Harold B. Lee
| Harold B. Lee | |
|---|---|
| File:Haroldlee.jpg | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Harold Bingham Lee March 28, 1899 |
| Died | December 26, 1973 |
Harold Bingham Lee (March 28, 1899 – December 26, 1973) was born in Clifton, Idaho and served as the 11th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from July 1972 until his death.
Early life
Lee was born to Samuel and Louisa Bingham and was the second of six children. The Lee family lived the rural life and Harold and his siblings spent most of their youth doing farm chores. During his childhood, his mother saved him from several near-death experiences. When he was eight, he was sent to get a can of lye from the shelf and spilled the deadly product all over himself. His mother opened a vat of pickled beets and poured cup after cup of the red vinegar all over him, which neutralized the lye. When he was a teen, he punctured an artery on a broken bottle. His mother cleaned it, but it became badly infected. She burned a black stocking to ashes and rubbed it in the open wound and it soon healed.
Lee was fortunate to receive a good education. He finished eighth grade at a grammar school in Clifton, Idaho and his parents allowed him to continue his education at Oneida Stake Academy in Preston, Idaho. He focused on music the first few years and played the alto, French, and baritone horns. Later, he played basketball and was a reporter for the school newspaper. He graduated in the spring of 1916.
The summer following his graduation he worked to receive his teaching certificate from Albion State Normal School at Albion, Idaho. After two summers of hard study (1916-1917), he passed the state's fifteen-subject test to receive his second- and third-class certificates.
Lee held his first teaching position in the fall of 1916. He taught a class of 25 students, grades one-eight, in Weston, Idaho. His salary was $60 a month. When he was eighteen, he became principal of a school in Oxford, Idaho.
In September 1920, the President of the Church, Heber J. Grant, called him on a mission to the western states, with headquarters in Denver, Colorado. He was twenty-one and served until December 1922.
While on his mission, Lee met a sister missionary from Utah, Fern Lucinda Tanner. They renewed their acquaintance when they returned from their missions and were married on November 14, 1923. Tanner died in 1962 and on June 17, 1963 Lee married Freda Joan Jensen, a former mission companion's girlfriend who had never married.
Service in the Church
In 1930 Lee was challenged by a calling as president of the Pioneer Stake in Salt Lake City, because the 1929 Great Depression in the United States left more than half of its members without jobs. He established a welfare program to aid members in distress that became a model emulated by the entire church. As part of the program, he helped organize the Pioneer Stake bishops' storehouse in 1932. The storehouse provided members with basic food necessities. Bishops' storehouses are still part of the Church Welfare Program today. In 1936 he became managing director of the Church Welfare Program. Although he also pursued a political career, at one time he was mayor of Salt Lake City, he began full-time work for the church when he was called to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1941.
From the time he became an Apostle his eventual succession to the church presidency was seen as largely inevitable, as he was almost twenty years younger than any other apostle and succession to the presidency traditionally relies on length of service among the Twelve. Spencer W. Kimball and Ezra Taft Benson soon became apostles as well, followed by Mark E. Petersen (1900-1984) in 1944, but Lee was the senior member of the new generation.
Under President David O. McKay, Lee became the intellectual leader of the church to some extent, as McKay was ailing and First Counselor Henry D. Moyle lacked the confidence of the apostles and died in 1963, effectively exiled to Florida. In this time Lee headed the Correlation Committee which pioneered the worldwide coordination of church activities on a standard schedule. When McKay died in 1970 Joseph Fielding Smith became church president and Lee was called as First Counselor in the First Presidency. He continued to gain practical experience for what was expected to be a long presidency of his own, he being decades younger than President Smith.
However, Lee's presidency proved one of the briefest in the history of the church, lasting from Smith's death in July 1972 to Lee's sudden fatal heart attack in December 1973. It was Spencer W. Kimball, exactly four years his senior and seen as in worse health, who would lead the church for the next dozen years and oversee the church's admittance of blacks to the priesthood.
After his death, a statue of him was dedicated at his birthplace. Brigham Young University also honored the former church president by renaming its library after him. The 665,000-square-foot Harold B. Lee Library is one of the largest libraries in the western United States and contains 98 miles of shelving.
Works
- Lee, Harold B. (1974). Stand Ye in Holy Places: Selected Sermons and Writings of President Harold B. Lee. Deseret Book.
- Lee, Harold B. (1996). Clyde J. Williams (ed.). Teachings of Harold B. Lee, Eleventh President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Bookcraft.
- Lee, Harold B. (1974). Ye Are the Light of the World: Selected Sermons and Writings of President Harold B. Lee. Deseret Book.
- Lee, Harold B. (1945). Youth and the Church (retitled Decisions for Successful Living). Deseret News.
- Lee, Harold B. (2000). Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Harold B. Lee. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
References
- Church Educational System (2005). Presidents of the Church: Student Manual. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. pp. 177-193.
