Going forward with the faith of his fathers
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The gates of life swing on small hinges, President Gordon B. Hinckley often taught the youth of the Church. Seemingly little decisions made early in life eventually chart a course for life. For President Hinckley, such a gate swung during the desperate times of 1933.
It was the bottom of the Great Depression, a time when those who were once prosperous were now selling apples on the streets.
But roses were beginning to blossom across the Salt Lake Valley and Gordon Bitner Hinckley, who would turn 23 years old in a few days, was looking with optimism to furthering his education in the East. He had graduated from the University of Utah and had been working at small jobs to scrape enough money together to attend Columbia University where he planned to continue his studies in English and journalism.
Then stepped in John C. Duncan, a tall man who served as bishop of the First Ward in the (Salt Lake) Liberty Stake. A mission was discussed. Relatively few young men received mission calls in those days. Times were desperate and most parents didn't have the means.
President Hinckley discussed his missionary prospects with his father — his mother having died three years earlier from cancer. These were difficult times, financially and emotionally.
The young Gordon Hinckley had always been faithful, and even though his gift for writing and literature had lifted his eyes toward a career in journalism, he answered the call to serve a mission.
"I remember my father saying, 'We will do all we can to see that your needs are met,"' President Hinckley said, as reported in an early Church News account. "It was at that time that we discovered a little savings account my mother had left — change saved from her grocery purchases and other shopping. With that little bit of help added, it appeared I could go on my mission."
In the next years, President Hinckley would lift his voice in testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel in many nations around the world, and become a mighty leader in the kingdom.
Early years
Gordon B. Hinckley was born June 23, 1910, eldest son of Bryant S. and Ada Bitner Hinckley. As a child he lived in a two-story gray frame home with white shutters and trim located on the southwest corner of Windsor and Seventh South in Salt Lake City.
Known for his longevity, his many years of robust enthusiasm and inexhaustible vigor, President Hinckley was actually weak and frail as a child. At age 2, he was stricken with whooping cough which threatened his life. "The boy needs more fresh air and sunlight," the doctor said. So his father bought a farm in the East Mill Creek area of the Salt Lake Valley.
His earliest recollection of the farm was a stonemason laying rock for the fireplace in the Hinckley home. Each summer for the coming years, the Hinckleys would leave their home in Salt Lake City and live on the farm. This home later became the first home of the newlyweds, Gordon and Marjorie Hinckley.
President Hinckley's appetite for reading came naturally. His mother often read to her children, and his father had a spacious home library. But he did not care for school as a youngster and "kicked up a terrible fuss" when he started at Hamilton grade school.
He often wrestled with his younger brother, Sherman. One day their father tossed a pair of boxing gloves to them. "Now the next time you want to fight, put these on, move outside, and go after it in style," Bryant S. Hinckley said.
The young Gordon thrived on work, developing courage and determination to complete a task. He made stalled cars run, and while still a youth, he could handle household electric, carpentry and plumbing repairs. He later built and remodeled his own home. On the family farm he raised strawberries, corn, tomatoes, peaches, pears and cherries.
His first paying job was as carrier for the Deseret News. Years later he was named to the board of directors and executive committee of the Deseret News Publishing Company.
By the time he reached college, Gordon was developing a reputation as a gifted speaker. On one occasion, it was announced that U.S. Sen. Reed Smoot would speak during the First Ward's sacrament meeting. Sen. Smoot was also a member of the Quorum of the Twelve at the time.
On the day prior to the address, circumstances suddenly changed, preventing Sen. Smoot from attending. On Sunday, the bishop adjusted by calling two of "his boys" to speak. They had been ward teaching companions, though both were only about 20 years old. The bishop asked them to substitute for the senator that night.
Gordon had a watering turn on the family farm that required his attention most of that Sunday, but come sacrament meeting time, he was on the stand before an overflow congregation who had come to hear Sen. Smoot.
"When Gordy Hinckley finished speaking," recalled his companion, Bob (Robert F.) Sonntag, "people had forgotten all about Sen. Smoot's absence. The boy really stirred them."
Measuring up to his noble heritage of faith was a source of motivation for President Hinckley. Forebear Samuel Hinckley embraced the Puritan faith and set sail for America from England in 1635. His eldest son, Thomas, later distinguished himself as governor of Massachusetts Colony from 1681 to 1692.
His grandfather, Ira N. Hinckley, was born in Upper Canada and first heard the gospel in 1835 when he was 7 years old. In the spring of 1843 he walked 120 miles from Springfield, Ill., to Nauvoo where he heard the Prophet Joseph Smith preach in the grove west of the temple site.
Ira came west with the pioneers in 1850 and was later called by Brigham Young to build Cove Fort in central Utah. There his son, Bryant S., was born. Articulate and practical, Bryant S. Hinckley became a leader in the Church.
Over the years, while in his youth, President Hinckley became acquainted with many of the leading brethren of the Church who were frequent visitors to his father's home.
Bryant Hinckley died just four months before President Hinckley was sustained an apostle.
Ada Bitner Hinckley, President Hinckley's mother, was a cultured woman who was Utah's first Gregg shorthand teacher at LDS (Business) College. She also taught English and, as a bride, brought a baby grand piano into their new home.
Mission experience
President Hinckley was called to serve a mission in England in 1933. He traveled by train from Salt Lake City to New York, where he boarded a ship for Plymouth, England.
While preaching to shifting, critical crowds from atop a wooden stand he would cement his testimony.
"Either Joseph talked with the Father and Son or he did not," he would say. "If he did not, we are engaged in a blasphemy. If he did, we have a duty from which none of us can shrink — to declare to the world the living reality of the God of the universe."
He began his labors in Preston, a town of spires and green hedges in cloudy northern England. Converts were few in Britain when he began knocking on doors and preaching at night in Preston's lonely market square.
"I was terrified," he said, speaking of his first street meeting. "I stepped up on that little stand and looked at that crowd of people that had gathered. They were dreadfully poor at that time in the bottom of the Depression. They looked rather menacing and mean, but I somehow stumbled through whatever I had to say."
Discouraged, he wrote his father, saying, "I am wasting my time and your money. I don't see any point in my staying here."
A gentle, but terse, reply came from his father. "Dear Gordon. I have your letter.... I have only one suggestion. Forget yourself and go to work. With love, Your Father."
President Hinckley pondered his father's response and, touched by the Lord's promise to those who lose their life in His service, he got on his knees and covenanted with the Lord to forget himself and go to work.
His mission experience to Great Britain affected everything else President Hinckley did the rest of his life. Years later, while speaking to missionaries in the Pennsylvania Philadelphia Mission on Oct. 25, 2002, President Hinckley said, "What a marvelous season that was in (my) life. Everything that (I) have done since then, that has been of any worth to (me), has come out of that experience which (I) had back in those days."
No sooner had he recommitted himself to the work than he was assigned to London where he became assistant to Elder Joseph F. Merrill of the Quorum of the Twelve, who was presiding over the European Mission.
Years later, in 1958, when called to serve as Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve, President Hinckley opened his remarks in general conference that day in his typically humorous style.
"My dear brethren and sisters," he began, "I am reminded of a statement made by my first missionary companion when I received a letter of transfer to the European Mission office. After I had read it, I turned it over to him. He read it, and then said: 'Well, you must have helped an old lady across the street in the pre-existence. This has not come because of anything you've done here."'
The experiences of his mission have since cast a mighty imprint on the unfolding missionary efforts of the Church. President Hinckley had been involved with missionary work for more than 70 years, stretching from his mission in 1933 when a total of 525 missionaries throughout the world brought in 7,000 converts a year.
Today, approximately 53,000 missionaries labor in 160 nations and baptize approximately 240,000 converts.
In all his labors as a General Authority, whether supervising the Northern and Southern Far East Missions and the Hawaii Mission of the Church, as they were known then, for 26 years, he kept close to the heartbeats of the missionaries themselves.
He was with them in the London fog, in the cold Swiss rain, in the Montana wind, and in the humid heat of Asia. He helped them when sick, comforted them when bereaved, encouraged them when despondent, sorrowed with them in their tragedies, and rejoiced with them in their accomplishments. And he was on his knees with many a young man in distress.
Home, family and leadership
During his remarkable career President Hinckley continually demonstrated unique abilities of mind and judgment that served him in dealing with weighty issues of the growing Church.
"But the greatest judgment he has ever shown in his entire life," said President Boyd K. Packer, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve, is the judgment he showed in marrying Marjorie Pay. "You cannot know him unless you know her — the tender, guiding, patient influence she has been in his life and in that of their children."
Marjorie Pay lived across the street from the Hinckley city home. She was a beautiful young woman who became attracted to this modest young man in whom she observed a keen intellect and the ability to achieve.
He married this brown-eyed, dark-haired, intelligent young woman in the Salt Lake Temple on April 29, 1937. They moved into the Hinckley farmhouse in East Mill Creek where he installed the furnace and layed the brick flue. Two years later they built the home where they raised five children, namely: Kathleen, Richard G., Virginia, Clark and Cynthia Jane.
At age 27, in 1937, President Hinckley was called to the Sunday School General Board where he served for nine years. A capable writer, he wrote Old Testament and Book of Mormon lessons that were used for many years.
He distinguished himself as an administrator and was called as counselor to the East Mill Creek Stake in 1946, and as president in 1956. He became the third-generation Hinckley to serve as stake president following his grandfather, Ira N. Hinckley, first president in the Millard Stake; and his father, Bryant S. Hinckley who presided over the Liberty Stake. In the October 1998 general priesthood meeting President Hinckley told how his father faced grave challenges as president of the "largest stake in the valley" during the Great Depression.
"It was before our present welfare program was established," he said. "He walked the floor worrying about his people. He and his associates established a great wood-chopping project designed to keep the home furnaces and stoves going and the people warm in the winter. They had no money with which to buy coal. Men who had been affluent were among those who chopped wood."
This example served President Hinckley well. Years later, while presiding over the East Mill Creek Stake, he drew on this example when faced with the challenges of residing in one of the most rapidly growing areas of the state. During his service, 15 wards were created, and the stake was divided twice to become four stakes.
During this time, he served as an assistant in the Missionary Department for many years, and as executive secretary of the Missionary Committee since 1951.
Under the direction of the First Presidency and the Missionary Committee, he shouldered responsibility in supplying more than 11,000 missionaries with necessary materials to teach the gospel. There were 30,000 converts as a result of missionary labor in 1957.
A General Authority
President Hinckley was serving as stake president when called as an Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve on April 6, 1958. Three-and-a-half years later he was called to the Quorum of the Twelve on Oct. 6, 1961. He served as an apostle for 20 years until he was called as a counselor to President Spencer W. Kimball, at age 71, in July 1981.
For the next 14 years he served as a counselor in the First Presidency to three presidents of the Church, including second counselor to President Kimball, first counselor to President Ezra Taft Benson (Nov. 10, 1985), and first counselor to President Howard W. Hunter (June 5, 1994).
He worked with six presidents of the Church and was the longest serving of any General Authority, serving 49 years and nine months.
In his 85th year, he was ordained the 15th president of the Church on March 12,1995.
A common comment by those who worked under his direction or who sought his advice was that President Hinckley loved people and was concerned for their welfare.
On one occasion while serving as executive secretary for the Missionary Department, he learned of a missionary who returned home because of a serious illness. Following an operation, a room near the hospital was secured where the mother of this young man could be with him during his convalescence.
The summer was hot and the room was unbearably warm. Elder Hinckley sent the electric fan from his office to the missionary to make his room more comfortable and ease his suffering.
Like all great leaders of the Church, President Hinckley's faith was forged in a crucible of refining fire. The day before he left for an assignment to New Zealand given to him by the First Presidency in 1958 pertaining to the temple which had just been dedicated, he said, "I have administered to my father who is lying unconscious in the hospital and not expected to live, but I am strongly impressed that he will not pass away while I am on this assignment."
His father gained strength and lived another three years until June 5, 1961, two weeks after Elder Hinckley had returned from another assignment in Asia.
President Hinckley's leadership advanced the Church on every front across the world during his nearly 13 years as president.
Close to 600 stakes were created during his leadership, an average of 85 per year. The Church would grow by more than 2.5 million members.
