S. Dilworth Young
Born: 7 September 1897
Called to First Council of the Seventy: 6 April 1945
Called to First Quorum of the Seventy: 3 October 1975
Became Emeritus General Authority: 30 September 1978
Died: 9 July 1981
Called to First Council of the Seventy: 6 April 1945
Called to First Quorum of the Seventy: 3 October 1975
Became Emeritus General Authority: 30 September 1978
Died: 9 July 1981
Biographical Articles
Improvement Era, May 1945, S. Dilworth Young of the First Council of the Seventy
Relief Society Magazine, June 1945, Seymour Dilworth Young
Improvement Era, November 1967, S. Dilworth Young of the First Council of the Seventy
Ensign, September 1981, Elder S. Dilworth Young Dies
Relief Society Magazine, June 1945, Seymour Dilworth Young
Improvement Era, November 1967, S. Dilworth Young of the First Council of the Seventy
Ensign, September 1981, Elder S. Dilworth Young Dies
Giles, John D. "S. Dilworth Young of the First Council of the Seventy." Improvement Era. May 1945. pg. 240, 283.
S. DILWORTH YOUNG of the First Council of the Seventy By JOHN D. GILES BUSINESS MANAGER, "THE IMPROVEMENT ERA" ANOTHER worthy son of a long line of illustrious forebears has been called to one of the leading councils of the Church. A well-merited recognition has come to both an individual and a family, or more properly a group of families. When Seymour Dilworth Young was sustained as a member of the First Council of the Seventy on April 6, 1945, he became a member of a group which had included a representative of his family almost continuously since it was organized in 1835. His great-grandfather, Joseph Young who was a brother of Brigham Young, his grandfather, Seymour B. Young, and his uncle, Levi Edgar Young, preceded him into that council and each became the senior president. Seymour Dilworth Young, son of Seymour B. Young, Jr., became the forty-second member of the council. On his mother's side, the new President Young is a great-grandson of Brigham Young, a great-great-grandson of Edward Partridge, first Presiding Bishop of the Church, and a grandson of Hyrum B. Clawson, prominent in early days as one of the managers of the Salt Lake Theater and of Z.C.M.I. Levi Riter was his great-grandfather and Michael Dilworth his great-great-grandfather. Few members of the First Council of the Seventy have entered that group with such a rich background of historical and personal associations. To his important position as one of the General Authorities of the Church, President Young brings a wider experience than is given to most men of his age. He has a strong, positive character, strikingly similar to that of his great-grandfather, President Brigham Young, and a youthful, forward looking spirit. The strength of his testimony of the divinity of the work to which he has been devoted during his entire life has been demonstrated by his Church activities. He has been prominently associated with Church organizations since boyhood. Reared in a true Latter-day Saint family, schooled in Church doctrine and traditions, experienced in Church procedure and practices, he is a thorough Latter-day Saint in every sense of the word. President Seymour Dilworth Young, who signs his name S. Dilworth Young, and who is known to thousands of Scouts and Scout leaders as "Uncle Dil" was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, September 7, 1897, shortly after the semi-Centennial Jubilee of the entrance of the Mormon Pioneers under the leadership of his great-grandfather, Brigham Young, into the valley of the Great Salt Lake. His birthplace is almost within a stone's throw of President Young's former home in the Beehive House. His schooling began at the Lowell School in Salt Lake City when William Bradford was principal. Later he attended Granite High School where Dr. Adam S. Bennion was principal and Willard Ashton, athletic coach. To these men he pays high tribute for the "profound influence" they exerted in his life. While at school he took an active part in football, basketball, baseball, track, and public speaking. In 1917 he was elected president of the Granite High School student body. A minor physical ailment, discovered after all his other tests had been passed, prevented his entering the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis to which he had been appointed in 1917. Later in that same year he joined the army in E Battery of the 145th Field Artillery in the first World War. The commander of that unit was Richard W. Young, his mother's cousin. Discharged from the army in 1919, his call to a mission came in January of the following year. He was assigned to the Central States Mission and to the Louisiana Conference. His companions were Elders Boyd Rogers of Phoenix, Arizona, and Melville Branch of Price, Utah. After three months' labor in that field and a similar period in New Orleans, he was called to the mission office and made secretary to President Samuel O. Bennion. He continued in this position until his release October 1, 1922. President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., announced at the last general conference that President Bennion had left in the mission office an excellent record of President Young's activities as a missionary. Returning from his mission Dilworth filled positions with various local firms until September 10, 1923, when he was appointed as Scout Executive of the Ogden Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. He has served in that capacity continuously since that time and is now being released to permit him to devote his efforts to his new calling in the Church. While being rated highly as a leader of boys for many years, the facts are that during those years he has really been a leader of men who have led boys. In this leadership he has been outstandingly successful and has won the love and respect of thousands of men with whom he has been associated. To the boys of the Ogden Area Council he is looked up to with something akin to hero worship. He joins the ranks of the General Authorities of the Church enjoying the full confidence of the men with whom he will be associated. It has been in his capacity as Scout Executive at Ogden that President Young made his greatest contributions. He has inaugurated new methods which have attracted the favorable attention of not only other Scout councils, but of the regional and national staffs. He has recently completed a successful experimental demonstration of a new approach to Scouting procedure. At various times he has been appointed to serve on regional and national committees and has been called into important councils on Scout problems. The Ogden Area Council, under his direction, has been in the highest brackets in the nation for many years. He is today recognized and respected as one of the nation’s outstanding Scout leaders. His activities in the out-of-doors have strengthened an already robust body, and he enters upon new duties with vigor and vitality to devote to the work of the Lord. President Young has devoted as much time to his home and family as his outside duties would permit. He has been devoted to his wife and children and has provided for them a typical Latter-day Saint home with all that the word “home” implies. His wife is Gladys Pratt, daughter of Emaline Victoria Billingsley and Helaman Pratt, who was a son of Mary Woods and Parley P. Pratt, a member of the Council of the Twelve Apostles, when it was first organized February 14, 1835. Helaman Pratt was born in Winter Quarters in 1847 when the Pioneers were preparing to “cross the plains” to the Rocky Mountains. He came with them as a baby. Early in life he became a leader in pioneering on the “Muddy” in Nevada, in Richfield, Utah, and in the Mormon colonies of Old Mexico. He served as president of the Mexican Mission, as did his son, President Rey L. Pratt, who for many years was an outstanding member of the First Council of the Seventy. Sister Young was born in Colonia Dublan, Chihuahua, Mexico. For a time she made her home in Mexico City. She was in Mexico during the Madero Revolution and saw parts of that conflict. Coming to Utah in 1919 she taught school in Layton and Ogden. Some of her most notable work has been in the field of recreation, where she specialized in drama and pageantry. Her productions have been presented in the tabernacle in Salt Lake City and in several stakes and wards. Three of her pageants were produced for Ogden City in community-wide celebrations. She was the first recreation director for Ogden City and served in the same capacity in Kaysville for several years. She was stake play leader for the Ogden Stake Primary Associations. The Youngs have had two children, Dilworth Randolph, 20, a worthy representative of his noted progenitors, who was killed in action in Belgium, October 25, 1944, and Leonore, 18. Now a personal word about Seymour Dilworth Young. In 1911 he joined a deacon’s quorum in the Eighteenth Ward, Ensign Stake, in Salt Lake City. He was received into the quorum by proper procedure and soon became one of its leaders. At the end of the season—in those days Aaronic Priesthood meetings were adjourned for the summer, unfortunately—when the last meeting was about over, Dilworth arose and said in a rather commanding tone, “Brother Giles, we would like you to stand right here.” I followed the instructions. Then I listened to one of the most carefully prepared and appropriately presented talks I have ever heard from a boy. When he had finished, he handed me a book which had been inscribed on the flyleaf: “John D. Giles, with profound love and respect from the Third Quorum of Deacons, May 27, 1912.” It was a book of poems—“Tennyson Day by Day,” containing a poem for each day of the year. When I was asked to prepare this article, I turned to this book. The poem for that day, April 14, seems to be more than ordinarily appropriate for the personality of Seymour Dilworth Young. The title is “Will.” It reads: O well for him whose will is strong! He suffers, but he will not suffer long: He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong: For him nor moves the loud world’s random mock, Nor all Calamity’s hugest waves confound, Who seems a promontory of rock, That, compass’d round with turbulent sound. In middle ocean meets the surging shock, Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crown’d. I have just added another inscription to that flyleaf. It is a statement written by the new President Young recently, referring to his early Church experiences. It said, “I was a deacon in the Eighteenth Ward under the supervisorship of John D. Giles who made the business of being a deacon seem very real.” President Richard L. Evans of the First Council of Seventy became a member of that same Aaronic Priesthood group a few years later. Richard H. Wells, now president of the Rotary International, was a member of the quorum at the same time as President Young. |
S. DILWORTH YOUNG
BROTHER AND SISTER S. DILWORTH YOUNG AND THEIR DAUGHTER, LEONORE, IN THEIR HOME IN OGDEN, UTAH
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Allred, Pearl O. "Seymour Dilworth Young." Relief Society Magazine. June 1945. pg. 330-331.
Seymour Dilworth Young Pearl O. Allred SEYMOUR DILWORTH YOUNG comes to his new calling trained and grounded in missionary work by the very man whose place he has been appointed to fill, for he served as secretary to Elder Samuel O. Bennion in the Central States Mission for three years. When S. Dilworth Young-“Dil" to his many friends—became a member of the Seventy on April 6, 1945, he must have sensed, above the sound of congratulatory speeches, a wordless protest from his own home town. For while adults said sagely, "He's the man for the position," scores of Ogden boys looked at each other in honest bewilderment and said, "How can we do without him?" They began remembering things. Long summer hikes to Monte Cristo. The taste of spring water in dusty throats. Night and stars and the comfort of a sleeping bag. The smell of wood smoke in the early morning. An evening campfire, and Dil Young leading them on in happy song, or weaving quiet magic for them out of old legends. To these boys their scout executive has always been something of a hero. He has managed to endow what might have been routine scouting with a sense of high adventure. and to give meaning and excitement to the commonplace. If he has seemed at times, along the trail, a kind of glorified Kit Carson, the boys know, too, that he has in him more than a dash of Thoreau. There is a reflective, a poetic side, to Dil Young which has helped the most impatient and reckless among his charges to think, as well as do. It has taught them to look for beauty in unlikely places and to build qualities of greatness into their hearts and minds. Dil’s friends need not ask what activities have brought him greatest satisfaction during the past twenty-two years. They have seen him at work sixteen hours a day, more often than not, rugged and bronzed in the summer as he shuttles between Camp Kiesel and Camp Browning, occupied endlessly in the winter with all the intricate problems of planning and organization his position demands. They will tell you he has a great power for indignation against the mean and the shoddy, and an uncompromising hatred of a lie. But he has, too, the gift of laughter and a quick sympathy. It seems safe to predict that the new work he is just beginning will be quickened by the zest for life which is so characteristic of him, that whatever he does will take buoyancy from his own spirit, and strength from his unquenchable youth. |
THE SEYMOUR DILWORTH YOUNG FAMILY
Seated from left to right: Lenore, Gladys Pratt Young, Elder Seymour Dilworth Young. A son, Dilworth Randolph, was killed in action in Belgium, October 25, 1944 |
"S. Dilworth Young of the First Council of the Seventy." Improvement Era. November 1967. pg. 55.
S. DILWORTH YOUNG of the First Council of the Seventy
In April 1945, when S. Dilworth Young was called to the First Council of the Seventy, Elder Richard L. Evans commented editorially in The Improvement Era: "God qualifies men according to the demands of the day and the needs of the Church." In one of his first talks, this new General Authority said, "The need for work with boys entered the valley with the pioneers. "
Here was the need, and here was the man to meet the need. Elder Young was serving as Scout executive of the Ogden, Utah, area council when he received his new calling, and one of his friends said, "Well, that's fine for you, but what will the poor Boy Scouts do?" From that Ogden group. Elder Young's work with boys, with all young people, and with leaders of youth has extended worldwide.
President Young was born in Salt Lake City on September 7, 1897, a son of Seymour B. Young, Jr., and Carlie Louine Young Clawson.
He attended Granite High School, where he was elected president of the student body in 1917. After high school graduation, he successfully passed all the tests for the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, to which he had been appointed, only to find that a minor physical ailment barred his entrance. He joined the 145th Field Artillery, serving in France until 1918.
In 1920 Elder Young was called to the Central States Mission. Returning home, he married Gladys Pratt on May 31, 1923. Two children were born to them: Dilworth Randolph, who was killed in action in Belgium in 1944, and Leonore, who is now Mrs. Blaine P. Parkinson. After the death of his wife Gladys, he married Huldah Parker on January 4, 1965.
In May 1947, President Young was called to preside over the New England Mission. Another dimension was added to his work with the youth of the Church, and returning missionaries reported that President Young's advice was, "Lean on the Lord."
Elder S. Dilworth Young is a gifted writer of prose and poetry. His prose writing has a distinct and beautiful style; his poetry is sensitive and penetrating.
When he was a young deacon, Seymour Dilworth Young spoke of his supervisor, John D. Giles, as a man "who made the business of being a deacon seem very real." In his years as a member of the First Council of the Seventy, working with council members and with other seventies throughout the Church, and speaking to the saints assembled in conferences, Elder Young has made the work of the seventies a real and important assignment, one of great significance to the kingdom and great dignity to the individual.
S. DILWORTH YOUNG of the First Council of the Seventy
In April 1945, when S. Dilworth Young was called to the First Council of the Seventy, Elder Richard L. Evans commented editorially in The Improvement Era: "God qualifies men according to the demands of the day and the needs of the Church." In one of his first talks, this new General Authority said, "The need for work with boys entered the valley with the pioneers. "
Here was the need, and here was the man to meet the need. Elder Young was serving as Scout executive of the Ogden, Utah, area council when he received his new calling, and one of his friends said, "Well, that's fine for you, but what will the poor Boy Scouts do?" From that Ogden group. Elder Young's work with boys, with all young people, and with leaders of youth has extended worldwide.
President Young was born in Salt Lake City on September 7, 1897, a son of Seymour B. Young, Jr., and Carlie Louine Young Clawson.
He attended Granite High School, where he was elected president of the student body in 1917. After high school graduation, he successfully passed all the tests for the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, to which he had been appointed, only to find that a minor physical ailment barred his entrance. He joined the 145th Field Artillery, serving in France until 1918.
In 1920 Elder Young was called to the Central States Mission. Returning home, he married Gladys Pratt on May 31, 1923. Two children were born to them: Dilworth Randolph, who was killed in action in Belgium in 1944, and Leonore, who is now Mrs. Blaine P. Parkinson. After the death of his wife Gladys, he married Huldah Parker on January 4, 1965.
In May 1947, President Young was called to preside over the New England Mission. Another dimension was added to his work with the youth of the Church, and returning missionaries reported that President Young's advice was, "Lean on the Lord."
Elder S. Dilworth Young is a gifted writer of prose and poetry. His prose writing has a distinct and beautiful style; his poetry is sensitive and penetrating.
When he was a young deacon, Seymour Dilworth Young spoke of his supervisor, John D. Giles, as a man "who made the business of being a deacon seem very real." In his years as a member of the First Council of the Seventy, working with council members and with other seventies throughout the Church, and speaking to the saints assembled in conferences, Elder Young has made the work of the seventies a real and important assignment, one of great significance to the kingdom and great dignity to the individual.