returning to Waco to practice law. Critically, Kimball then worked as
counsel for the receiver in the case of a bankrupt chain of insurance
companies, which exposed him to actuarial sciences. In a field where
analytical skills are paramount, combining mathematical and statistical
methods to analyze and manage risk, Kimball was a natural.
A gifted administrator, “crusty and colorful ... a worldly erudite man
who claimed kinship to half the population of the state and was well
connected to the Dallas upper crust,”^4 Kimball became the superintendent
of schools in Dallas from 1914 to 1924. Halfway through his tenure, a
worldwide plague of biblical proportions rattled an already fatigued
nation.
The horrific influenza pandemic of 1918, one of history’s greatest
natural disasters, had spread around the world in the final year of World
War I, resulting in the deaths of more than fifty million people worldwide.
More Americans died from the flu (675,000), than perished overseas
fighting in the Great War. With no flu vaccine and no medicines to treat
the lethal pneumonia that accompanied the disease, Americans felt
particularly vulnerable to the contagion. While less than one thousand
people died in the Dallas area, sickness and lost workdays were critical
issues that confronted Superintendent Kimball.
Kimball created a “sick benefit fund” for the city’s teachers to protect
their livelihoods during the influenza pandemic, “where a membership
contribution of $1 a month entitled those who fell sick to compensation of
$5 a day, which offset lost earnings after the first week of illness.”^5 His
experience in evaluating and mitigating risk using statistics had prepared
Kimball to formulate a program for his teachers. It also forced him to
carefully tabulate numbers of subscribers and their health-related
statistics.
In 1929, Kimball became the vice president of Baylor University’s
Dallas medical campus, overseeing education programs at the colleges of
medicine, dentistry, and nursing, with an additional responsibility of
shoring up the shaky finances of the university hospital. Hospitals were
just transforming from almshouses and places of death and dying to
sanctuaries of recovery and wellness, but at a price. Baylor University
Medical Center was in deep financial trouble—even before the collapse of
Wall Street on October 29, 1929—and Kimball was the kind of pragmatic,
multitalented Texan for the job.