orange County, Vermont.
Sources:
A record of Olive Minerva Bullock Kimball's birth, death, and gravestone can be found on findagrave.com, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/115229691#clipboard. Records of Olive's parents, along with each of their birth and death dates, can be found on Ancestry.com under “Olive Minerva Bullock” or at https://www.ancestry.com/genealogy/records/olive-minerva-bullock_98219935. Olive's employment history, along with that of her husband John, can be found in the August 9, 1907 issue of the Vermont Phoenix or at https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn98060050/1907-08-09/ed-1/seq-1/. Olive and John's marriage record, along with their children's names, birth, and death dates can be found on the Tri-Counties Genealogy and History website http://www.joycetice.com/bibles/bullswee.htm.
Information on her Universalist activity and about her running meetings can be found on page 82 of The Universalist Register: Containing the Statistics of the Church and Denominational Information by Richard Eddy D.D., edited by Rev. Anson Titus and the Universalist Register, published by Universalist Publishing House in 1907, located in the New York Public Library, or at https://books.google.com/books?id=yuAqAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA5-PA82&lpg=RA5-PA82&dq=Womens+Universalist+Missionary+Society+of+New+Hampshire&source=bl&ots=mW0PqgyIZT&sig=ACfU3U0hak5MTax1cTVhpi5KVgVYreV3IA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjbr-LhiYLhAhUMxVkKHQClB24Q6AEwAHoECBUQAQ#v=onepage&q=Womens%20Universalist%20Missionary%20Society%20of%20New%20Hampshire&f=false. Evidence of her work can also be found on pages 152 and 115 in Onward For Christ and His Church: The Journal of the Universalist Young People, published in 1901 by the National Y.P.C.U of the Universalist Church, located at Harvard Divinity School, or at https://books.google.com/books?id=nsgpAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA180&lpg=PA180&dq=Olive+M+Kimball+YPCU&source=bl&ots=m41aWGVdUd&sig=ACfU3U2rL8AhfUe7Or5PCI7g9TfWasPh4Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwikiOXxu4_hAhWOjFkKHfVwAu8Q6AEwBnoECAkQAQ#v=snippet&q=Olive%20M%20Kimball&f=false. It can also be found on page 5 of the August 9, 1905 edition of the Fitchburg Sentinel from Fitchburg, Massachusetts or at https://www.newspapers.com/image/65477099/?terms=%22Olive%2BM.%2BKimball%22.
Evidence of her activity as a speaker at suffrage, temperance, and educational meetings, writer for the Universalist leader, and chairman of a Marlborough, NH based suffrage club can be found on page 144 of the September 7, 1907 edition of The Woman's Journal, as well as in the November 1907 issue of Progress, Volume 6, from New York, New York.
Information about where Kimball lived at the end of her life, as well as information about her death can be found in the censuses at Ancestry.com https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/7884/31111_4330848-01369?pid=15805902&backurl=https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv%3D1%26dbid%3D7884%26h%3D15805902%26tid%3D%26pid%3D%26usePUB%3Dtrue%26_phsrc%3DDBo142%26_phstart%3DsuccessSource&treeid=&personid=&hintid=&usePUB=true&_phsrc=DBo142&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true , as well as under “Olive Minerva Bullock”, included in the “Anderson Family Tree”, https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/10639889/person/24007345494/story. This information about Kimball can also be found on page 8 of January 28, 1920 edition of the Orleans County Monitor or at https://www.newspapers.com/image/403785111/?terms=Olive%2BM%2BKimball, on page 5 of the December 2, 1922 edition of The Caledonian-Record, or at https://www.newspapers.com/image/365549680/?terms=Olive%2BM%2BKimball, and on findagrave.com, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/115229691/olive-minerva-kimball.