Stephen L Richards
Born: 18 June 1879
Called as Second Assistant Superintendent in the Sunday School: 1901
Called to the Quorum of the Twelve: 18 January 1917
Called as First Assistant Superintendent in the Sunday School: 1918
Released from Sunday School Presidency: 1934
Called as First Counselor in the First Presidency: 9 April 1951 (David O. McKay)
Died: 19 May 1959
Called as Second Assistant Superintendent in the Sunday School: 1901
Called to the Quorum of the Twelve: 18 January 1917
Called as First Assistant Superintendent in the Sunday School: 1918
Released from Sunday School Presidency: 1934
Called as First Counselor in the First Presidency: 9 April 1951 (David O. McKay)
Died: 19 May 1959
Conference TalksApr 1917 - Our religion not a thing apart from life
Oct 1917 - The splendid work of the Priesthood and the auxiliary organizations Apr 1918 - Conditions that need a warning word Image source: Juvenile Instructor, October 1910
Image source: Improvement Era, March 1917
Image source: Improvement Era, July 1951
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Image source: Improvement Era, August 1932
Image source: Instructor, August 1949
Image source: Improvement Era, June 1959
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Biographical Articles
Biographical Encyclopedia, Volume 3
Juvenile Instructor, February 1917, Stephen L Richards: An Appreciation
Improvement Era, March 1917, Elder Stephen L Richards
Young Woman's Journal, March 1917, Stephen L. Richards
Improvement Era, August 1932, Greatness in Men - Stephen L Richards
Instructor, August 1949, Stephen L Richards
Relief Society Magazine, June 1951, Stephen L Richards Sustained as First Counselor in the First Presidency
Improvement Era, July 1951, Highlights in the Life of President Stephen L Richards
Improvement Era, July 1951, An Appreciation of Elder Stephen L Richards
Instructor, July 1951, President Stephen L Richards
Improvement Era, January 1957, Honoring President Stephen L Richards
Improvement Era, June 1959, President Stephen L Richards 1879-1959
Relief Society Magazine, July 1959, In Memoriam - President Stephen L Richards
Juvenile Instructor, February 1917, Stephen L Richards: An Appreciation
Improvement Era, March 1917, Elder Stephen L Richards
Young Woman's Journal, March 1917, Stephen L. Richards
Improvement Era, August 1932, Greatness in Men - Stephen L Richards
Instructor, August 1949, Stephen L Richards
Relief Society Magazine, June 1951, Stephen L Richards Sustained as First Counselor in the First Presidency
Improvement Era, July 1951, Highlights in the Life of President Stephen L Richards
Improvement Era, July 1951, An Appreciation of Elder Stephen L Richards
Instructor, July 1951, President Stephen L Richards
Improvement Era, January 1957, Honoring President Stephen L Richards
Improvement Era, June 1959, President Stephen L Richards 1879-1959
Relief Society Magazine, July 1959, In Memoriam - President Stephen L Richards
Jenson, Andrew. "Richards, Stephen L." Biographical Encyclopedia. Volume 3. pg. 773-775.
RICHARDS, Stephen L., a member of the Council of Twelve Apostles, was born June 18, 1879, at Mendon, Cache county, Utah, the son of Dr. Stephen Longstroth Richards and Emma Louisa Stayner. He is a grandson of Willard Richards, who was with Joseph the Prophet at the martyrdom in Carthage, Ill., and who was one of the early pioneers of Utah. His mother was a daughter of Arthur Stayner, a man of business affairs In the early history of the West, and the man to whom the establishment of sugar works in Utah is largely indebted. Elder Richards was baptized when about fourteen years old ana was ordained successively to the several offices in the Priesthood, except that of a Seventy. From his youth he has taken great interest in Church activities. The scholastic training of Elder Richards is characterized by the unusually large number of schools which he attended. To begin with he came under the splendid tutorship of Camille Cobb, a woman of rare culture. After that he attended the Farmington public school, the Davis Stake Academy, Salt Lake county and city public schools, the L. D. S. University, the Salt Lake High School and the University of Utah, while his professional training was obtained in the University of Michigan and in the University of Chicago. From the latter institution he received his L. L. B. degree. His principal training and employment has been in the law. One year at the law school of the University at Michigan and two years at the law school at the University of Chicago gave him the foundation work for the success he subsequently attained in his chosen profession. While at the University of Utah he was one of the team of inter-collegiate debaters; he was the first Utah student to be graduated from the department of law at the University of Chicago and was one of the first class ever graduated in law from that institution receiving a cum laude degree. In numerous branches of Church work to which Elder Richards has been called from boyhood until the present time, he has been earnest and devoted. His first official position in the Sabbath school work was that of secretary of the Sugar House Ward Sunday School; later he became a teacher in the same school. He taught also in the schools at Pleasant View and Malad, Idaho, and in the 17th Ward of Salt Lake City. In the Stake Sunday school work he became assistant superintendent of the Salt Lake Stake and later a member of the Granite Stake Sunday School Board. While a resident of Murray, Salt Lake county, he was a member of a building committee and a class leader in the Y. M. M. I. A. Following the death of George Reynolds he was appointed second assistant general superintendent of the Sunday School Union April 6, 1908, having previously (since Oct. 1906) been a member of the board. He was also chosen as a member of the Priesthood Study Committee and of the Board of Control of the Deseret Gymnasium. In business he has served as officer and director in a number of corporations. In Tooele he engaged in farming and in Oneida county, Idaho, in ranching. For some time he also acted as principal of the Malad City public schools and for many years was a successful practising attorney in Salt Lake City, serving also as a member of the law faculty at the University of Utah. Also Religion class work has claimed a portion of his time, and at one time he served as superintendent of Religion Classes in Malad City, Idaho. Whether at home or abroad he kept up a steady and consistent interest in Church work. At Ann Arbor, Michigan, his home was the place where religious meetings were held for the students and members of the Church. While in Chicago he did Sunday school and other Church work with students. In his chosen profession of the law Elder Richards has been exceptionally successful. The law firms of which he has been a member have always been among the foremost of the younger members of the profession. In private practice his work has been in the civil as distinguished from the criminal law procedure. He is one of the safest counselors at the Salt Lake bar and is very conscientious in his professional work. For two terms he served as secretary of the Utah State Bar Association. Of late years much of his time has been taken in directorship work as he has been an officer and director of some of the largest and more important corporations of the State. Capacity, versatility and ease in performing work are among his characteristics. In the midst of his ecclesiastical and secular activities, Stephen L. Richards was chosen as a member of the Council of Twelve Apostles, being nominated by President Joseph F. Smith and unanimously sustained by the First Presidency and Apostles in one of their general meetings. He was ordained an Apostle by President Joseph F. Smith on Thursday, Jan. 18, 1917. Since his calling to the Apostleship, he has been very active in Church affairs, visiting the different Stakes of Zion and attending to ecclesiastical duties generally. In 1900 (Feb. 21st) Elder Richards married Irene Merrill (daughter of Clarence Merrill and Bathsheba Smith), who was born June 4, 1874, in Fillmore, Utah. This marriage has been blessed with nine children, namely, Lynn Stephen, Irene Louise, Lois Bathsheba, Alice Lula, Helen Merle, Georgia Gill, Joseph Albert, Philip Longstroth and Richard Merrill. The home life of Elder Richards, both before and after marriage, has been most fortunate and happy. He was blessed with an ideal mother and a father of sterling worth who had much to do with his careful training and principles of integrity, truthfulness, honesty, sincerity, kindness, respect for parental authority, devotion to home and the members thereof, and loyalty to God and His work. Elder Richards is a man of pronounced ability, clear judgment and wide experience, his training, education and natural endowments eminently fit him for the high office whereunto he has been called. He possesses a pleasing personality and winning ways, has a strong, abiding, unimpeachable testimony of the divine mission of Jesus Christ, and of the restoration of the gospel of the Master to the Prophet Joseph Smith. At present Elder Richards is chairman of the Board of Control of the Deseret Gymnasium, first assistant superintendent of the Latter-day Saint Sunday schools, first assistant commissioner of the Church Schools, a member of the General Church Board of Education, a member of the General Correlation Committee of the Church, and chairman of the Church Advisory Committee. In secular matters and business Elder Richards figures very prominently, being an officer and director in a number of important business corporations. He also serves as a member of, the State Board of Corrections.
RICHARDS, Stephen L., a member of the Council of Twelve Apostles, was born June 18, 1879, at Mendon, Cache county, Utah, the son of Dr. Stephen Longstroth Richards and Emma Louisa Stayner. He is a grandson of Willard Richards, who was with Joseph the Prophet at the martyrdom in Carthage, Ill., and who was one of the early pioneers of Utah. His mother was a daughter of Arthur Stayner, a man of business affairs In the early history of the West, and the man to whom the establishment of sugar works in Utah is largely indebted. Elder Richards was baptized when about fourteen years old ana was ordained successively to the several offices in the Priesthood, except that of a Seventy. From his youth he has taken great interest in Church activities. The scholastic training of Elder Richards is characterized by the unusually large number of schools which he attended. To begin with he came under the splendid tutorship of Camille Cobb, a woman of rare culture. After that he attended the Farmington public school, the Davis Stake Academy, Salt Lake county and city public schools, the L. D. S. University, the Salt Lake High School and the University of Utah, while his professional training was obtained in the University of Michigan and in the University of Chicago. From the latter institution he received his L. L. B. degree. His principal training and employment has been in the law. One year at the law school of the University at Michigan and two years at the law school at the University of Chicago gave him the foundation work for the success he subsequently attained in his chosen profession. While at the University of Utah he was one of the team of inter-collegiate debaters; he was the first Utah student to be graduated from the department of law at the University of Chicago and was one of the first class ever graduated in law from that institution receiving a cum laude degree. In numerous branches of Church work to which Elder Richards has been called from boyhood until the present time, he has been earnest and devoted. His first official position in the Sabbath school work was that of secretary of the Sugar House Ward Sunday School; later he became a teacher in the same school. He taught also in the schools at Pleasant View and Malad, Idaho, and in the 17th Ward of Salt Lake City. In the Stake Sunday school work he became assistant superintendent of the Salt Lake Stake and later a member of the Granite Stake Sunday School Board. While a resident of Murray, Salt Lake county, he was a member of a building committee and a class leader in the Y. M. M. I. A. Following the death of George Reynolds he was appointed second assistant general superintendent of the Sunday School Union April 6, 1908, having previously (since Oct. 1906) been a member of the board. He was also chosen as a member of the Priesthood Study Committee and of the Board of Control of the Deseret Gymnasium. In business he has served as officer and director in a number of corporations. In Tooele he engaged in farming and in Oneida county, Idaho, in ranching. For some time he also acted as principal of the Malad City public schools and for many years was a successful practising attorney in Salt Lake City, serving also as a member of the law faculty at the University of Utah. Also Religion class work has claimed a portion of his time, and at one time he served as superintendent of Religion Classes in Malad City, Idaho. Whether at home or abroad he kept up a steady and consistent interest in Church work. At Ann Arbor, Michigan, his home was the place where religious meetings were held for the students and members of the Church. While in Chicago he did Sunday school and other Church work with students. In his chosen profession of the law Elder Richards has been exceptionally successful. The law firms of which he has been a member have always been among the foremost of the younger members of the profession. In private practice his work has been in the civil as distinguished from the criminal law procedure. He is one of the safest counselors at the Salt Lake bar and is very conscientious in his professional work. For two terms he served as secretary of the Utah State Bar Association. Of late years much of his time has been taken in directorship work as he has been an officer and director of some of the largest and more important corporations of the State. Capacity, versatility and ease in performing work are among his characteristics. In the midst of his ecclesiastical and secular activities, Stephen L. Richards was chosen as a member of the Council of Twelve Apostles, being nominated by President Joseph F. Smith and unanimously sustained by the First Presidency and Apostles in one of their general meetings. He was ordained an Apostle by President Joseph F. Smith on Thursday, Jan. 18, 1917. Since his calling to the Apostleship, he has been very active in Church affairs, visiting the different Stakes of Zion and attending to ecclesiastical duties generally. In 1900 (Feb. 21st) Elder Richards married Irene Merrill (daughter of Clarence Merrill and Bathsheba Smith), who was born June 4, 1874, in Fillmore, Utah. This marriage has been blessed with nine children, namely, Lynn Stephen, Irene Louise, Lois Bathsheba, Alice Lula, Helen Merle, Georgia Gill, Joseph Albert, Philip Longstroth and Richard Merrill. The home life of Elder Richards, both before and after marriage, has been most fortunate and happy. He was blessed with an ideal mother and a father of sterling worth who had much to do with his careful training and principles of integrity, truthfulness, honesty, sincerity, kindness, respect for parental authority, devotion to home and the members thereof, and loyalty to God and His work. Elder Richards is a man of pronounced ability, clear judgment and wide experience, his training, education and natural endowments eminently fit him for the high office whereunto he has been called. He possesses a pleasing personality and winning ways, has a strong, abiding, unimpeachable testimony of the divine mission of Jesus Christ, and of the restoration of the gospel of the Master to the Prophet Joseph Smith. At present Elder Richards is chairman of the Board of Control of the Deseret Gymnasium, first assistant superintendent of the Latter-day Saint Sunday schools, first assistant commissioner of the Church Schools, a member of the General Church Board of Education, a member of the General Correlation Committee of the Church, and chairman of the Church Advisory Committee. In secular matters and business Elder Richards figures very prominently, being an officer and director in a number of important business corporations. He also serves as a member of, the State Board of Corrections.
McKay, David O. "Stephen L Richards: An Appreciation." Juvenile Instructor. February 1917. pg. 61-63.
Stephen L. Richards: an Appreciation
By Elder David O. McKay
On Thursday, January 18th, 1917, Elder Stephen L. Richards was nominated by President Joseph F. Smith, and unanimously sustained by the Council of Twelve to be an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. On that occasion, every mind assented and every heart testified that the Lord had spoken, and that He had indeed called into the service of the Apostleship a "chosen vessel."
Brother Richards was born in Mendon, Cache county, Utah, June 18th, 1879, and is the son of Dr. Stephen L. Richards and Emma Louise Stayner, and the grandson of Elder Willard Richards, a fellow-prisoner of the Prophet Joseph at the time of the martyrdom. His home since babyhood has been in Salt Lake City, where he received his education in the public schools and University of Utah, supplemented by four years in the Law School of the University of Chicago.
He has been a member of the General Board of the Deseret Sunday School Union since October, 1906, and Second Assistant General Superintendent, since April 6th, 1908. His duties in these positions have called him to many, if not all the Stakes of Zion, so he is known quite generally throughout the Church, and more or less intimately by all Sunday School officers and teachers. His sincere interest in the great Sunday School cause has been an inspiration to his fellow-workers. His clear judgment and sound reasoning have commanded the respect particularly of the members of the General Board, with whom he is closely associated. His loyalty to them and to the cause has won their loyalty to him; his gentlemanly and courteous consideration of their thoughts and feelings, his unselfish devotion to truth, and his invincible determination to choose the right have merited their abiding confidence and highest esteem.
In his Board work, no call of duty ever came that he did not heed, no appointment made that did not take precedence over his own affairs. In all his work on the Board and in the General Superintendency, he has shown by his self-forgetfulness, and his disregard of personal interests and pleasures, that he possesses those elements of character which constitute true nobleness.
The honor and integrity manifest in his public life are but the reflection of the high principles which he manifests in his home. "A good home," it is said, "implies good living, which is also a means and a token of true culture." Brother Richards has a good home, in which his own high ideals are not only emulated, but (and I am sure he will agree with me) excelled in the life and character of his devoted wife. Her sweetness and tenderness are manifest not alone as his sweetheart and the mother of his children, but as an inspiration to him to do his duty—the deepest tenderness a wife can show her husband. Seven children—five girls and two boys — form the circle of their ideal Latter-day Saint home. About three years ago, death entered the home, and suddenly carried away one of these little girls. Thus were the parents led into the shadow of Gethsemane; but they emerged, as all do who have faith in the Redeemer, with their hearts and lives even more firmly welded in a union as eternal as the soul itself.
His excellence as husband and father, or as an officer and leader in the Church does not exceed his devotion and constancy in friendship and brotherly love. True to his brethren, unwavering in his fidelity to his friends, his is the kind of friendship we like to cherish here that we might enjoy it throughout eternity. Personally, I have reason to value his friendship for I have learned its worth. In the complexity of our social life, it is the common experience of each of us to have many acquaintances but very few friends—friends whose friendship, like faith, is a gift of God. Stephen L.'s friendship is genuine—it is pure gold.
"All men have their frailties," and Brother Richards is a man; but those of us who know him best love him most, and know that he is worthy of the high office to which the Lord has called him. His purity of life, his education and training, his devotion to the right, his sympathy for children and mankind in general, his love for the Gospel and his abiding testimony of its truth, all contribute to make him what God has chosen him to be—a special witness of the name of Christ in all the world.
Brother Richards, your co-workers in the Sunday School Union unite in saying, "God bless you!"
Stephen L. Richards: an Appreciation
By Elder David O. McKay
On Thursday, January 18th, 1917, Elder Stephen L. Richards was nominated by President Joseph F. Smith, and unanimously sustained by the Council of Twelve to be an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. On that occasion, every mind assented and every heart testified that the Lord had spoken, and that He had indeed called into the service of the Apostleship a "chosen vessel."
Brother Richards was born in Mendon, Cache county, Utah, June 18th, 1879, and is the son of Dr. Stephen L. Richards and Emma Louise Stayner, and the grandson of Elder Willard Richards, a fellow-prisoner of the Prophet Joseph at the time of the martyrdom. His home since babyhood has been in Salt Lake City, where he received his education in the public schools and University of Utah, supplemented by four years in the Law School of the University of Chicago.
He has been a member of the General Board of the Deseret Sunday School Union since October, 1906, and Second Assistant General Superintendent, since April 6th, 1908. His duties in these positions have called him to many, if not all the Stakes of Zion, so he is known quite generally throughout the Church, and more or less intimately by all Sunday School officers and teachers. His sincere interest in the great Sunday School cause has been an inspiration to his fellow-workers. His clear judgment and sound reasoning have commanded the respect particularly of the members of the General Board, with whom he is closely associated. His loyalty to them and to the cause has won their loyalty to him; his gentlemanly and courteous consideration of their thoughts and feelings, his unselfish devotion to truth, and his invincible determination to choose the right have merited their abiding confidence and highest esteem.
In his Board work, no call of duty ever came that he did not heed, no appointment made that did not take precedence over his own affairs. In all his work on the Board and in the General Superintendency, he has shown by his self-forgetfulness, and his disregard of personal interests and pleasures, that he possesses those elements of character which constitute true nobleness.
The honor and integrity manifest in his public life are but the reflection of the high principles which he manifests in his home. "A good home," it is said, "implies good living, which is also a means and a token of true culture." Brother Richards has a good home, in which his own high ideals are not only emulated, but (and I am sure he will agree with me) excelled in the life and character of his devoted wife. Her sweetness and tenderness are manifest not alone as his sweetheart and the mother of his children, but as an inspiration to him to do his duty—the deepest tenderness a wife can show her husband. Seven children—five girls and two boys — form the circle of their ideal Latter-day Saint home. About three years ago, death entered the home, and suddenly carried away one of these little girls. Thus were the parents led into the shadow of Gethsemane; but they emerged, as all do who have faith in the Redeemer, with their hearts and lives even more firmly welded in a union as eternal as the soul itself.
His excellence as husband and father, or as an officer and leader in the Church does not exceed his devotion and constancy in friendship and brotherly love. True to his brethren, unwavering in his fidelity to his friends, his is the kind of friendship we like to cherish here that we might enjoy it throughout eternity. Personally, I have reason to value his friendship for I have learned its worth. In the complexity of our social life, it is the common experience of each of us to have many acquaintances but very few friends—friends whose friendship, like faith, is a gift of God. Stephen L.'s friendship is genuine—it is pure gold.
"All men have their frailties," and Brother Richards is a man; but those of us who know him best love him most, and know that he is worthy of the high office to which the Lord has called him. His purity of life, his education and training, his devotion to the right, his sympathy for children and mankind in general, his love for the Gospel and his abiding testimony of its truth, all contribute to make him what God has chosen him to be—a special witness of the name of Christ in all the world.
Brother Richards, your co-workers in the Sunday School Union unite in saying, "God bless you!"
"Elder Stephen L Richards." Improvement Era. March 1917. pg. 450-451.
Elder Stephen L. Richards Stephen L. Richards was nominated by President Joseph F. Smith, unanimously sustained by the Council as a member of the Council of Twelve, and ordained an apostle by President Joseph F. Smith, on Thursday, January 18, 1917. Elder Stephen L. Richards was born June 18, 1879, at Mendon, Cache county, and is the son of Dr. Stephen Longstroth Richards and Emma Louisa Stayner Richards. He is a grandson of Willard Richards, who was with Joseph the prophet at the martyrdom, and who was one of the early pioneers of Utah; and of Arthur Stayner, a man of business affairs in the early history of the West, and the man to whom the establishment of sugar works in Utah is largely indebted. Elder Richards, who has held all the offices in the priesthood except Seventy, from the first has taken great interest in Church activities, having worked in the Sugar House ward in both the Sunday School and Y. M. M. I. A., and as a member of the choir and as ward teacher. In Pleasant View, and Malad, Idaho, he acted as Sunday School teacher; also in Malad as superintendent of the Religion Class. While studying law at Ann Arbor, Michigan, and at Chicago, he took active part with students and members of the Church in religious work. In the Granite and Salt Lake stakes he acted as stake aid in the Y. M. M. I. A., as teacher in the 17th ward Sunday school, and in the latter stake as assistant superintendent of Sunday schools. While a resident of Murray, Salt Lake county, he was a member of the building committee, and a class leader in the Y. M. M. I. A., and a member of the Granite stake Sunday school board. Following the death of Elder George Reynolds, he was appointed second assistant general superintendent of the Sunday School Union, April 6, 1908, having previously been a member of the Board since October, 1906. He is a member of the Priesthood Study committee, also of the Board of Control of the Deseret Gymnasium. In business he has been employed by the Co-op. Wagon and Machine Company and other institutions in Salt Lake City, and has served as officer and director in a number of business corporations. In Tooele he engaged in farming, and in Oneida county, Idaho, in ranching. In his educational and professional activities he was a student at St. Mary's Academy, the Farmington public schools, Davis stake Academy, Salt Lake county and city schools, the L. D. S. University, the Salt Lake high school, and the universities of Utah, Michigan and Chicago. He graduated from the law school of the Chicago University. He has also acted as principal of the Malad city public schools, and for the past thirteen years has been a successful practicing attorney in Salt Lake City, having also served as a member of the law faculty of the University of Utah. Elder Richards is a young man of pronounced ability, clear judgment, and wide experience. His training, education, and natural endowments eminently fit him for the high office of apostle whereunto the Lord has called him. He possesses a pleasing personality and winning ways, and in bearing is gentlemanly, courteous and considerate. He has a strong, abiding and unimpeachable testimony of the divine mission of Jesus Christ, and of the restoration of the gospel of the Master to the Prophet Joseph Smith. His love for the truth and for the work of the Lord abounds. With these qualifications, he must not fail to be a pillar of power and strength to his quorum and to the Church, in this his new calling as a special witness of Jesus Christ in all the world. |
STEPHEN L. RICHARDS
Born June 18, 1879, Mendon, Cache county, Utah; chosen a member of the Council of the Twelve, and ordained an Apostle by President Joseph F. Smith, January 18, 1917 (see Editors" Table). |
"Stephen L. Richards." Young Woman's Journal. March 1917. pg. 122-126.
Stephen L. Richards.
By Charles H. Hart.
Stephen L. Richards was born June 18, 1879, at Mendon, Cache County, Utah. He is the oldest child of Dr. Stephen Longstroth Richards and Emma Louise Stay- ner Richards. He is the grandson of Dr. Willard Richards who was called by revelation on July 8, 1838. to be one of the Council of the Twelve, and who served with distinction as private secretary and general clerk for the Church, Church historian, missionary to Great Britain, pioneer and train captain, second counselor to President Brigham Young, secretary of the provisional government for Utah, first editor of the Deseret News, president of the legislative council, and in many other positions of importance. On his mother’s side, the subject of this sketch is grandson of the late Arthur Stay- ner of Davis County, a man of sterling worth and integrity; a man strong in his friendships. The name of Arthur Stayner is inseparably connected with the development of Utah industries, and he may almost be regarded as the father of beet sugar manufacture in this state, on account of the abiding faith he had in the possibilities of sugar beet culture in Utah and the persistent manner in which he advocated and urged and experimented upon beet sugar manufacture.
The scholastic training of Elder Richards is characterized by the somewhat unusually large number of schools which he attended. To begin with, he came under the rare tutelage of Camilla Cobb, a woman of exceptional culture. Next came the Farmington public schools, the Davis Stake Academy, Salt Lake County and City Public Schools, the L. D. S. University, the Salt Lake High School, and the University of Utah, while his professional training was obtained in the University of Michigan and in the University of Chicago.
The vocational activities and experiences of Elder Richards have been no less varied than the variety of schools attended by him. He has engaged in farming in Tooele and ranching in the State of Idaho. The work of collector, solicitor, and insurance agent are familiar to him. School teaching was one of his occupations, and he was at one time principal of the Malad City public schools. His principal training and employment, however, has been in the law. One year at the law school of the University of Michigan and two years at the law school of the University of Chicago gave him the foundation work for the success he has attained in his chosen profession. While at the University of Utah he was one of the team of inter-collegiate debaters. lie was the first Utah student to be graduated from the department of law of the University of Chicago and was one of the first class ever graduated in law from that institution, receiving a cum laude degree.
In the numerous branches of Church work to which Elder Richards has been called from boyhood until the present time, he has been earnest and devoted. His first official position in the Sabbath School work was that of Secretary of the Sugar House Ward Sunday School; later he became a teacher in the same school. He taught also in the schools at Pleasant View and Malad in the State of Idaho, and in the Seventeenth-Ward of Salt Lake City. In the Stake Sunday School work he became assistant superintendent of the Salt Lake Stake and a member of the Granite Stake Sunday School Board. From the latter place he was called, in 1907, to be a member of the General Board of the Deseret Sunday School Union, and in the year 1909 became second assistant to President Joseph F. Smith in the Super- intendency of the Schools of the Church now’ numbering over 200,000 pupils, officers, and teachers. The Sabbath School work, however, has not monopolized his entire time. His first work in the Y. M. M. I. A. was that of second counselor in the Sugar House Ward Association. Later he became an aid to the M. I. A. Stake Board of the Granite Stake and still later a member of the Salt Lake Stake Board. He also served as class leader in the Y. M. M. I. A. in the City of Murray. The Religion Class work has also claimed a portion of his time. At one time he served as Superintendent of Religion Classes in Malad City, Idaho.
Elder Richards has kept up a steady, consistent interest in Church work, whether at home or abroad.
At Ann Arbor, Michigan, his home was the place where religious meetings were held for the students and members of the Church. While at Chicago he did Sunday School and other Church work with students. At home he has labored for the general progress of the Church in whatever service he has been invited to engage; While living at Murray and holding the position of City Attorney he was chairman of the meeting-house building committee. For several years past he has been, and now is, a member of the general priesthood outline committee and a member of the board of control of the Deseret Gymnasium.
In addition to activity in Church work as above suggested and not enlarged upon, he has been regularly promoted in the quorums cf the Priesthood, having held all offices in the priesthood except that he was promoted directly from the office of an elder to that of a high priest and hence was never a seventy.
On January 18, 1917, he was unanimously sustained by the Council of the Twelve to be an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In his chosen profession of the law. Mr. Richards has been exceptionally happy. Since the organization of the law department of the University of Utah, some ten years ago, he has been one of the instructors in that department, and is today, in length of service, the senior member of the law faculty of the University of Utah. As above suggested, at one time he was city attorney for the city of Murray, and later received the nomination for city attorneyship of Salt Lake City. The law firms of which he has been a member have always been among the foremost of the younger members of the profession. In private practice his work has been in the civil as distinguished from the criminal law procedure. His work has run in the office advisory line rather than in the trial of contested cases in court. Had he chosen to follow the trial of cases, he could have become one of the foremost trial lawyers. As versatility was a characteristic of his distinguished ancestor, Dr. Richards, one day a plainsman and the next day an editor of a newspaper or July celebration orator, so his grandson could easily have made a success of any branch of the law or any line of legal work he might have chosen.
He is one of the safest counselors at the Salt Lake Bar, and is very conscientious in his professional work. He has not permitted the question of fees to stand in the way of the settlement of the cases of his clients. For two terms he served as secretary of the Utah State Bar Association. Of late years much of his time has been taken in directorate work,' as he has been an officer and director of a number of the larger and more important corporations of the state. He is vice-president and director of the Kimball & Richards companies. Capacity, versatility and ease in performing work are among his characteristics.
The home life of Elder Richards, both before and after marriage, has been most fortunate and happy. He was blessed with an ideal mother who had much to do with his careful training in principles of integrity, truthfulness, honesty, sincerity, kindness, respect for parental authority, devotion to home and the members thereof, and loyalty to God and His. work. While professional duties took his father, Dr. Richards, away from home much of the time, yet a beautiful companionship always existed between himself and his son Stephen, which has increased with the years.
On February 21, 1900, Elder Richards was married to Irene W. Merrill, daughter of Clarence and Bathsheba Smith Merrill, and of this union there are six living children. Elder David O. McKay, of the Council of the Twelve, well acquainted with the home life of Brother Richards, has appropriately written on this subject: “The honor and integrity manifest in his public life are but the reflection of the high principles which he manifests in his home. ‘A good home, it is said, ‘implies good living, which is also a means and a token of true culture.’ Brother Richards has a good home in which his own ideals are not only emulated but (and I am sure he will agree with me) excelled in the life and character of his devoted wife. Her sweetness and tenderness are manifest not alone as his sweetheart and mother of his children, but as an inspiration to him to do his duty—the deepest tenderness a wife can show her husband.”
Just as he has been and still is a close companion with his father, he likewise extends to his sons the same comradeship. His father’s home is still as dear to him as it was before marriage and he seldom leaves the city without bidding his mother goodbye, as he would if living beneath her roof.
Of his Sunday School work Elder McKay has written: “In his board work no call of duty ever came that he did not heed. No appointment made that did not take precedence over his own affairs. In all his work on the board and in the General Superintendency, he has shown by his self-forgetfulness, and his disregard of personal interest and pleasures, that he possesses those elements of character which constitute true nobleness.”
As to his friendship the same author and associate has said: “True to his brethren, unwavering in his fidelity to his friends, his is the kind of friendship we like to cherish here that we might enjoy it throughout eternity. Personally I have reason- to value his friendship for I have learned its worth. In the complexity of our social life it is the common experience of each of us to have many acquaintances but very few friends— friends whose friendship, like faith, is a gift of God. Stephen L’s. friendship is genuine—all is pure gold.”
Of his Church work, Elder George M. Cannon, a General Board member and close associate, has written: “In traveling with Stephen L. Richards on Sunday School work, his chief characteristic, as I have observed it, is to do with all his might whatever task is before him; to never be daunted, and to get joy out of his work.”
In addition to the characteristics already mentioned there should not be omitted from the list that of courage. It has been an interesting study to trace this trait even from infancy. As a child of four years his father, Dr. Richards, performed the experiment of sending the child, after dark, to the home of his grandfather, a distance of about two blocks by the route traveled. Without murmur or question, the lad made the trip both ways in the darkness while the father followed at a safe distance. His younger brothers vividly remember the incident when the trusted family surrey horse suddenly turned bad and commenced kicking and running with Stephen L. as a driver holding to the lines and finally controling the horse with one hand, the other arm being.at the time broken and in a sling. In the breaking of wild horses in later years, in doing pioneer work in a new country, and in always remaining true to his ideals and convictions, he has exhibited the same physical and moral courage.
In politics Mr. Richards is a Democrat, and has frequently been mentioned of late years in connection with the governorship of the State. In the judgment of the writer, had Mr. Richards yielded to the persuasion of his friends two or three weeks earlier than he did to become a candidate for the nomination of governor in the Democratic convention of 1916, he could easily have been nominated and elected the governor of Utah. As it was, he came in at the eleventh hour and developed a strength that was surprising even to his friends.
If any of his friends are still disappointed that he is not now Governor of Utah, they can be consoled in the thought that his present calling, being for life or during good behavior, enables him to perform a more important work for the people of his Church and of his State than could possibly have been performed by him during one or two terms as governor.
In conclusion, the words of Elder McKay are again appropriate: “His purity of life, his education and training, his devotion to the right, his sympathy for children and mankind in general, his love for the gospel and his abiding testimony of its truth, all contribute to make him what God has chosen him to be, a special witness of the name of Christ in all the world."
Stephen L. Richards.
By Charles H. Hart.
Stephen L. Richards was born June 18, 1879, at Mendon, Cache County, Utah. He is the oldest child of Dr. Stephen Longstroth Richards and Emma Louise Stay- ner Richards. He is the grandson of Dr. Willard Richards who was called by revelation on July 8, 1838. to be one of the Council of the Twelve, and who served with distinction as private secretary and general clerk for the Church, Church historian, missionary to Great Britain, pioneer and train captain, second counselor to President Brigham Young, secretary of the provisional government for Utah, first editor of the Deseret News, president of the legislative council, and in many other positions of importance. On his mother’s side, the subject of this sketch is grandson of the late Arthur Stay- ner of Davis County, a man of sterling worth and integrity; a man strong in his friendships. The name of Arthur Stayner is inseparably connected with the development of Utah industries, and he may almost be regarded as the father of beet sugar manufacture in this state, on account of the abiding faith he had in the possibilities of sugar beet culture in Utah and the persistent manner in which he advocated and urged and experimented upon beet sugar manufacture.
The scholastic training of Elder Richards is characterized by the somewhat unusually large number of schools which he attended. To begin with, he came under the rare tutelage of Camilla Cobb, a woman of exceptional culture. Next came the Farmington public schools, the Davis Stake Academy, Salt Lake County and City Public Schools, the L. D. S. University, the Salt Lake High School, and the University of Utah, while his professional training was obtained in the University of Michigan and in the University of Chicago.
The vocational activities and experiences of Elder Richards have been no less varied than the variety of schools attended by him. He has engaged in farming in Tooele and ranching in the State of Idaho. The work of collector, solicitor, and insurance agent are familiar to him. School teaching was one of his occupations, and he was at one time principal of the Malad City public schools. His principal training and employment, however, has been in the law. One year at the law school of the University of Michigan and two years at the law school of the University of Chicago gave him the foundation work for the success he has attained in his chosen profession. While at the University of Utah he was one of the team of inter-collegiate debaters. lie was the first Utah student to be graduated from the department of law of the University of Chicago and was one of the first class ever graduated in law from that institution, receiving a cum laude degree.
In the numerous branches of Church work to which Elder Richards has been called from boyhood until the present time, he has been earnest and devoted. His first official position in the Sabbath School work was that of Secretary of the Sugar House Ward Sunday School; later he became a teacher in the same school. He taught also in the schools at Pleasant View and Malad in the State of Idaho, and in the Seventeenth-Ward of Salt Lake City. In the Stake Sunday School work he became assistant superintendent of the Salt Lake Stake and a member of the Granite Stake Sunday School Board. From the latter place he was called, in 1907, to be a member of the General Board of the Deseret Sunday School Union, and in the year 1909 became second assistant to President Joseph F. Smith in the Super- intendency of the Schools of the Church now’ numbering over 200,000 pupils, officers, and teachers. The Sabbath School work, however, has not monopolized his entire time. His first work in the Y. M. M. I. A. was that of second counselor in the Sugar House Ward Association. Later he became an aid to the M. I. A. Stake Board of the Granite Stake and still later a member of the Salt Lake Stake Board. He also served as class leader in the Y. M. M. I. A. in the City of Murray. The Religion Class work has also claimed a portion of his time. At one time he served as Superintendent of Religion Classes in Malad City, Idaho.
Elder Richards has kept up a steady, consistent interest in Church work, whether at home or abroad.
At Ann Arbor, Michigan, his home was the place where religious meetings were held for the students and members of the Church. While at Chicago he did Sunday School and other Church work with students. At home he has labored for the general progress of the Church in whatever service he has been invited to engage; While living at Murray and holding the position of City Attorney he was chairman of the meeting-house building committee. For several years past he has been, and now is, a member of the general priesthood outline committee and a member of the board of control of the Deseret Gymnasium.
In addition to activity in Church work as above suggested and not enlarged upon, he has been regularly promoted in the quorums cf the Priesthood, having held all offices in the priesthood except that he was promoted directly from the office of an elder to that of a high priest and hence was never a seventy.
On January 18, 1917, he was unanimously sustained by the Council of the Twelve to be an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In his chosen profession of the law. Mr. Richards has been exceptionally happy. Since the organization of the law department of the University of Utah, some ten years ago, he has been one of the instructors in that department, and is today, in length of service, the senior member of the law faculty of the University of Utah. As above suggested, at one time he was city attorney for the city of Murray, and later received the nomination for city attorneyship of Salt Lake City. The law firms of which he has been a member have always been among the foremost of the younger members of the profession. In private practice his work has been in the civil as distinguished from the criminal law procedure. His work has run in the office advisory line rather than in the trial of contested cases in court. Had he chosen to follow the trial of cases, he could have become one of the foremost trial lawyers. As versatility was a characteristic of his distinguished ancestor, Dr. Richards, one day a plainsman and the next day an editor of a newspaper or July celebration orator, so his grandson could easily have made a success of any branch of the law or any line of legal work he might have chosen.
He is one of the safest counselors at the Salt Lake Bar, and is very conscientious in his professional work. He has not permitted the question of fees to stand in the way of the settlement of the cases of his clients. For two terms he served as secretary of the Utah State Bar Association. Of late years much of his time has been taken in directorate work,' as he has been an officer and director of a number of the larger and more important corporations of the state. He is vice-president and director of the Kimball & Richards companies. Capacity, versatility and ease in performing work are among his characteristics.
The home life of Elder Richards, both before and after marriage, has been most fortunate and happy. He was blessed with an ideal mother who had much to do with his careful training in principles of integrity, truthfulness, honesty, sincerity, kindness, respect for parental authority, devotion to home and the members thereof, and loyalty to God and His. work. While professional duties took his father, Dr. Richards, away from home much of the time, yet a beautiful companionship always existed between himself and his son Stephen, which has increased with the years.
On February 21, 1900, Elder Richards was married to Irene W. Merrill, daughter of Clarence and Bathsheba Smith Merrill, and of this union there are six living children. Elder David O. McKay, of the Council of the Twelve, well acquainted with the home life of Brother Richards, has appropriately written on this subject: “The honor and integrity manifest in his public life are but the reflection of the high principles which he manifests in his home. ‘A good home, it is said, ‘implies good living, which is also a means and a token of true culture.’ Brother Richards has a good home in which his own ideals are not only emulated but (and I am sure he will agree with me) excelled in the life and character of his devoted wife. Her sweetness and tenderness are manifest not alone as his sweetheart and mother of his children, but as an inspiration to him to do his duty—the deepest tenderness a wife can show her husband.”
Just as he has been and still is a close companion with his father, he likewise extends to his sons the same comradeship. His father’s home is still as dear to him as it was before marriage and he seldom leaves the city without bidding his mother goodbye, as he would if living beneath her roof.
Of his Sunday School work Elder McKay has written: “In his board work no call of duty ever came that he did not heed. No appointment made that did not take precedence over his own affairs. In all his work on the board and in the General Superintendency, he has shown by his self-forgetfulness, and his disregard of personal interest and pleasures, that he possesses those elements of character which constitute true nobleness.”
As to his friendship the same author and associate has said: “True to his brethren, unwavering in his fidelity to his friends, his is the kind of friendship we like to cherish here that we might enjoy it throughout eternity. Personally I have reason- to value his friendship for I have learned its worth. In the complexity of our social life it is the common experience of each of us to have many acquaintances but very few friends— friends whose friendship, like faith, is a gift of God. Stephen L’s. friendship is genuine—all is pure gold.”
Of his Church work, Elder George M. Cannon, a General Board member and close associate, has written: “In traveling with Stephen L. Richards on Sunday School work, his chief characteristic, as I have observed it, is to do with all his might whatever task is before him; to never be daunted, and to get joy out of his work.”
In addition to the characteristics already mentioned there should not be omitted from the list that of courage. It has been an interesting study to trace this trait even from infancy. As a child of four years his father, Dr. Richards, performed the experiment of sending the child, after dark, to the home of his grandfather, a distance of about two blocks by the route traveled. Without murmur or question, the lad made the trip both ways in the darkness while the father followed at a safe distance. His younger brothers vividly remember the incident when the trusted family surrey horse suddenly turned bad and commenced kicking and running with Stephen L. as a driver holding to the lines and finally controling the horse with one hand, the other arm being.at the time broken and in a sling. In the breaking of wild horses in later years, in doing pioneer work in a new country, and in always remaining true to his ideals and convictions, he has exhibited the same physical and moral courage.
In politics Mr. Richards is a Democrat, and has frequently been mentioned of late years in connection with the governorship of the State. In the judgment of the writer, had Mr. Richards yielded to the persuasion of his friends two or three weeks earlier than he did to become a candidate for the nomination of governor in the Democratic convention of 1916, he could easily have been nominated and elected the governor of Utah. As it was, he came in at the eleventh hour and developed a strength that was surprising even to his friends.
If any of his friends are still disappointed that he is not now Governor of Utah, they can be consoled in the thought that his present calling, being for life or during good behavior, enables him to perform a more important work for the people of his Church and of his State than could possibly have been performed by him during one or two terms as governor.
In conclusion, the words of Elder McKay are again appropriate: “His purity of life, his education and training, his devotion to the right, his sympathy for children and mankind in general, his love for the gospel and his abiding testimony of its truth, all contribute to make him what God has chosen him to be, a special witness of the name of Christ in all the world."
Hinckley, Bryant S. "Greatness in Men - Stephen L Richards." Improvement Era. August 1932. pg. 584-587, 604-605.
Greatness in Men Stephen L. Richards By Bryant S. Hinckley Log cabins, close acquaintance with the sturdy soil, pioneering experiences have produced in America many great characters. Among them is that of Stephen L. Richards who is made by President Hinckley to appear to be as tolerant as Nature and as steady as the hills. STEPHEN L. RICHARDS hails by direct descent from Dr. Willard Richards, who was President Brigham Young's counselor, and who was in Carthage Jail on that fatal afternoon of June 27, 1844, when the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum, were martyred, and when his only other companion, John Taylor, was savagely wounded, his life being miraculously spared by the assassin's bullet striking a watch which he carried in his vest pocket. This conversation which took place in the jail a few minutes before the attack reveals the caliber of Willard Richards. Speaking to him Joseph Smith said: "If we go into the cell will you go with us?" The Doctor answered: "Brother Joseph, you did not ask me to cross the river with you—you did not ask me to come to Carthage—you did not ask me to come to jail with you—you do not think I will desert you now? But I will tell you what I will do. If you are condemned to be hung for treason I will be hung in your stead and you will go free." Joseph said: "You cannot." The Doctor replied: "I will." Willard Richards not only witnessed this terrible tragedy but did all he could to defend the Prophet and Patriarch and to care for John Taylor. Not a drop of Dr. Richards' blood was shed. DR. STEPHEN L. RICHARDS, the father of Apostle Stephen L. Richards, was a quiet man of sterling worth, known for the gentleness of his disposition and for his universal kindness and consideration for the poor. He was highly respected in his profession and greatly beloved by all who knew him. His life was full of unrecorded deeds of mercy and generosity. As a father and husband, a homemaker and friend he had few equals. The Richards family has been prominent in business and professional pursuits since the establishment of this commonwealth and were prominent among the early settlers of America. They have been distinguished for their sagacity in business and for their independent thinking. They have been religious people but religion with them is not merely emotionalism, it must appeal to their reason to claim their allegiance. His ancestors on his mother's side were also distinguished for their initiative and leadership. His mother, Emma Louise Stayner (Richards), a daughter of the late Arthur Stayner, who was instrumental in promoting the sugar industry in Utah, is a woman of unusual dignity, rare soundness of judgment and sweetness of character, who has written upon the countenances of her children the stamp of nobility. She is the mother of ten children, six sons and one daughter now living. Her sons, Stephen L., Claude, Dr. G. Gill, Stayner, Willard, and Russell, are all men of intelligence, initiative, and capacity. The devotion and consideration of these boys for their parents has called forth universal respect and admiration. Her daughter, Mrs. Grace Richards Warner, is a woman of the same superior type as her mother. Stephen L. Richards was born in Mendon, Cache County, Utah, June 18, 1879, and subsequently moved with his parents to Farmington, Utah. He attended the public school, Davis Stake Academy, L. D. S. University, Salt Lake High School and University of Utah. HIS professional training was received in the University of Michigan and the University of Chicago. From the latter institution he received the L. L. B. degree. He was the first Utah student to be graduated from the law school of the University of Chicago and was a member of the first class ever graduated in Law from that institution, receiving a Cum-laude degree. He has been active in the Church from his boyhood, serving officially in the Sunday School, Mutual Improvement Association, and Religion Class. Following the death of George Reynolds he was appointed second assistant to President Joseph F. Smith who was general superintendent of Sunday Schools. He was principal of the Malad city schools and served for ten years as a member of the Law faculty of the University of Utah and was tendered a professorship in the University of Missouri, which he declined. Stephen L. Richards was called to the apostleship and set apart to that office by President Joseph F. Smith, January 18, 1917, and has been very active in this service. His training and ability eminently fit him for this high calling. At home he has served on important committees and he has traveled extensively throughout the Church in the discharge of his apostolic duties. February 21, 1900, he married Irene Merrill, a daughter of Clarence Merrill and Bathsheba Smith, a woman of superior intellect, refined and artistic in temperament, devoted and happy in her family, cooperating with and encouraging her husband in every undertaking, submerging all her interests in the interests of others. This marriage has been blessed with nine children: Lynn Stephen, Irene Louise. Lois Bathsheba, Alice Leila, Helen Merle, Georgia Gill, Joseph Albert, Philip Longstroth, and Richard Merrill. THE home life of Brother and Sister Richards which began under extraordinary circumstances has never lost any of the romance and adventure that marked its beginning. They were married late in February and early in March moved into a one room log cabin on a ranch in Idaho. Idaho is a land of magnificent distances. This cabin was a mile from the nearest house. Stephen L. was not yet twenty-one, ambitious and eager for adventure. Those were heroic but halcyon days for both of them. It is not the task of a novice to break broncos and milk wild cows. It requires not only courage to drive a four horse team over rough canyon roads hitched to a wagon loaded with logs —-it requires skill, strength, agility and resourcefulness, all of which Stephen L. had, and he got out of this hard and dangerous work the thrill and satisfaction which comes from meeting difficult situations and mastering them. He did heroically the part of a frontiersman and it will remain eternally to his credit. While there is no evidence of those rough and tumble days in his appearance, and while they seem far removed from him as he sits at ease in the council chambers of administrators and executors of large affairs, or stands on the platform pleading the cause of justice, or in the pulpit appealing to young people to give their allegiance to the faith of their fathers —still those hard days were highly profitable. Many of those experiences may have been difficult but these young people had brave hearts. Some of the things which they did read like fairy tales. Picture if you will this young bride reared in the city, unacquainted with pioneer life, sitting by the fire in a lonely cabin waiting through the long hours of the night for the return of her belated husband who was lost in a blizzard? Or holding a fractious horse while the young frontiersman cautiously harnessed it and skillfully hitched it to the wagon. THESE may have been hard days but they were happy ones, and although the wheat which he harvested and hauled by team from Malad to Colliston brought him only forty cents a bushel, and the hay which he stacked on the ranch sold for $3.00 a ton; those were profitable days. They gave him an appreciation of the effort required to produce things, and put him in contact with the soil and in touch with nature, all of which helped to sober his thinking and to solidify his character. The people of the nearby settlements in Idaho became acquainted with this young rancher and discovered that he was a man of ability and learning and they persuaded him to accept the principalship of the public schools of Malad. He carried this work forward efficiently and won the confidence and esteem, not only of his teachers but of the community. Several years after when he made a visit there one of his friends remarked: "Steve, you still know everybody; why you know every dog and cat in Malad Valley!" It was while here that he was inspired with an ambition to become a lawyer. Through his resourcefulness and diligence he accumulated money enough to make a start. He took his wife and children to Ann Arbor and entered the law department of the University of Michigan from which many of the leading lawyers of Utah had graduated. In Michigan he was soon recognized for his ability. He became orator of his class and secretary of the Webster Debating Society. He went from Michigan to the University of Chicago where he completed his professional training. TO those familiar with his splendid basic qualifications, his aptitude, the effectiveness with which he works, his fidelity to the truth, his devotion to duty, his pleasing personality, it is easy to understand how he made such rapid progress in building for himself an enviable place in the confidence of the community. Analytical in his mental processes, yet not so technical in his consideration of legal questions as to lose the proper perspective of the case as a whole, and guided by a high and constant desire to promote justice, there is every assurance that had he continued to devote his great talents to his chosen profession, he would have been a brilliant and outstanding member of the bar.[1] This training and experience have given him a larger vision and a broader understanding of human affairs. As a result, his judgment in council and his teachings in public and in private are influenced by the fundamental legal principles which he accepts for his guidance. From a family chronicle furnished by his wife we quote: "Passed the bar—tried his first case January 11, 1905, in Malad, Idaho." In referring to this case his father, Dr. Stephen L. Richards, said: 'The operation was successful but the patient died." Is this a veiled inference that he lost the case? He is judicially minded. He can quickly analyze the most intricate and complicated problem and state it with an unsurpassed clearness and nicety of diction. His briefs and discourses are models of the best English. As an advocate we do not know his superior. He is an able and conscientious lawyer, eminently successful in his private practice. Of late years such time as he could give has been given to directorship work. He is an officer and director of some of the largest and most important corporations of the state and is one of the safest counselors at the Salt Lake Bar. Capacity, versatility and dispatch are among his characteristics. AT the time of his selection as an apostle he was senior member of the law firm of Richards, Hart & VanDam and had a lucrative practice, but on receiving this appointment he closed his office and gave his undivided attention to his new calling. His political experiences are interesting. He was elected city attorney of Murray, was candidate on the Democratic ticket for a member of the state legislature, candidate on Democratic ticket for the state senate, candidate on Democratic ticket for city attorney of Salt Lake City, named for governor at the Democratic convention in 1916 after having previously declined to run, and was defeated by Governor Bamberger on the fourth ballot, receiving the next highest number of votes. His business ability is clearly shown by the following: He is vice-president and director of Amalgamated Sugar Company, director and member of executive committee of Utah State National Bank, director of Z. C. M. I., director of Utah Oil Refining Company, vice-president and director of Granite Furniture Company, director of Zion's Securities Corporation, Director of Temple Square Hotel, president of Wasatch Land and Improvement Company. Formerly president of Sugar Beet Finance Corporation, an Intermediary Company lending about $14,000,000 of War Finance Corporation funds to local Sugar Companies about 1917 or 18. The love of home and kindred is the deep and dominant passion of his life, and he knows how to build a home and his wife knows how to make it an abiding place for one's affections. STEPHEN L. RICHARDS has the rare capacity of making dreams realities, of shaking results out of confused situations. While he is practical he is artistic in temperament. Things must be beautiful in perspective and fine in technique to satisfy his taste. He is a natural builder and has never built anything cheap or shabby. Building is almost a passion with him. He felled, squared, and hauled with a four-horse team from a canyon forty miles away the logs with which his first home was built, a neat and beautiful little one on a ranch in Idaho. There is always a hospitality about his home that is at once chivalrous and warm-hearted. The bride of his young manhood has fostered and encouraged this native love for the beautiful which is so strong in him. Whether it was a dirt-roofed cabin on a remote ranch or a modern home among the finest residences of the city, Irene Richards would decorate it, embellish it, and adorn it with that mystic atmosphere which makes a home. She is an artist in home making and all real art and has the finest feeling in it. There is a congeniality, a comradery, a comity of interest between this couple that has made every hour happy. He has the spirit of adventure, tempered with caution: she has confidence in his judgment ,and admiration for his courage—they team beautifully, their married life has been a long romance and their home a center from which has radiated a filial love which is at once strong and beautiful. His daughter Alice has voiced in these lines the admiration which the children hold for their father: "Now give me a father with a brilliant mind," Said Brother Lynn—"And he must be kind," Echoed Sister Louise, "and generous too And really unselfish thro and thro." "I want my father to be Kingly great Whom men will honor and decorate," Said Lois in that great council above. "I want a father that 1 can love For all he will surely mean to me," Said Allie—-"Now, Helen, what will your father be?" "God will choose him and set him apart on high And his wisdom and glory will reach the sky." "Yet surely my father must human be," said Georgia Gill, "Understanding too," said Joe—"Now, Phil, Will your father be dark like you And handsome, and gay and charming, too?" "It's a pretty big order already I see," Shouted young Dick, "but my father must be A good friend and a real pal to you and to me." Now when all our desires were spoken and through God smiled on us all and sent us to you. ON the occasion of Brother Richards' fifty-second birthday, his son, Lynn, a brilliant young lawyer, wrote to his father: "Dear father: The 18th of this month is a glorious day to me. There are few who have the opportunity to enjoy the intimate association of so noble a character and so fond a parent as I have been privileged to enjoy. My gratefulness to you is only marred by my realization that with such an influence I have failed to attain a position comparable to the opportunities I have enjoyed. But be that as it may, I nevertheless am grateful to you and to my Heavenly Father for this privilege and opportunity." * * * Brother Richards replying, said in part: "Dear Son: Few things could have been more encouraging and comforting to me than your letter. I am sincerely grateful for your devotion and your love. Your life and affection are the realization of one of my fondest aspirations. To have one's eldest son so noble and true with so much promise for the future must ever be the consummation of a man's highest ideals. "I pray that my other sons may emulate the example you have set for them. * * * "The Lord has been most gracious and merciful to me. I thank him and hope soon to be able to put forth more effective effort to show my devotion. * * * Affectionately, Father." WE are permitted through the kindness of Mrs. Richards to select from a personal record some very interesting information with reference to Brother Richards' early life. The heroic and humorous are delightfully intermingled in these experiences. "Cut four teeth at four months," and may we add, all of his wisdom teeth early. "When ten years of age he drove a wagon with a hayrack loaded with furniture from Farmington to Sugar House and led a cow. Good for a ten-year-old boy. “While sleigh- riding on an avenue in the city he was run into by a horse coming out of an alley which cut his leg badly. While they were sewing up the wound he got the other leg free and kicked the Doctor across the room.' He probably would have starred as a 'soccer' player. "While in a canyon one day he saw a fisherman with his line hooked in a tree. Seeing the difficulty Stephen said: 'Shall I shoot that limb off for you?' 'No, you can't hit it,' the worried fisherman answered. In a little while again Stephen said: 'Better let me shoot the limb off.' The man answered: 'Go away, boy, you can't do it.' But Steve persisted and finally the exasperated man said: 'Fire away, you can't hit it.' Steve knew he could and he did. 'By jove, kid, you've got a good eye. Thanks.' "At a rodeo he lassoed a wild horse with the first throw of the lariat,"—an echo of his ranch days. "He drove the second auto south of Provo through Bear Valley and Panguitch." That was before the days of highways or self starters. "Farmers for twenty miles around brought their families to see the auto pass on the road." It was a real curiosity in those days. "He has since driven by auto from Boston to San Francisco." We regret that the limits of this article are such that we cannot include numerous other experiences. STEPHEN L. RICHARDS is an eloquent preacher. He is logical and philosophical in his thinking, with a poetic imagination, rare descriptive powers, and a clear, well modulated, oratund voice. His sermons are compact with meaning and convincing in argument. One never hears or reads his discourses on such subjects as "The Home," "The Power of Resistance," "Personality of God," "Youth," and kindred topics without being lifted up and impressed with his magnificent interpretation of "Mormonism" and his tolerant, appealing attitude toward humanity. We quote from his discourse on "Youth": "Youth should know that obedience is not bondage but liberty — liberty under law; that the only real freedom is freedom from our weaknesses, from the vices, the remorse of conscience and the infraction of law. When youth understands that the bending of the will in obedience tends to liberty and joy, then lawlessness, disrespect, and irreverence will wane. * * * "What a glorious age of promise youth is, when life is in the bud and early blossom, when each experience is fresh with curiosity and adventure. I think that if we may envy anything it is the life and vitality of youth. I would not rob it of its joy and its sparkle; I would only add to its richness by securing its enjoyment through the passing years. I know that a real appreciation of the gospel will do that. Gospel truth will also quicken the impulses of the spirit, and the spirit is the life of man. It unfolds new visions as knowledge increases and these new visions keep life ever new, so in the gospel life there is youth even in old age. "God bless youth that they may understand truth and us, and God bless us that we may understand youth." DIGNIFIED in appearance, gracious in manner, loyal to his friends and admired by them, a lover of the great outdoors and all nature, himself well educated and a devotee of education, modest and unobtrusive but with faith in the soundness and rectitude of his convictions, bringing a quiet self-assurance, devoted and supremely happy in his domestic life, successful in his work, an able lawyer, an eloquent preacher, a sagacious and far-sighted business man with a taste for politics land a talent for statesmanship and diplomacy —he is indeed a leader of men. He belongs to the intellectual and ethical aristocracy of the world. His full allegiance and all his splendid powers are, without reserve, dedicated to the service of the great Church of which he is a chosen apostle. [1] Estimate of Jesse R. S. Budge. |
Stephen L. Richards
Four Generations
Mrs. Richards at play time
"At a rodeo he lassoed a wild horse with the first throw of the lariat."
Mrs. Irene Merrill Richards at Time of Marriage
The Farm—Pleasant View, Idaho
The Present Richards Home
Stephen L. Richards at Time of Marriage
|
Bowen, Albert E. "Stephen L Richards." Instructor. August 1949. pg. 368-370, 380.
Stephen L Richards
ELDER ALBERT E. BOWEN
The editor of The Instructor has honored me with an invitation to write, particularly as related to his official Sunday School career, of the man whose picture occupies the front cover page of this issue. I say career, for that is what it has been, though not in the sense of deliberate selection of a calling by which one chooses to earn a livelihood, which is the ordinarily accepted connotation of the term. His, as is common with those of his faith, has been a gratuitous consecration of service in a cause dear to his heart. To it he brought the gift of a naturally well-endowed mind, disciplined through painstaking study and enriched by the fruits of his toil.
By reference to his photograph, you will realize, when I tell you that he has been prominently connected with the Deseret Sunday School Union for forty-three years, twenty-five of them in the general superintendency, that he must have come to that work in his early manhood. Those forty-three years have been fruitful years for him and for the Deseret Sunday School Union, for intensive and intelligently directed effort not only advances the cause which elicits it but also reacts upon him who gives the service. His powers inevitably unfold under the process. Such is the law of life and of progress.
He came into the Union as a general board member in 1906, just at a time when policies of far-reaching consequence, relating to the functional orbit of the board, were in the making. Theretofore, the board had been most concerned with the organizational features of the schools and with prescribing subject matter for study. Sunday School teachers, recruited as a rule from the laity and not trained, paid little conscious attention to methodology; this tended to lessen their effectiveness. Curing this imperfection called for widely expanded activity on the part of the general board, which assumed the task of preparing and publishing lesson outlines, as suggestive helps to inexperienced teachers. The outline sought to sift out the kernel of the lesson to be taught, so that the teacher would see clearly the purpose of the lesson and the thought or permanent impression the class members should carry away. Also, suggestions were added concerning techniques for presentation of lessons, in order that their purpose might be more fully realized.
Because preparation of the outlines entailed much work, and the successful use of them demanded carefully planned and skillfully executed supervisory direction, stake conventions were put upon a more regular schedule. These were visited by board members for discussions with stake and ward officers and teachers relative to the most effective use of the outlines and the handling of lesson materials. It is not intended to say that outline analyses of lessons and methods of presentation sprang up spontaneously then as Minerva sprang, full-grown, from the forehead of Jove. That is not the way of human progress. Beginnings are made, often in widely separated places, more or less experimentally, If they have merit, they persist and spread and finally achieve general acceptance as a part of the order of things. Something like this occurred in the developing of these Sunday School policies. Some stake boards and alert teachers had formulated outlines and given thought to the importance of proper ways of lesson presentation. But when the General Sunday School Board took the matter in hand, it was given great impetus and soon was extended over the Church. Neither is it to be assumed that there is any intent to reflect unfavorably upon those earlier teachers who did never-to-be-forgotten good. What they lacked in pedagogical method was perhaps more than compensated by their devotion and the fervency of their conviction of the truth of the gospel they taught. We hear it lamented today that the gospel cause is suffering under the tendency to subordinate these old-time virtues of teaching to the barren mechanics of methodology, The two together in proper balance constitute the ideal.
As is usual, wide adoption of the new policies (if we might be indulged in the use of the word "new") naturally led to realization of the need for others. In 1909 Brother Richards came into the general superintendency, where he remained till 1934. During that period, many other features were introduced. Stress on improved methods of teaching soon made apparent the need for more frequent consideration of this subject than could be given in stake conventions, or even in monthly union meetings. There were introduced into the program regular teacher training classes, conducted, where available, by trained teachers.
Missionary classes were organized for the benefit of prospective missionaries. The committee of the general board in charge met with the presidents of missions as they came to Salt Lake City to attend the general conferences of the Church; thus the Sunday School program was more intimately integrated with the work of the missions.
Marching to music from the general assembly for classwork and into the chapel when the class period was over became a regular procedural feature, lessening the disorder and confusion which otherwise were inevitable; the recital of the sacrament gem to focus attention on the solemnity of the sacramental ordinance was instituted, as were also the two-and-a-half-minute talks, giving children the experience of standing before the general assembly and talking on themes of their own choosing. It was during this period that the custom was established of devoting the Sunday evening of general conference to the promotion of Sunday School work; the general board was responsible for the programs, which rose to a high place in popular esteem.
Elder Richards would be the first to disclaim personal credit for the origination of the ideas which eventuated in these various features of the enlarged program. But he did have an important part in carrying them into effect as firmly established features of the program.
While he was yet a member of the general board and before his promotion to the general superintendency, a department for parents was introduced, commonly called the Parents' Class. Brother Richards was appointed to act with Judge Henry H. Rolapp, who is properly credited with the origination of the idea, as the committee to head this new department and supervise and direct its development. To it they devoted much earnest work, not the least of which consisted in assembling subject matter for study and preparing outlines for teachers, suggestive of methods of preparation and presentation. The publication Parent and Child, which was their work, will be remembered gratefully by teachers and members of Parents' classes.
The three years' experience in departmental work, preparing lesson materials and supervising execution of the program in the departments to which he was assigned, gave Brother Richards first hand knowledge of the practical questions involved in carrying out projected study courses and policies, which no doubt was of in estimable value to him when he assumed the duties of a member of the superintendency, where he served continuously for twenty-five years.
Perhaps this long experience accounts for the great interest and solicitude ever manifested by him for the young people of the Church. Or, it may be that this is all native to his tastes and disposition, Whatever it is attributable to, there is no doubt about his interest. In his public utterances, he has discoursed eloquently and often about the home as the basic unit of society, painting graphic and alluring pictures about the ideal functioning of that sacred institution. He has evidenced a lively sense of the obligations of parenthood, the inescapable duty of fathers and mothers to build qualities of honor and righteousness into the characters of their children. He has taught the reciprocity of consideration and respect which must run from parents to children and from children to parents, if the highest ideal of family life is to be achieved. To him, the eternal duration of the family relationship, binding the members together in an indissoluble unit which is perpetuated beyond the grave, would seem to be one of the most attractive and comforting doctrines of the re stored gospel. He glories in being the father of a large family, which is his chiefest pride. His voice has been often raised in fervent appeals to young and old to come into the active service of the Church and accept its doctrines, obey its ordinances, and live its teachings, as the means of assuring to themselves the anticipated joy of an abode with the righteous in our Father's kingdom. To this consummation he believes the Sunday Schools to be consecrated and he has striven to mold and shape and fashion them to this glorious end.
Stephen L Richards
ELDER ALBERT E. BOWEN
The editor of The Instructor has honored me with an invitation to write, particularly as related to his official Sunday School career, of the man whose picture occupies the front cover page of this issue. I say career, for that is what it has been, though not in the sense of deliberate selection of a calling by which one chooses to earn a livelihood, which is the ordinarily accepted connotation of the term. His, as is common with those of his faith, has been a gratuitous consecration of service in a cause dear to his heart. To it he brought the gift of a naturally well-endowed mind, disciplined through painstaking study and enriched by the fruits of his toil.
By reference to his photograph, you will realize, when I tell you that he has been prominently connected with the Deseret Sunday School Union for forty-three years, twenty-five of them in the general superintendency, that he must have come to that work in his early manhood. Those forty-three years have been fruitful years for him and for the Deseret Sunday School Union, for intensive and intelligently directed effort not only advances the cause which elicits it but also reacts upon him who gives the service. His powers inevitably unfold under the process. Such is the law of life and of progress.
He came into the Union as a general board member in 1906, just at a time when policies of far-reaching consequence, relating to the functional orbit of the board, were in the making. Theretofore, the board had been most concerned with the organizational features of the schools and with prescribing subject matter for study. Sunday School teachers, recruited as a rule from the laity and not trained, paid little conscious attention to methodology; this tended to lessen their effectiveness. Curing this imperfection called for widely expanded activity on the part of the general board, which assumed the task of preparing and publishing lesson outlines, as suggestive helps to inexperienced teachers. The outline sought to sift out the kernel of the lesson to be taught, so that the teacher would see clearly the purpose of the lesson and the thought or permanent impression the class members should carry away. Also, suggestions were added concerning techniques for presentation of lessons, in order that their purpose might be more fully realized.
Because preparation of the outlines entailed much work, and the successful use of them demanded carefully planned and skillfully executed supervisory direction, stake conventions were put upon a more regular schedule. These were visited by board members for discussions with stake and ward officers and teachers relative to the most effective use of the outlines and the handling of lesson materials. It is not intended to say that outline analyses of lessons and methods of presentation sprang up spontaneously then as Minerva sprang, full-grown, from the forehead of Jove. That is not the way of human progress. Beginnings are made, often in widely separated places, more or less experimentally, If they have merit, they persist and spread and finally achieve general acceptance as a part of the order of things. Something like this occurred in the developing of these Sunday School policies. Some stake boards and alert teachers had formulated outlines and given thought to the importance of proper ways of lesson presentation. But when the General Sunday School Board took the matter in hand, it was given great impetus and soon was extended over the Church. Neither is it to be assumed that there is any intent to reflect unfavorably upon those earlier teachers who did never-to-be-forgotten good. What they lacked in pedagogical method was perhaps more than compensated by their devotion and the fervency of their conviction of the truth of the gospel they taught. We hear it lamented today that the gospel cause is suffering under the tendency to subordinate these old-time virtues of teaching to the barren mechanics of methodology, The two together in proper balance constitute the ideal.
As is usual, wide adoption of the new policies (if we might be indulged in the use of the word "new") naturally led to realization of the need for others. In 1909 Brother Richards came into the general superintendency, where he remained till 1934. During that period, many other features were introduced. Stress on improved methods of teaching soon made apparent the need for more frequent consideration of this subject than could be given in stake conventions, or even in monthly union meetings. There were introduced into the program regular teacher training classes, conducted, where available, by trained teachers.
Missionary classes were organized for the benefit of prospective missionaries. The committee of the general board in charge met with the presidents of missions as they came to Salt Lake City to attend the general conferences of the Church; thus the Sunday School program was more intimately integrated with the work of the missions.
Marching to music from the general assembly for classwork and into the chapel when the class period was over became a regular procedural feature, lessening the disorder and confusion which otherwise were inevitable; the recital of the sacrament gem to focus attention on the solemnity of the sacramental ordinance was instituted, as were also the two-and-a-half-minute talks, giving children the experience of standing before the general assembly and talking on themes of their own choosing. It was during this period that the custom was established of devoting the Sunday evening of general conference to the promotion of Sunday School work; the general board was responsible for the programs, which rose to a high place in popular esteem.
Elder Richards would be the first to disclaim personal credit for the origination of the ideas which eventuated in these various features of the enlarged program. But he did have an important part in carrying them into effect as firmly established features of the program.
While he was yet a member of the general board and before his promotion to the general superintendency, a department for parents was introduced, commonly called the Parents' Class. Brother Richards was appointed to act with Judge Henry H. Rolapp, who is properly credited with the origination of the idea, as the committee to head this new department and supervise and direct its development. To it they devoted much earnest work, not the least of which consisted in assembling subject matter for study and preparing outlines for teachers, suggestive of methods of preparation and presentation. The publication Parent and Child, which was their work, will be remembered gratefully by teachers and members of Parents' classes.
The three years' experience in departmental work, preparing lesson materials and supervising execution of the program in the departments to which he was assigned, gave Brother Richards first hand knowledge of the practical questions involved in carrying out projected study courses and policies, which no doubt was of in estimable value to him when he assumed the duties of a member of the superintendency, where he served continuously for twenty-five years.
Perhaps this long experience accounts for the great interest and solicitude ever manifested by him for the young people of the Church. Or, it may be that this is all native to his tastes and disposition, Whatever it is attributable to, there is no doubt about his interest. In his public utterances, he has discoursed eloquently and often about the home as the basic unit of society, painting graphic and alluring pictures about the ideal functioning of that sacred institution. He has evidenced a lively sense of the obligations of parenthood, the inescapable duty of fathers and mothers to build qualities of honor and righteousness into the characters of their children. He has taught the reciprocity of consideration and respect which must run from parents to children and from children to parents, if the highest ideal of family life is to be achieved. To him, the eternal duration of the family relationship, binding the members together in an indissoluble unit which is perpetuated beyond the grave, would seem to be one of the most attractive and comforting doctrines of the re stored gospel. He glories in being the father of a large family, which is his chiefest pride. His voice has been often raised in fervent appeals to young and old to come into the active service of the Church and accept its doctrines, obey its ordinances, and live its teachings, as the means of assuring to themselves the anticipated joy of an abode with the righteous in our Father's kingdom. To this consummation he believes the Sunday Schools to be consecrated and he has striven to mold and shape and fashion them to this glorious end.
Widtsoe, John A. "Stephen L Richards Sustained as First Counselor in the First Presidency." Relief Society Magazine. June 1951. pg. 369-372.
President Stephen L Richards
Sustained First Counselor in the First Presidency, April 9, 1951
Elder John A. Widtsoe
Of the Council of the Twelve
THERE is strength in Zion. That is never more evident than when official vacancies in offices of the Church are to be filled. Only a few weeks ago, after the demise of the beloved leader, President George Albert Smith, men were at once found to constitute the First Presidency. They are strong, intelligent men, David O. McKay, Stephen L Richards, and J. Reuben Clark, Jr., who stand shoulder high with the foremost in the world.
That is the way of the restored Church, whether in ward, stake, or general concerns. Looking back over the years, there seems always to have been men ready to meet the issues of the day, and to carry forward the Lord's work. If there are more problems in this wayward age, there is also more strength among us with which to give battle to evil. Latter-day Saints look upward with secure eyes. Progress is assured within the restored Church of Christ.
Stephen L Richards who was called to serve as President McKay's first counselor comes of a lineage distinguished for faith, intelligence, loyalty and courage.
In the troublous days of Nauvoo, when enemies were hounding the Prophet's life, Willard Richards, the grandfather of Stephen L, waited upon the Prophet, and made the dire trials easier to bear. At length in Carthage Jail, Willard Richards was by the side of the Prophet when the fatal shot was fired. His brief account of the assassinations is a Mormon classic. He later became a counselor to President Brigham Young.
Stephen L Richards was born of Emma Louise Stayner and Dr. Stephen L. Richards on June 18, 1879, in the village of Mendon, Cache County, Utah. There and elsewhere as the family set up a home, conditions were primitive in terms of modern comforts. The State was just emerging from pioneer surroundings, after a grip to the finish with an unfriendly desert. But, toil and struggle, with ultimate conquest, only made pioneer blood rich in courage. Stephen L's forebears had not been afraid, he was not afraid, but wise in compelling the world to come to his
At twenty-one he married the girl of his choice, Irene Merrill, also of distinguished ancestry, and herself a personality to match wits with the best. Her kindly humor is today good medicine for all who are fortunate enough to be her friends. To them were born nine children, four boys and five girls, of whom seven are living; stalwart citizens of the State. The family is an example that should be followed in this decadent age when children are often accounted a burden.
Then came the necessity of a life's career. He had already taken a brief whirl at the ranch and at school teaching, the memory of which still thrills him. A force within him, a longing for knowledge, drove him to books. He would have become a magnificent teacher had he adopted the profession; but the choice fell naturally upon law. After studying general subjects at the University of Utah, he took up the study of law at Michigan University and completed the course at Chicago University where he graduated with the L.L.B. degree, cum laude (with honors) in 1904.
Brother Richards' mind is analytical. He dissects and puts together again in better form the ideas presented to him. He has walked through life a careful, observing, and tolerant judge of men and affairs. That has been a foremost characteristic, one that has made him useful in his every undertaking, and will serve the Church well in his new calling in the First Presidency.
HIS gift of good judgment, always based upon the examination of facts, was early recognized by his fellows - He practiced law successfully; was city attorney for Murray City instructor m law at the University of Utah; secretary for the Utah Bar Association, and Utah representative of the American Bar Association. It was a loss to the Bar when his Church call ended his professional labors.
It followed that a mind so constituted would become interested in business. Indeed, business needed him and called for his help, Brother Richards' business career is also outstanding. He is connected with prosperous enterprises in many fields: sugar, land, cemetery, oxygen, banking, merchandising, power and light, coal, books, oil, furniture, and others. All of them are stronger for his association with them.
Civic duties, many as honorable rewards for valiant service, have been thrust upon him. They all carry the insignia of service, else he would not have accepted them. He served with distinction as a regent of the University of Utah, a member of the State Board of Corrections, State Chairman for Utah State Works Administration, and others of like importance. To the Rotary Club he has given steady attention. He has taken pride in honoring his ancestors in his membership in the Sons of the American Revolution. To minor but important causes he has given liberally of his time, strength, and substance.
Stephen L Richards is not the usual type of business man who grabs for money first and last, and lowers the respect of people for the necessary and altruistic path of commerce. True, he has been successful, how could he avoid it? But not to the surrender of the high ideals of life. His innate courtesy to all people whether high or low, his generous estimate of people and their works, friend or foe, marks him a true gentleman, whom it is good to meet. He takes a deep interest in the 'other fellow" who gives him loyalty in return. Even in heated debate, and Brother Richards will fight for his convictions, he is fair to the antagonist who is not wounded nor made to feel inferior in defeat. This graciousness of life and action is an integral part of Brother Richards' make-up.
His soul responds quickly to all that is lofty and beautiful. Fine words well placed and spoken; the artist's conception well designed; the sunshine peering through rifted clouds after the rain; the morning glow on the mountain; the tumult of color when the sun sets; the simple beauty of the pine tree after the snow. Such everyday things find a response in him because he has a living soul. Lovers of beauty will find support in Stephen L Richards. Men without artistic souls find it difficult to visualize the purposes of God for man.
He is a lover of nature. During his free days, it is a pretty sure guess that he may be found in his canyon home, or in his boat on the lake, or at the right end of a fishpole, or trying out the latest model of an automobile. Where nature reigns he sleeps well. In the great peace of nature his own mind finds peace.
Really, in all his work he reaches out for perfection. That is why he loves the beautiful. Any one of his conference sermons shows the meticulous and persistent care given to every word and turn of a sentence. Such an objective requires work, and much work, of which he is not afraid. The cause he represents is entitled to all he can give. That is his guiding principle of action in and out of the Church—though in his philosophy every act and need of man may find proper place in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
ALL this and more lifts Stephen L Richards to unusual heights among men, and betokens a person highly endowed by nature. But there awaited him world-wide service, the greatest of all.
As a lad he took interest in the organizations of the Church. In May 1906 he was called to membership on the general board of the Deseret Sunday School Union. There he served so well that when George Reynolds died Stephen L Richards was appointed second counselor in the superintendency in April 1909. The superintendent then was President Joseph F. Smith, and the other counselor was Apostle David O. McKay, now President of the Church. To be an associate of such men was a great education for the youthful man.
On January 18, 1917, he was ordained an apostle and set apart as one of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles of the Church. With the call, dreams of leadership in law and other activities vanished. He stood before the Lord charged henceforth to carry forward the latter-day work. He accepted the call and its challenge with the certainty that the Lord's work is the greatest in the world, and that it will eventually vanquish all enemies and cover the earth.
So, for thirty-four years, in season and out of season, often at real sacrifices of physical comfort, he has traveled over the Church, preaching, teaching, leading, and pleading, under the spirit of revelation. The people have learned to know him and to love him. His work has called him to South America, Europe, Asia Minor, and some of the islands of the sea. Hundreds of commissions have been well consummated by him.
When he speaks his words resound with knowledge, and an understanding of God's purposes, and for present needs. Such service to the Church means sacrifice to all members of a family, but the reward in making men fit for the building of God's kingdom, surpasses all the gifts of earth.
The people listen joyfully when the splendid voice of Brother Richards, a beautiful natural endowment, is heard carrying to the world the eternal call to repentance.
The people welcome Stephen L Richards in his new position. As a member of the First Presidency every power will be used for the benefit of the Church. He knows the gospel, he loves it; he loves his fellow men; he trusts the conquering nature of the Priesthood of God; and he will strive to listen when the mighty voice of Jehovah speaks.
Thank God for President Stephen L Richards. May he long be preserved to us in health and strength.
President Stephen L Richards
Sustained First Counselor in the First Presidency, April 9, 1951
Elder John A. Widtsoe
Of the Council of the Twelve
THERE is strength in Zion. That is never more evident than when official vacancies in offices of the Church are to be filled. Only a few weeks ago, after the demise of the beloved leader, President George Albert Smith, men were at once found to constitute the First Presidency. They are strong, intelligent men, David O. McKay, Stephen L Richards, and J. Reuben Clark, Jr., who stand shoulder high with the foremost in the world.
That is the way of the restored Church, whether in ward, stake, or general concerns. Looking back over the years, there seems always to have been men ready to meet the issues of the day, and to carry forward the Lord's work. If there are more problems in this wayward age, there is also more strength among us with which to give battle to evil. Latter-day Saints look upward with secure eyes. Progress is assured within the restored Church of Christ.
Stephen L Richards who was called to serve as President McKay's first counselor comes of a lineage distinguished for faith, intelligence, loyalty and courage.
In the troublous days of Nauvoo, when enemies were hounding the Prophet's life, Willard Richards, the grandfather of Stephen L, waited upon the Prophet, and made the dire trials easier to bear. At length in Carthage Jail, Willard Richards was by the side of the Prophet when the fatal shot was fired. His brief account of the assassinations is a Mormon classic. He later became a counselor to President Brigham Young.
Stephen L Richards was born of Emma Louise Stayner and Dr. Stephen L. Richards on June 18, 1879, in the village of Mendon, Cache County, Utah. There and elsewhere as the family set up a home, conditions were primitive in terms of modern comforts. The State was just emerging from pioneer surroundings, after a grip to the finish with an unfriendly desert. But, toil and struggle, with ultimate conquest, only made pioneer blood rich in courage. Stephen L's forebears had not been afraid, he was not afraid, but wise in compelling the world to come to his
At twenty-one he married the girl of his choice, Irene Merrill, also of distinguished ancestry, and herself a personality to match wits with the best. Her kindly humor is today good medicine for all who are fortunate enough to be her friends. To them were born nine children, four boys and five girls, of whom seven are living; stalwart citizens of the State. The family is an example that should be followed in this decadent age when children are often accounted a burden.
Then came the necessity of a life's career. He had already taken a brief whirl at the ranch and at school teaching, the memory of which still thrills him. A force within him, a longing for knowledge, drove him to books. He would have become a magnificent teacher had he adopted the profession; but the choice fell naturally upon law. After studying general subjects at the University of Utah, he took up the study of law at Michigan University and completed the course at Chicago University where he graduated with the L.L.B. degree, cum laude (with honors) in 1904.
Brother Richards' mind is analytical. He dissects and puts together again in better form the ideas presented to him. He has walked through life a careful, observing, and tolerant judge of men and affairs. That has been a foremost characteristic, one that has made him useful in his every undertaking, and will serve the Church well in his new calling in the First Presidency.
HIS gift of good judgment, always based upon the examination of facts, was early recognized by his fellows - He practiced law successfully; was city attorney for Murray City instructor m law at the University of Utah; secretary for the Utah Bar Association, and Utah representative of the American Bar Association. It was a loss to the Bar when his Church call ended his professional labors.
It followed that a mind so constituted would become interested in business. Indeed, business needed him and called for his help, Brother Richards' business career is also outstanding. He is connected with prosperous enterprises in many fields: sugar, land, cemetery, oxygen, banking, merchandising, power and light, coal, books, oil, furniture, and others. All of them are stronger for his association with them.
Civic duties, many as honorable rewards for valiant service, have been thrust upon him. They all carry the insignia of service, else he would not have accepted them. He served with distinction as a regent of the University of Utah, a member of the State Board of Corrections, State Chairman for Utah State Works Administration, and others of like importance. To the Rotary Club he has given steady attention. He has taken pride in honoring his ancestors in his membership in the Sons of the American Revolution. To minor but important causes he has given liberally of his time, strength, and substance.
Stephen L Richards is not the usual type of business man who grabs for money first and last, and lowers the respect of people for the necessary and altruistic path of commerce. True, he has been successful, how could he avoid it? But not to the surrender of the high ideals of life. His innate courtesy to all people whether high or low, his generous estimate of people and their works, friend or foe, marks him a true gentleman, whom it is good to meet. He takes a deep interest in the 'other fellow" who gives him loyalty in return. Even in heated debate, and Brother Richards will fight for his convictions, he is fair to the antagonist who is not wounded nor made to feel inferior in defeat. This graciousness of life and action is an integral part of Brother Richards' make-up.
His soul responds quickly to all that is lofty and beautiful. Fine words well placed and spoken; the artist's conception well designed; the sunshine peering through rifted clouds after the rain; the morning glow on the mountain; the tumult of color when the sun sets; the simple beauty of the pine tree after the snow. Such everyday things find a response in him because he has a living soul. Lovers of beauty will find support in Stephen L Richards. Men without artistic souls find it difficult to visualize the purposes of God for man.
He is a lover of nature. During his free days, it is a pretty sure guess that he may be found in his canyon home, or in his boat on the lake, or at the right end of a fishpole, or trying out the latest model of an automobile. Where nature reigns he sleeps well. In the great peace of nature his own mind finds peace.
Really, in all his work he reaches out for perfection. That is why he loves the beautiful. Any one of his conference sermons shows the meticulous and persistent care given to every word and turn of a sentence. Such an objective requires work, and much work, of which he is not afraid. The cause he represents is entitled to all he can give. That is his guiding principle of action in and out of the Church—though in his philosophy every act and need of man may find proper place in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
ALL this and more lifts Stephen L Richards to unusual heights among men, and betokens a person highly endowed by nature. But there awaited him world-wide service, the greatest of all.
As a lad he took interest in the organizations of the Church. In May 1906 he was called to membership on the general board of the Deseret Sunday School Union. There he served so well that when George Reynolds died Stephen L Richards was appointed second counselor in the superintendency in April 1909. The superintendent then was President Joseph F. Smith, and the other counselor was Apostle David O. McKay, now President of the Church. To be an associate of such men was a great education for the youthful man.
On January 18, 1917, he was ordained an apostle and set apart as one of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles of the Church. With the call, dreams of leadership in law and other activities vanished. He stood before the Lord charged henceforth to carry forward the latter-day work. He accepted the call and its challenge with the certainty that the Lord's work is the greatest in the world, and that it will eventually vanquish all enemies and cover the earth.
So, for thirty-four years, in season and out of season, often at real sacrifices of physical comfort, he has traveled over the Church, preaching, teaching, leading, and pleading, under the spirit of revelation. The people have learned to know him and to love him. His work has called him to South America, Europe, Asia Minor, and some of the islands of the sea. Hundreds of commissions have been well consummated by him.
When he speaks his words resound with knowledge, and an understanding of God's purposes, and for present needs. Such service to the Church means sacrifice to all members of a family, but the reward in making men fit for the building of God's kingdom, surpasses all the gifts of earth.
The people listen joyfully when the splendid voice of Brother Richards, a beautiful natural endowment, is heard carrying to the world the eternal call to repentance.
The people welcome Stephen L Richards in his new position. As a member of the First Presidency every power will be used for the benefit of the Church. He knows the gospel, he loves it; he loves his fellow men; he trusts the conquering nature of the Priesthood of God; and he will strive to listen when the mighty voice of Jehovah speaks.
Thank God for President Stephen L Richards. May he long be preserved to us in health and strength.
"Highlights in the Life of President Stephen L Richards." Improvement Era. July 1951. pg. 490.
Highlights in the life of President Stephen L Richards
June 18, 1879—Born at Mendon, Cache County, Utah, the son of Stephen Longstroth and Emma Louise Stayner Richards.
1895-98—Attended University of Utah.
February 21, 1900—Married Irene Merrill.
1901-02—Principal Malad (Idaho) public school.
1902-03—Attended University of Michigan Law School.
June 1904—Graduated cum laude from University of Chicago Law School.
1904—Admitted to the bar of the state of Utah.
1905-06—Murray City (Utah) Attorney.
1906—Called as a member of the Deseret Sunday School Union general board.
1908-1917—Instructor, University of Utah, School of Law.
April 4, 1 909—Sustained as second assistant general superintendent, Deseret Sunday School Union.
Secretary Utah State Bar Association.
Vice President for Utah of American Bar Association
Member, Utah State Board of Corrections.
January 17, 1917—Ordained an Apostle.
November 27, 1918—Sustained as first assistant general superintendent, Deseret Sunday School Union.
May 9, 1919—Called as Assistant Church Commissioner of Education.
July 16, 1919—Appointed member, general-Church board of education.
1922-23—President, Beet Sugar Finance Corporation (utilized by War Finance Corporation to disburse funds to save beet sugar industry in several western states).
October 31, 1934—Released as first assistant general superintendent, Deseret Sunday School Union.
1934—Adviser to general board of Deseret Sunday School Union.
1934—Utah State Chairman, Civil Works Administration.
1939-41—Member, Board of Regents—University of Utah.
June 29, 1942—Offered the invocation at a session of the United States Senate.
1943—The Church in War and Peace, a book which grew out of a series of radio sermons, came from the press.
1948—Special mission tour of the South America missions.
1950—Special mission tour of the European missions.
April 8, 1951—Sustained as first counselor in the First Presidency at a special meeting in the Salt Lake Temple.
April 9, 1951—Sustained as first counselor in the First Presidency at the solemn assembly, held in the Salt Lake Tabernacle.
April 12, 1951—Set apart as first counselor in the First Presidency by President David O. McKay.
April 1951—First vice-president, board of trustees, Brigham Young University.
President Stephen L Richards is affiliated with the following businesses:
President and owner, Wasatch Land & Improvement Co. which operates the Wasatch Lawn Memorial Park
Vice-president, director, member of executive committee Utah First National Bank
Vice-president, director, member of executive committee, Z. C. M. I.
Vice-president, director, member of executive committee, Granite Furniture Co.
Vice-president and director, Beneficial Life Insurance Co.
Vice-president and director, Zion's Securities Corp.
Director, member of executive committee, Zion's Savings Bank & Trust Co.
Director, member of executive committee, Hotel Utah Co.,
Director, member of executive committee, Utah Power and Light Co.
Director, Utah-Idaho Sugar Co.
Director, Heber J. Grant & Co.
Director, Utah Home Fire Insurance Co.
Director, Utah Oil Refining Co.
Director, Whitmore Oxygen Co.
Highlights in the life of President Stephen L Richards
June 18, 1879—Born at Mendon, Cache County, Utah, the son of Stephen Longstroth and Emma Louise Stayner Richards.
1895-98—Attended University of Utah.
February 21, 1900—Married Irene Merrill.
1901-02—Principal Malad (Idaho) public school.
1902-03—Attended University of Michigan Law School.
June 1904—Graduated cum laude from University of Chicago Law School.
1904—Admitted to the bar of the state of Utah.
1905-06—Murray City (Utah) Attorney.
1906—Called as a member of the Deseret Sunday School Union general board.
1908-1917—Instructor, University of Utah, School of Law.
April 4, 1 909—Sustained as second assistant general superintendent, Deseret Sunday School Union.
Secretary Utah State Bar Association.
Vice President for Utah of American Bar Association
Member, Utah State Board of Corrections.
January 17, 1917—Ordained an Apostle.
November 27, 1918—Sustained as first assistant general superintendent, Deseret Sunday School Union.
May 9, 1919—Called as Assistant Church Commissioner of Education.
July 16, 1919—Appointed member, general-Church board of education.
1922-23—President, Beet Sugar Finance Corporation (utilized by War Finance Corporation to disburse funds to save beet sugar industry in several western states).
October 31, 1934—Released as first assistant general superintendent, Deseret Sunday School Union.
1934—Adviser to general board of Deseret Sunday School Union.
1934—Utah State Chairman, Civil Works Administration.
1939-41—Member, Board of Regents—University of Utah.
June 29, 1942—Offered the invocation at a session of the United States Senate.
1943—The Church in War and Peace, a book which grew out of a series of radio sermons, came from the press.
1948—Special mission tour of the South America missions.
1950—Special mission tour of the European missions.
April 8, 1951—Sustained as first counselor in the First Presidency at a special meeting in the Salt Lake Temple.
April 9, 1951—Sustained as first counselor in the First Presidency at the solemn assembly, held in the Salt Lake Tabernacle.
April 12, 1951—Set apart as first counselor in the First Presidency by President David O. McKay.
April 1951—First vice-president, board of trustees, Brigham Young University.
President Stephen L Richards is affiliated with the following businesses:
President and owner, Wasatch Land & Improvement Co. which operates the Wasatch Lawn Memorial Park
Vice-president, director, member of executive committee Utah First National Bank
Vice-president, director, member of executive committee, Z. C. M. I.
Vice-president, director, member of executive committee, Granite Furniture Co.
Vice-president and director, Beneficial Life Insurance Co.
Vice-president and director, Zion's Securities Corp.
Director, member of executive committee, Zion's Savings Bank & Trust Co.
Director, member of executive committee, Hotel Utah Co.,
Director, member of executive committee, Utah Power and Light Co.
Director, Utah-Idaho Sugar Co.
Director, Heber J. Grant & Co.
Director, Utah Home Fire Insurance Co.
Director, Utah Oil Refining Co.
Director, Whitmore Oxygen Co.
Hinckley, Gordon B. "An Appreciation of Elder Stephen L Richards." Improvement Era. July 1951. pg. 496-499, 514.
An Appreciation of Stephen L Richards By Gordon B. Hinckley Or more than passing interest is the fact that the three men who today stand at the head of the Church grew up in small Utah farming communities. President David O. McKay was born and reared in Huntsville. President Stephen L Richards was born in the village of Mendon and spent his early childhood in Farmington. Grantsville was the birthplace of President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., and there he lived until he left home to go to school. Unquestionably the lessons, impressions, and habits of their childhood days have had much to do with the later achievements of these men. Early in life they learned the necessity of getting up in the morning and of doing a day's work. They developed a kinship with the good earth and the honest people who make it fruitful. They became acquainted with nature, her rewards and her penalties. In the simple but stimulating society of those communities, their souls and minds grew with their strengthening bodies. As country boys are wont to do, they dreamed dreams that reached to the blue sky above them and aspired to places far beyond the mountains that surrounded their valley homes. It is not within the province of this writing to recount the many engaging and at times trying experiences that led them by various paths to the high positions they now occupy. The assignment of this article is a sketch of one of them — President Stephen L Richards. Space permits only a few facts and observations, which, it is hoped, will give some indication, though inadequate, of the remarkable character of this man whom God has honored and whom the people of the Church have sustained in the Council of the First Presidency. For forty-five years he has been one of the general officers of the Church, for thirty-four one of the General Authorities. What has qualified him for the important and serious responsibilities he has carried over most of half a century? First and foremost of his virtues is his testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. With him spiritual knowledge is a sacred thing, a gift from heaven to be treasured and guarded. No one acquainted with his life can doubt his assurance of the divinity of the work in which he is engaged. That testimony came young in life. Its taproot drew strength from the faith of his grandfather, Dr. Willard Richards. He it was who left home and friends and profession when the Spirit of the Lord bore witness to his soul of the divinity of the Book of Mormon. Thereafter his lot was cast with the persecuted Saints. And he it was who offered his own life for the Prophet's on that sultry summer day in 1844 when Joseph and Hyrum Smith were murdered. The grandson likewise forsook the advantages and emoluments of his own chosen profession when the prophet of the Lord called. Stephen L Richards was then thirty-seven years of age, a successful lawyer, with an even more promising future. But he knew where the enduring values of life lie; he knew the meaning of that call; and there was no hesitancy in his response. He regards his testimony as a personal treasure. He does not repeat it often, nor carelessly. He does not thrust it on those who would scorn it. But on those occasions—sacred occasions—when he has shared it in measured words, his listeners have known that he was drawing from a deep well of pure and living truth. That testimony alone might have been sufficient reason for his call into the Council of the Twelve. But added to this were remarkable qualities of mind and facilities of expression that have made his services invaluable to the Church. The gospel cause has always had need for able advocates, and when his call came, he was qualified both by native endowment and training. He is the product of a good home, one of those "old-fashioned American homes" of which he has spoken often. Without intending to reflect any personal glory, he has said that "the world supply of intelligence, goodness, and beauty is largely a matter of propagation." A glance at the home of his parents, together with a study of its products, confirms the truthfulness of that statement. His father, Dr. Stephen Longstroth Richards, was a distinguished physician, a man remembered not alone for his professional skill, but also for his quiet manner and his kindness to the poor and distressed. It was in the tradition of his father, and of fathers before, reaching back into the earliest days of New England, that Stephen L Richards studied for a professional career. It is likewise probable that from the spirit of his father grew his own sympathetic understanding of those in unfortunate circumstances. With remembrance of his own childhood and of his father's consecrated life, he has spoken of the days when periodic epidemics wiped out entire families, and even communities. And he has expressed gratitude for the drugs and other curatives not available in his father's day. Obvious it is that many of the qualities of his brilliant mind and his sympathetic spirit of understanding were gained from his able father. His mother, Emma Louise Stayner Richards, was a gifted woman in her own right. She was the daughter of Arthur Stayner, a man of ability and perseverance, who worked for years on the chemistry of sugar refining. He made an outstanding contribution to the establishment of the western beet sugar industry and created a significant heritage for his children and grandchildren after him. She carried into her own home that same spirit of doing things, and along with it a spirit of refinement and culture. Ten children came to that home. They were bright, lively youngsters whose parents had the wisdom to give them freedom in developing their natural talents and the skill to direct their impulsive actions into worth-while channels. But they were not "Little Lord Fauntleroys." Stephen once had his leg badly cut in a sleigh riding accident, and when the doctor was about to sew the cut, he let go a well-directed kick that sent the man across the room. The fact that the parents knew the art of homemaking is evidenced by the adult lives of the children. Each has succeeded and become an outstanding member of the community in which he or she lives. From that home of his childhood he has drawn inspiration for what is perhaps his favorite theme. In speaking of the families who grew up in such homes he has said: "What families they have been! In days of privation and striving, how they have stood together! The sacrifices which they have made, one for another! The love, the service, and the nobility which have come from those great homes will probably never be known to many, but those who know of them and speak of the accomplishments of our Church in the first century of its existence mention first the noble fathers and mothers who in log cabins of the frontier or mansions of luxury have served faithfully as priests and priestesses in the temple of the home." It was in that spirit and with that ideal before them that he and his bride began life together more than half a century ago. Irene Merrill was the daughter of pioneer people, Clarence Merrill and Bathsheba Smith, and the product of another "old-fashioned American home." She had been a member of the Tabernacle choir and was a student of the University of Utah, a beautiful and gracious young woman of artistic taste. They were married February 21, 1900 and left for the Malad Valley of Idaho. That was a challenging and lusty country and the experience proved a valuable test of industry and resourcefulness. The young husband felled and hauled the logs which became their first dwelling, and the young wife made it into an attractive home. They have since lived in larger and more comfortable houses, but each has been hallowed by the same cultivated spirit. Nine children have come to them, each one welcomed and cherished. The son of one large family and the father of another, President Richards has deplored the modern selfish tendency to short-circuit the purposes of marriage. Listen to this quietly eloquent appeal to the young fathers and mothers of the Church: "If it shall please the Lord to send to your home a goodly number of children, I hope, I pray, you will not deny them entrance. If you should, it would cause you infinite sorrow and remorse. One has said that he could wish his worst enemy no more hell than this, that in the life to come someone might approach him and say, 'I might have come down into the land of America and done good beyond computation, but if I came at all, I had to come through your home, and you were not man enough or woman enough to receive me. You broke down the frail footway on which I must cross and then thought you had done a clever thing!' Hay in the Malad Valley brought three dollars a ton and grain forty cents a bushel when delivered to the shipping point at Collinston, Utah. But the small family lived comfortably, if modestly, from the ranch and from supplemental earnings Brother Richards made as principal of the Malad public school. After two years on the farm, they left for Ann Arbor, Michigan. Brother Richards had spent three years in the University of Utah and now determined to get a law degree from an eastern school. One year was spent at Ann Arbor, and then he transferred to the University of Chicago, where a law school had recently been opened. In 1904 he was graduated with the first class from the University of Chicago Law School and received the coveted cum laude citation. Ernest L. Wilkinson, now president of Brigham Young University, tells the story that when he was studying at Harvard, he roomed with a son of the man who had been dean of the Chicago School of Law. One day Dean Hall visited his son and was introduced to his Latter-day Saint roommate. The father responded by saying that the best students he had taught were Mormon boys from Utah and that a young man named Stephen L Richards was, in his judgment, the most capable student he had met during all of his years as dean. Back in Utah the young lawyer began his career as Murray City attorney, as instructor in the University of Utah Law School, and as successful private counsel. One of Salt Lake City's eminent lawyers (not a member of the Church and now deceased) once told the writer that he regarded Stephen L Richards as the ablest young man practising before the Utah bar up to the time he discontinued his legal work. Apparently the Lord had need for such a mind, and by interesting means he brought him into the leading councils of the Church. As a boy Stephen L Richards had been active in the Sugar House Ward of Salt Lake City, where his parents had moved from Farmington. He taught in the Sunday School and M. L A., served as a ward teacher, and sang in the choir. He today excuses his musical judgment on the basis that he never got beyond the ward choir and refers such matters to his trained and talented wife. But he has also commented on a love for the songs of Zion, developed as a young man while singing in Sugar House Ward. He also served as a member of the Salt Lake Stake Sunday School board, and in a similar capacity in Granite Stake. Then in 1906, when he was twenty-seven years of age, he was called to the general board of the Deseret Sunday School Union. There he became acquainted with a young school principal from Ogden, a man who six months earlier had been sustained a member of the Council of the Twelve and who now was named a member of the general superintendency of the Sunday School Union. There and then commenced a David-and- Jonathan friendship which has lasted and strengthened during all the intervening years, and which culminated in April 1951 when President David O. McKay chose Stephen L Richards to be his counselor in the First Presidency. It is a tribute to both of them that they have worked together so long and under such a variety of circumstances and that their love and appreciation for one another has grown steadily over the years. Appointment to the Sunday School board put Brother Richards in close association with another great man. President Joseph F. Smith was then President of the Church and also served as general superintendent of the Sunday School Union. He soon recognized the brilliance of the young lawyer board member and appreciated his loyalty to the Church and its leaders— at a time when there was much bitterness and considerable disloyalty. When George Reynolds died in 1909, President Smith filled the vacancy in the Sunday School superintendency by calling Stephen L Richards as second assistant and advancing David O. McKay to the post of first assistant. Brother Richards was then thirty years of age. Under this close association, the kinship of three strong spirits strengthened. President Smith became familiar with the uncommon ability and the deep worth of his lawyer-assistant. In 1916 Francis M. Lyman, President of the Council of Twelve, died. And on January 17, 1917, President Smith presented the name of Stephen L Richards before the Council to fill the vacancy that existed in the quorum. He was accepted and ordained that same day, a young man of thirty-seven, and the following April he was sustained by the membership of the Church. He terminated his law practice and dedicated himself to the work of the Lord. That work has since brought him many serious responsibilities. Because of his tact, his persuasive ability, his knowledge of the law, and his sound judgment, he has filled many delicate assignments before leaders of government and business, of which the Church as a whole generally has never heard. He has verily been its ambassador- at-large to pave the way for many understandings which have since been of great consequence. In the interest of missionary work he has traveled over the earth, visiting not only all parts of the United States, but also South America, Europe, and Palestine. For years he has sat as a member of the missionary committee through whose hands pass all matters of appointment of mission presidents and missionaries. And since its inception in 1935, he has served as chairman of the Church radio, publicity, and mission literature committee. In this latter capacity he has directed the manifold radio activities of the Church, which in the last fifteen years have multiplied by well over a hundred times. The tools of missionary work have been greatly expanded, and missionary labors generally have been made more efficient. He has represented the Church on the boards of important business institutions, and in numerous other ways his good judgment has protected its trust funds and investments. He is respected wherever he goes, and he reciprocates that respect. Perhaps this is one of the secrets of his great success. His courtesy is unfailing. If I may be pardoned a personal observation, I have worked under his immediate direction for more than a dozen years, in a room adjoining his. Though he has been my chief, and I his subordinate, he has never come through my door without knocking. That, in my judgment, speaks volumes for his uncommon courtesy and other remarkable qualities of character. Though his load has been heavy, and his health not too robust, he has been able to keep up his schedule because he knows how to relax. He bears none of the scars of this "age of ulcers." No picture to him is more inviting than smooth water cut at the bow of a trim boat. He can talk with expert knowledge on hulls, engines, and propeller pitch. He loves the pulse of a motor set at trolling speed and the tug of a line grabbed by a lively fish. He is familiar with the waters of Great Salt Lake and Fish Lake in Utah, of Lake Mead in Nevada, and of the Hebgen Dam and Yellowstone Lake in Montana. Always carefully attired, you will find him of a summer day in soft wool shirt and trousers, both neatly pressed, but casual, walking where sunlight filters through tall Douglas fir or sitting before the snug fire that burns in the grate of a modest mountain cabin. With him always will be his life's companion. For fifty-one years this strong, able man and this lovely, gracious woman have shared sorrow and triumph. Together they have buried a baby daughter and a promising son, both killed in tragic accidents. Together they have ridden a jeep over the rough roads of Brazil and stood at the site of the Savior's birth in Palestine. Together they have worked long hours at difficult tasks, and together they have mingled at ease with wealthy and important society. Hand in hand for more than half a century these two have walked the road of life, enjoying its beauties, meeting its burdens, loving its adventure, and helping others along the way. aThe Lord has selected and prepared his leaders well. Stephen L Richards is an affirmation of that fact. |
Elder Willard Richards, grandfather of Stephen L Richards,
was second counselor to Brigham Young in the early organization of the Church. Emma Louise Stayner Richards, mother of President Richards
Dr. Stephen Longstroth Richards, father of President Richards.
President Stephen L Richards, First Counselor in the First Presidency.
Sister Irene Merrill Richards about the time of her marriage in 1900.
Elder Richards shortly after his marriage.
Elder and Sister Richards in Brazil in 1948. Sister Richards
had just been presented with a corsage of two dozen orchids by the Saints in the Brazilian Mission. A family group in the backyard of the family home on 218 First Avenue, taken in 1920. Reading from left to right, Baby Richard M., Lois B., Louise, Alice. Center, Georgia. Front row, Joseph Albert (dec), and Philip L. Lynn Stephen, the eldest son, was at this time on a mission to the Eastern States.
The children of President and Sister Richards greet them on their fiftieth wedding anniversary, February 27, 7950: Georgia Gill Olson, Richard M., Lois B. Hinckley, Lynn S., Louise R. Covey, Philip L., and Alice R. Allen.
Four generations of the Richards family, photo taken in 1931: Lynn Stephen, son of Stephen L; Emma Louise Stayner Richards, his mother; Lynn Stephen, Jr.; and Stephen L.
Salt Lake Sunday School workers. May 7, 1905.
Stephen L Richards is standing second from right. He bears no scars of "this age of ulcers."
To President Stephen L Richards, no picture is more inviting than smooth water cut at the bow of a trim boat. Above picture was taken on the Provo River in 1937.
A group of General Authorities and their wives gathered at the Richards home for a social evening in the 1920' s.
The Superintendency of the Deseret Sunday School Union between the years 1918-1934. Left to right, Stephen L Richards, first assistant; Superintendent David O. McKay; George O. Pyper, second assistant
|
Bennion, Milton. "President Elder Stephen L Richards." Instructor. July 1951. pg. 194-195.
PRESIDENT STEPHEN L RICHARDS
By Milton Bennion
I became acquainted with Stephen L Richards about fifty-five years ago when we were fellow students at the University of Utah. He was a very capable student and evidently earnestly preparing for admission to a university law school, for which in those days. Latin was either required or recommended.
In 1900 he was married to Irene Smith Merrill, a granddaughter of President George A. Smith, associate of his grandfather Dr. Willard Richards as counselors to Brigham Young. Not to be without pioneering experience after the manner of their distinguished ancestors they celebrated their honeymoon by setting out for Idaho in a loaded wagon, drawn by a four-horse team, to settle on a large tract of land owned by Stephen's father and other relatives. The cabin in which they were to live had a dirt roof. When the rains descended in flood proportions the young couple was protected from the dirt-ladened leakage by a large umbrella. If they were cooking it was in use over the stove. If they were dining they put it over the table, and if they were sleeping it was over the bed. The first project was to build a log cabin with a shingled roof. The bridegroom had to leave his bride alone while he went to the mountains to get logs. This was a bigger job than he had anticipated and kept him away all night. His bride was entertained by the howling of coyotes and the thought that the Indians in that region were not hostile. They spent more than two years thus pioneering. Part of this time he was principal of the Malad High School.
Stephen L's life long enthusiasm for the Latter-day Saint ideals of the family was registered in the fact that their son Lynn S. and daughter Louise were born during this early pioneering period. They went with their parents to the Michigan Law School the year following. The family spent two years there. The father then transferred to the newly established law school at the University of Chicago while his family returned to Salt Lake where another daughter, Lois, was born. Her father didn't see her until she was nine months old. Ultimately their family consisted of four sons and five daughters of whom three sons and four daughters survive.
Stephen L graduated with distinction, highly commended by his dean who has been one of his close friends ever since. He very soon became well established in the legal profession and, at the same time, in Church work as a member of the Deseret Sunday School Union General Board. Upon the retirement of George Reynolds from the general superintendency of the Sunday Schools Stephen L Richards was appointed to serve with David O. Mc Kay as assistants to President Joseph F. Smith, General Superintendent. They continued to work together in that capacity until the death of President Smith. After that they were associated as superintendent and first assistant until after Brother McKay became a member of the First Presidency and Brother Richards senior advisor to the Deseret Sunday School Union. From this position he was released when he too became a member of the First Presidency.
Brother Richards was a very faithful and efficient Sunday School official. He took his turn in conducting the board meetings and taking part in the round table discussions, a common method of procedure. In case of out of town conventions he often took a carload of board members in his auto and returned with them after adjournment of the convention. This traveling was generally over dirt roads and before recent safety devices were available. I recall one such trip when one or more flat tires in Parley's Park, near midnight, was the occasion of setting up a mechanic's shop by the light of a sagebrush fire while Superintendent Richards as chief mechanic made repairs; then, after midnight, drove over the very winding roads down Parley's Canyon to safety in the Salt Lake Valley.
During the major portion of this time he was also performing his duties as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve; several of the apostles were members of the Sunday School General Board. With the multiplication of stakes and missions it was found best to release general authorities from membership on auxiliary boards.
In recent years President Richards and his wife have toured the missions of South America and the European missions including associated organizations in Syria and Palestine. As a representative of the Church Brother Richards, with his wide business experience and legal training, has had much to do with the financial affairs of the Church and the business organizations it controls, this without detracting from his service as one of the chief spiritual leaders of the people.
PRESIDENT STEPHEN L RICHARDS
By Milton Bennion
I became acquainted with Stephen L Richards about fifty-five years ago when we were fellow students at the University of Utah. He was a very capable student and evidently earnestly preparing for admission to a university law school, for which in those days. Latin was either required or recommended.
In 1900 he was married to Irene Smith Merrill, a granddaughter of President George A. Smith, associate of his grandfather Dr. Willard Richards as counselors to Brigham Young. Not to be without pioneering experience after the manner of their distinguished ancestors they celebrated their honeymoon by setting out for Idaho in a loaded wagon, drawn by a four-horse team, to settle on a large tract of land owned by Stephen's father and other relatives. The cabin in which they were to live had a dirt roof. When the rains descended in flood proportions the young couple was protected from the dirt-ladened leakage by a large umbrella. If they were cooking it was in use over the stove. If they were dining they put it over the table, and if they were sleeping it was over the bed. The first project was to build a log cabin with a shingled roof. The bridegroom had to leave his bride alone while he went to the mountains to get logs. This was a bigger job than he had anticipated and kept him away all night. His bride was entertained by the howling of coyotes and the thought that the Indians in that region were not hostile. They spent more than two years thus pioneering. Part of this time he was principal of the Malad High School.
Stephen L's life long enthusiasm for the Latter-day Saint ideals of the family was registered in the fact that their son Lynn S. and daughter Louise were born during this early pioneering period. They went with their parents to the Michigan Law School the year following. The family spent two years there. The father then transferred to the newly established law school at the University of Chicago while his family returned to Salt Lake where another daughter, Lois, was born. Her father didn't see her until she was nine months old. Ultimately their family consisted of four sons and five daughters of whom three sons and four daughters survive.
Stephen L graduated with distinction, highly commended by his dean who has been one of his close friends ever since. He very soon became well established in the legal profession and, at the same time, in Church work as a member of the Deseret Sunday School Union General Board. Upon the retirement of George Reynolds from the general superintendency of the Sunday Schools Stephen L Richards was appointed to serve with David O. Mc Kay as assistants to President Joseph F. Smith, General Superintendent. They continued to work together in that capacity until the death of President Smith. After that they were associated as superintendent and first assistant until after Brother McKay became a member of the First Presidency and Brother Richards senior advisor to the Deseret Sunday School Union. From this position he was released when he too became a member of the First Presidency.
Brother Richards was a very faithful and efficient Sunday School official. He took his turn in conducting the board meetings and taking part in the round table discussions, a common method of procedure. In case of out of town conventions he often took a carload of board members in his auto and returned with them after adjournment of the convention. This traveling was generally over dirt roads and before recent safety devices were available. I recall one such trip when one or more flat tires in Parley's Park, near midnight, was the occasion of setting up a mechanic's shop by the light of a sagebrush fire while Superintendent Richards as chief mechanic made repairs; then, after midnight, drove over the very winding roads down Parley's Canyon to safety in the Salt Lake Valley.
During the major portion of this time he was also performing his duties as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve; several of the apostles were members of the Sunday School General Board. With the multiplication of stakes and missions it was found best to release general authorities from membership on auxiliary boards.
In recent years President Richards and his wife have toured the missions of South America and the European missions including associated organizations in Syria and Palestine. As a representative of the Church Brother Richards, with his wide business experience and legal training, has had much to do with the financial affairs of the Church and the business organizations it controls, this without detracting from his service as one of the chief spiritual leaders of the people.
Zobell, Albert L., Jr. "Honoring President Stephen L Richards." Improvement Era. January 1957. pg. 10.
Honoring President Stephen L Richards
by Albert L. Zobell, Jr. Research Editor
This marks President Stephen L Richards' fortieth anniversary as a member of the General Authorities. It was on January 17, 1917, that he, already successful in his chosen field of law, accepted the call from the Prophet in that day, President Joseph F. Smith, to become a member of the Council of the Twelve.
What of the Church forty years ago? Let's look at it briefly:
It was a Church composed predominantly of people who loved and lived on the soil—in rural communities. The stakes of Zion, there were fewer than seventy-five of them then, contrasted with more than 235 now — extended in a narrow corridor from southern Alberta, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona to northern Mexico. In 1917 the membership of the Church was 488,046; today it is approaching one and a half million souls.
President Richards had been schooled for more than a decade as one of the general officers of the Church before his call to the apostleship. He had become a member of the Deseret Sunday School Union board in 1906, and on April 4, 1909, had become a member of the general superintendency of that body. He served in this capacity until October 1934.
President Richards comes of a noble heritage. His grandfather, Dr. Willard Richards, was the trusted confidant of both the Prophet Joseph Smith and President Brigham Young. It was Elder Willard Richards who was with the Prophet Joseph and his brother, the Patriarch Hyrum, that summer afternoon June 27, 1844, in Carthage Jail, Illinois, when the bullets from the mob snuffed out the lives of both Joseph and Hyrum. It was Willard Richards who served as Second Counselor in the First Presidency to Brigham Young.
But this is the story of the President Richards of our day—President Stephen L Richards. And what of this man—this leader of modern Israel? His testimony of the truthfulness of the restored gospel is his most valued treasure. He possesses a brilliant analytical mind, and an exceptional vocabulary with which to explain his point of view. His actions are always forthright, and he is a gentleman in all things. He has a rare sense of humor and is known among the ever-widening circle of his friends as a masterful storyteller.
Over the years his inspired utterances at conference time, on Temple Square, and in the stakes, have become classics in Church literature. During the nearly six years since he became a member of the First Presidency, the missionary program which he has administered has felt the strength of his wisdom.
Because of his tact, his persuasive ability, his knowledge of the laws of peoples and nations, and his sound judgment, President Richards has filled many delicate assignments before leaders of government and industry, of which the Church as a whole has seldom heard. He has been one of the foremost among the Church's ambassadors-at-large to pave the way for much of the understanding that the Church and its people now enjoy throughout the world.
In the interest of missionary work he has traveled extensively throughout North America, South America, Europe, and Palestine.
The Improvement Era, its staff, and its large family of subscribers, take this opportunity to congratulate President Richards on his forty years of service in the Church as one of its General Authorities, and to wish for him many more years of fruitful service in building up the Father's Kingdom here upon earth.
Honoring President Stephen L Richards
by Albert L. Zobell, Jr. Research Editor
This marks President Stephen L Richards' fortieth anniversary as a member of the General Authorities. It was on January 17, 1917, that he, already successful in his chosen field of law, accepted the call from the Prophet in that day, President Joseph F. Smith, to become a member of the Council of the Twelve.
What of the Church forty years ago? Let's look at it briefly:
It was a Church composed predominantly of people who loved and lived on the soil—in rural communities. The stakes of Zion, there were fewer than seventy-five of them then, contrasted with more than 235 now — extended in a narrow corridor from southern Alberta, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona to northern Mexico. In 1917 the membership of the Church was 488,046; today it is approaching one and a half million souls.
President Richards had been schooled for more than a decade as one of the general officers of the Church before his call to the apostleship. He had become a member of the Deseret Sunday School Union board in 1906, and on April 4, 1909, had become a member of the general superintendency of that body. He served in this capacity until October 1934.
President Richards comes of a noble heritage. His grandfather, Dr. Willard Richards, was the trusted confidant of both the Prophet Joseph Smith and President Brigham Young. It was Elder Willard Richards who was with the Prophet Joseph and his brother, the Patriarch Hyrum, that summer afternoon June 27, 1844, in Carthage Jail, Illinois, when the bullets from the mob snuffed out the lives of both Joseph and Hyrum. It was Willard Richards who served as Second Counselor in the First Presidency to Brigham Young.
But this is the story of the President Richards of our day—President Stephen L Richards. And what of this man—this leader of modern Israel? His testimony of the truthfulness of the restored gospel is his most valued treasure. He possesses a brilliant analytical mind, and an exceptional vocabulary with which to explain his point of view. His actions are always forthright, and he is a gentleman in all things. He has a rare sense of humor and is known among the ever-widening circle of his friends as a masterful storyteller.
Over the years his inspired utterances at conference time, on Temple Square, and in the stakes, have become classics in Church literature. During the nearly six years since he became a member of the First Presidency, the missionary program which he has administered has felt the strength of his wisdom.
Because of his tact, his persuasive ability, his knowledge of the laws of peoples and nations, and his sound judgment, President Richards has filled many delicate assignments before leaders of government and industry, of which the Church as a whole has seldom heard. He has been one of the foremost among the Church's ambassadors-at-large to pave the way for much of the understanding that the Church and its people now enjoy throughout the world.
In the interest of missionary work he has traveled extensively throughout North America, South America, Europe, and Palestine.
The Improvement Era, its staff, and its large family of subscribers, take this opportunity to congratulate President Richards on his forty years of service in the Church as one of its General Authorities, and to wish for him many more years of fruitful service in building up the Father's Kingdom here upon earth.
Hinckley, Gordon B. "President Stephen L Richards 1879-1959." Improvement Era. June 1959. pg. 416-417, 488-489.
President Stephen L Richards 1879-1959
by Gordon B. Hinckley Assistant to the Council of the Twelve
Death came to President Stephen L Richards on Tuesday, May 19, 1959. The previous day he had worked until after five o'clock on problems of the far-flung missions of the Church. At 7:30 Tuesday morning he was to have attended the meeting at which missionary assignments are made, a meeting which he had attended regularly over a period of many years. But earlier that morning he had been taken ill. His doctor ordered him to the hospital. There he passed away at 7:55 a.m. He was seventy-nine years of age. He would have celebrated his eightieth birthday on June 18.
Thus reads the chronicle of the quiet passing of a great man, a leader in Israel.
For forty-two years he had dedicated his life to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a member of the Council of the Twelve Apostles, and later as a Counselor in the First Presidency.
He was a man with a cause. That cause was the gospel of Jesus Christ and the building of the Lord's kingdom in the earth.
Few men have come into the general councils of the Church better equipped to assist in managing its affairs or more capable in promoting its welfare.
He said on one occasion, and that not in respect to himself: "The world supply of intelligence, goodness, and beauty is largely a matter of propagation." He was the beneficiary of a remarkable legacy. Of English ancestry, his paternal forebears were among the colonists who laid the foundations of the nation. The soil of New England, in which they planted their roots, gave strength to their bodies and nurture to their souls. Freedom they loved, and beauty, too. Cultivation of the mind, nourishment of the spirit, a sense of obligation to serve, thrift and productivity— these were all part of their nature.
Stephen L Richards' grandfather was Dr. Willard Richards who read a copy of the Book of Mormon and was immediately convinced of its truth. He was baptized December 31, 1836 by Brigham Young. He became an apostle, secretary to the Prophet Joseph Smith, and Counselor to Brigham Young. He it was who offered to give his life for that of the Prophet in Carthage Jail on that fateful 27th of June 1844.
President Richards made reference to this at the time he was sustained as counselor to President McKay when he said: "I have often felt that the only reason for my being in the presiding councils of the Church is in the devotion of Willard Richards to the Prophet Joseph Smith. I believe there are councils on the other side. We have had testimonies of them, and while I cannot understand, I can believe that the Prophet, out of consideration for his friend, has had a voice in bringing me into the Council of the Twelve through President Joseph F. Smith, and also in that which has brought me to this position. I would like to be as true a friend to President David O. McKay as my grandfather was to the Prophet, and in some measure show to him my appreciation of his marvelous kindness to me."
President Richards was born June 18, 1879, in Mendon, Cache County, Utah. His father was Dr. Stephen Longstroth Richards. He was one of those dedicated physicians of the horse-and-buggy era so endearingly remembered in the traditions of pioneer America. President Richards doubtless inherited many of the qualities of his brilliant mind and his sympathetic spirit from his gifted father.
His mother was Emma Louise Stayner Richards, the daughter of Arthur Stayner, a pioneer of the western beet sugar industry. From her cultured nature came a spirit of refinement that marked the lives of all of the ten children she brought into the world.
The family moved from Mendon to Farmington, and then to Salt Lake City. The boy studied in the local schools and then attended the University of Utah.
On February 21, 1900, he married Irene Merrill in the Salt Lake Temple. That remarkable companionship continued over fifty-nine years until interrupted by his death. Her own brilliant mind, her delicate, artistic sense, and her inimitable humor complemented his personality. His many inspiring public utterances on our homes being but a foretaste of heaven were a reflection of her influence. Nine gifted and able children were born to them; seven survive him.
The couple spent their first two years of married life on a ranch in the Malad Valley of Idaho. He felled and hauled the logs which became their cabin, and from that one-room shelter she created a home.
Forty-cent grain and three-dollar hay taught the young rancher lessons of economics which became the foundation of a remarkable business career, a career that included membership on the boards of many of the largest business institutions of the West, including banks, sugar companies, a cemetery corporation, merchandising institutions, insurance companies, a power company, a hotel corporation, radio and television stations, a large oil refining company, and other corporations.
While ranching in Idaho, his neighbors asked that he serve as principal of the school. This early exercise in the field of public education whetted his appetite for more schooling and cultivated an active interest in education which eventually found expression in service as a regent of the University of Utah and as a member of the board of trustees of Brigham Young University.
He left Malad in 1902 to study law at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. But the memory of green valleys, clear, fish-laden waters, and tall trees never left him. He returned to Idaho repeatedly in his later years to fish, to boat, to refresh his spirit where pine and fir reach to the sky.
After a year in Michigan he transferred to the University of Chicago School of Law, from which institution he was graduated cum laude in 1904. President Ernest L. Wilkinson of Brigham Young University recalls that while he was at Harvard he roomed with a student named Hall, the son of the former dean of the University of Chicago Law School. The father, on meeting Ernest Wilkinson, commented that the best students he had taught were Mormon boys from Utah, and that a young man named Stephen Richards was the most capable student he had during all of his years at the University of Chicago.
The young lawyer began his practice as Murray City attorney. He later taught at the University of Utah School of Law and opened a private office. He was established and on his way, a recognized attorney, happy in his work, with a lucrative practice.
Then on the morning of January 17, 1917, his office phone rang. It was Joseph Fielding Smith calling for his father, President Joseph F. Smith, to ask that Elder Richards come to the temple. He left the office and walked up Main Street, entered the temple, and was taken to the fourth floor. There he was told by the President of the Church that he had been selected to fill a vacancy in the Council of the Twelve. Obedient to the call, he was ordained an apostle.
Twenty minutes had passed since his phone had rung. He closed his office and never returned to the practice of law. He was thirty-seven years of age. For the remainder of his life his time was given to the ministry as an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But his training had not been without value. The Church is in the world, a world where the laws of men govern the actions of men. His legal background proved an invaluable asset in the delicate negotiations he has carried on in behalf of the Church in many lands. Much of his power of expression, his logic of presentation, and his ability to anticipate and offset the argument of an opponent find their root in his careful legal training.
In 1906 he had been sustained a member of the general board of the Deseret Sunday School Union. There he had met a young man who six months earlier had been ordained to the apostleship. There grew from that early association a friendship as true and loyal and devoted as is found among men. For more than half a century David O. McKay and Stephen L Richards stood together as did David and Jonathan.
In 1951, when President McKay was sustained as President of the Church, he selected Elder Richards as his first counselor. Active responsibility for direction of the missions of the Church was given ,to President Richards. The problems of his administration have been burdensome and difficult. The Korean War, Selective Service, a widely-emphasized military reserve program, regulations covering educational benefits for veterans have all seriously complicated the procedures of young men going on missions. At one time it appeared almost as if the great missionary program of the Church were threatened by regulations incident to war and the military draft.
Be it said to the credit of this gracious, wise, and inspired man that situations which appeared almost impossible of solution were composed and operating procedures were developed under which the young men of the Church have honorably fulfilled their obligations for military service and have also carried forward a program of missionary work on an unprecedented scale.
The records of the Church indicate that during the eight years he supervised the work 17,740 missionaries were sent into the field. There were an additional 28,821 men and women who served or who are now serving as stake missionaries, making a total active force of 46,561.
From 1951 to the middle of May 1959 these missionaries baptized more than 185,000 converts into the Church.
What more gratifying result could crown the administration of a man engaged in the service of God?
Every missionary who has been called into the field and who has served honorably has blessed his own life and the lives of those to whom he has taught the gospel. And every recipient of that teaching, who has become an active member of the Church, will be eternally grateful, as will the generations who come after him, for the dedicated and inspired leadership of the Church which sent the missionaries to his door.
President Richards loved this cause as he loved none other. He was witness to its effects in the lives of the men and women who engaged in it. He gloried in the good that came into the lives of those who were the recipients of the truths taught them. He gave of himself without reservation to make it succeed. He was always available, day or night, to give ear to a problem affecting a missionary.
He was ever solicitous for their health and their success. No difficulty was too minor to receive his personal attention.
It was a stimulating experience to work under him. I was his subordinate for years. I leave you my testimony of his virtues. I have been the beneficiary of his great kindness. I have partaken of his unfailing courtesy. I have witnessed his unyielding loyalty to his honored leader and to his associates. I have marveled at his matchless wisdom, his incisive mind, his persuasive expression. His sense of justice was universal in its application. His consistency was as a precious jewel. His deference for his beloved companion, his appreciation for his family were an inspiration. His devotion to duty was undeviating. His love of God was the polar star of his life, and his desire to help his fellow men his chief ambition.
He said many times, "Life is a mission and not a career." He lived it as one ordained and set apart, a faithful and able leader, a prince among men in the vineyard of the Lord.
President Stephen L Richards 1879-1959
by Gordon B. Hinckley Assistant to the Council of the Twelve
Death came to President Stephen L Richards on Tuesday, May 19, 1959. The previous day he had worked until after five o'clock on problems of the far-flung missions of the Church. At 7:30 Tuesday morning he was to have attended the meeting at which missionary assignments are made, a meeting which he had attended regularly over a period of many years. But earlier that morning he had been taken ill. His doctor ordered him to the hospital. There he passed away at 7:55 a.m. He was seventy-nine years of age. He would have celebrated his eightieth birthday on June 18.
Thus reads the chronicle of the quiet passing of a great man, a leader in Israel.
For forty-two years he had dedicated his life to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a member of the Council of the Twelve Apostles, and later as a Counselor in the First Presidency.
He was a man with a cause. That cause was the gospel of Jesus Christ and the building of the Lord's kingdom in the earth.
Few men have come into the general councils of the Church better equipped to assist in managing its affairs or more capable in promoting its welfare.
He said on one occasion, and that not in respect to himself: "The world supply of intelligence, goodness, and beauty is largely a matter of propagation." He was the beneficiary of a remarkable legacy. Of English ancestry, his paternal forebears were among the colonists who laid the foundations of the nation. The soil of New England, in which they planted their roots, gave strength to their bodies and nurture to their souls. Freedom they loved, and beauty, too. Cultivation of the mind, nourishment of the spirit, a sense of obligation to serve, thrift and productivity— these were all part of their nature.
Stephen L Richards' grandfather was Dr. Willard Richards who read a copy of the Book of Mormon and was immediately convinced of its truth. He was baptized December 31, 1836 by Brigham Young. He became an apostle, secretary to the Prophet Joseph Smith, and Counselor to Brigham Young. He it was who offered to give his life for that of the Prophet in Carthage Jail on that fateful 27th of June 1844.
President Richards made reference to this at the time he was sustained as counselor to President McKay when he said: "I have often felt that the only reason for my being in the presiding councils of the Church is in the devotion of Willard Richards to the Prophet Joseph Smith. I believe there are councils on the other side. We have had testimonies of them, and while I cannot understand, I can believe that the Prophet, out of consideration for his friend, has had a voice in bringing me into the Council of the Twelve through President Joseph F. Smith, and also in that which has brought me to this position. I would like to be as true a friend to President David O. McKay as my grandfather was to the Prophet, and in some measure show to him my appreciation of his marvelous kindness to me."
President Richards was born June 18, 1879, in Mendon, Cache County, Utah. His father was Dr. Stephen Longstroth Richards. He was one of those dedicated physicians of the horse-and-buggy era so endearingly remembered in the traditions of pioneer America. President Richards doubtless inherited many of the qualities of his brilliant mind and his sympathetic spirit from his gifted father.
His mother was Emma Louise Stayner Richards, the daughter of Arthur Stayner, a pioneer of the western beet sugar industry. From her cultured nature came a spirit of refinement that marked the lives of all of the ten children she brought into the world.
The family moved from Mendon to Farmington, and then to Salt Lake City. The boy studied in the local schools and then attended the University of Utah.
On February 21, 1900, he married Irene Merrill in the Salt Lake Temple. That remarkable companionship continued over fifty-nine years until interrupted by his death. Her own brilliant mind, her delicate, artistic sense, and her inimitable humor complemented his personality. His many inspiring public utterances on our homes being but a foretaste of heaven were a reflection of her influence. Nine gifted and able children were born to them; seven survive him.
The couple spent their first two years of married life on a ranch in the Malad Valley of Idaho. He felled and hauled the logs which became their cabin, and from that one-room shelter she created a home.
Forty-cent grain and three-dollar hay taught the young rancher lessons of economics which became the foundation of a remarkable business career, a career that included membership on the boards of many of the largest business institutions of the West, including banks, sugar companies, a cemetery corporation, merchandising institutions, insurance companies, a power company, a hotel corporation, radio and television stations, a large oil refining company, and other corporations.
While ranching in Idaho, his neighbors asked that he serve as principal of the school. This early exercise in the field of public education whetted his appetite for more schooling and cultivated an active interest in education which eventually found expression in service as a regent of the University of Utah and as a member of the board of trustees of Brigham Young University.
He left Malad in 1902 to study law at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. But the memory of green valleys, clear, fish-laden waters, and tall trees never left him. He returned to Idaho repeatedly in his later years to fish, to boat, to refresh his spirit where pine and fir reach to the sky.
After a year in Michigan he transferred to the University of Chicago School of Law, from which institution he was graduated cum laude in 1904. President Ernest L. Wilkinson of Brigham Young University recalls that while he was at Harvard he roomed with a student named Hall, the son of the former dean of the University of Chicago Law School. The father, on meeting Ernest Wilkinson, commented that the best students he had taught were Mormon boys from Utah, and that a young man named Stephen Richards was the most capable student he had during all of his years at the University of Chicago.
The young lawyer began his practice as Murray City attorney. He later taught at the University of Utah School of Law and opened a private office. He was established and on his way, a recognized attorney, happy in his work, with a lucrative practice.
Then on the morning of January 17, 1917, his office phone rang. It was Joseph Fielding Smith calling for his father, President Joseph F. Smith, to ask that Elder Richards come to the temple. He left the office and walked up Main Street, entered the temple, and was taken to the fourth floor. There he was told by the President of the Church that he had been selected to fill a vacancy in the Council of the Twelve. Obedient to the call, he was ordained an apostle.
Twenty minutes had passed since his phone had rung. He closed his office and never returned to the practice of law. He was thirty-seven years of age. For the remainder of his life his time was given to the ministry as an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But his training had not been without value. The Church is in the world, a world where the laws of men govern the actions of men. His legal background proved an invaluable asset in the delicate negotiations he has carried on in behalf of the Church in many lands. Much of his power of expression, his logic of presentation, and his ability to anticipate and offset the argument of an opponent find their root in his careful legal training.
In 1906 he had been sustained a member of the general board of the Deseret Sunday School Union. There he had met a young man who six months earlier had been ordained to the apostleship. There grew from that early association a friendship as true and loyal and devoted as is found among men. For more than half a century David O. McKay and Stephen L Richards stood together as did David and Jonathan.
In 1951, when President McKay was sustained as President of the Church, he selected Elder Richards as his first counselor. Active responsibility for direction of the missions of the Church was given ,to President Richards. The problems of his administration have been burdensome and difficult. The Korean War, Selective Service, a widely-emphasized military reserve program, regulations covering educational benefits for veterans have all seriously complicated the procedures of young men going on missions. At one time it appeared almost as if the great missionary program of the Church were threatened by regulations incident to war and the military draft.
Be it said to the credit of this gracious, wise, and inspired man that situations which appeared almost impossible of solution were composed and operating procedures were developed under which the young men of the Church have honorably fulfilled their obligations for military service and have also carried forward a program of missionary work on an unprecedented scale.
The records of the Church indicate that during the eight years he supervised the work 17,740 missionaries were sent into the field. There were an additional 28,821 men and women who served or who are now serving as stake missionaries, making a total active force of 46,561.
From 1951 to the middle of May 1959 these missionaries baptized more than 185,000 converts into the Church.
What more gratifying result could crown the administration of a man engaged in the service of God?
Every missionary who has been called into the field and who has served honorably has blessed his own life and the lives of those to whom he has taught the gospel. And every recipient of that teaching, who has become an active member of the Church, will be eternally grateful, as will the generations who come after him, for the dedicated and inspired leadership of the Church which sent the missionaries to his door.
President Richards loved this cause as he loved none other. He was witness to its effects in the lives of the men and women who engaged in it. He gloried in the good that came into the lives of those who were the recipients of the truths taught them. He gave of himself without reservation to make it succeed. He was always available, day or night, to give ear to a problem affecting a missionary.
He was ever solicitous for their health and their success. No difficulty was too minor to receive his personal attention.
It was a stimulating experience to work under him. I was his subordinate for years. I leave you my testimony of his virtues. I have been the beneficiary of his great kindness. I have partaken of his unfailing courtesy. I have witnessed his unyielding loyalty to his honored leader and to his associates. I have marveled at his matchless wisdom, his incisive mind, his persuasive expression. His sense of justice was universal in its application. His consistency was as a precious jewel. His deference for his beloved companion, his appreciation for his family were an inspiration. His devotion to duty was undeviating. His love of God was the polar star of his life, and his desire to help his fellow men his chief ambition.
He said many times, "Life is a mission and not a career." He lived it as one ordained and set apart, a faithful and able leader, a prince among men in the vineyard of the Lord.
"In Memoriam - President Stephen L Richards." Relief Society Magazine. July 1959. pg. 420-423.
In Memoriam President Stephen L Richards
(June 18, 1879—May 19, 1959)
PRESIDENT Stephen L Richards, First Counselor in the First Presidency, died suddenly on Tuesday morning, May 19, 1959. He would have turned eighty years old on June 18th. The news of his passing brought sorrow to the membership of the Church whom he had devotedly served for forty-two years—thirty-four years as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve and for the last eight years as First Counselor to his loved and esteemed friend. President David O. McKay. During his service in the First Presidency, President Richards has given special attention to the direction of the missionary program of the Church. To that work he gave unsparingly of his great powers and capabilities. The increased missionary work during his years of service bespeaks his influence and effectiveness.
President Richards lived those things which he taught. The sacredness of the home and its perpetuity in the hereafter were exemplified by his personal life. To him and his dearly beloved wife, Irene Smith Merrill Richards, there were born nine children, seven of whom survive him. Including those who became a part of President Richard's family through marriage, there were eighty-four members in the closely knit family circle at the time of President Richard's passing. President Richards and his wife, Irene, have bequeathed a great heritage to their children and to their families and set high standards of family life for the members of the Church as well as for the world.
Relief Society acknowledges with gratitude the interest which President Richards had in it. Preserved in the pages of The Relief Society Magazine for many years past are words of counsel and admonition from him. While his mortal span has passed, the influence of his teachings will continue to be felt. It seems fitting to include excerpts so that his own words may speak to us.
The visiting teachers of Relief Society and the work which he envisioned for them engaged his attention particularly:
I pay my tribute of respect, admiration, and love to the visiting teachers of the Relief Society of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In my humble judgment, and to the best of my knowledge, there has not existed in the last hundred years, and there does not now exist, any group of persons, male or female, who have given and now give more devoted, altruistic, unselfish influence and self-effacing service to the children of our Father than this group of Relief Society visiting teachers. They are the quiet, unobtrusive, faithful guardians of our homes. Throughout the years their kindly ministrations have been countless. They, with the bishops, have been the first to appear with offerings of help in times of sickness, death, or other distress. They have fed the hungry, they have clothed the naked, they have comforted the bereaved, and inspirited the hopeless. They have never taken nor received a cent of pay. I believe there is no other such social service of record on a purely volunteer basis {The Relief Society Magazine, December 1954, pp. 796-797).
IN many of his addresses, President Richards held up the lofty concept of motherhood, decrying present-day evils, and portraying in beautiful language the love and worth of hearth and home:
I believe that all people are by nature endowed with something of a love for the beautiful in their hearts, and it needs but cultivation and encouragement to develop it into one of the loveliest aspects of living. Almost all are sensitive to color, to form and symmetry, so that good architecture and good landscaping with trees, flowers, shrubs and lawns have a very appreciable effect, even though sometimes unconsciously, upon all persons.
The love of home is one of the great virtues of the race, and undoubtedly the beauty of home has done much to stimulate that love. It is very fortunate that it doesn't take much money to indulge aesthetic tastes, particularly in the care of the home. Cleanliness and neatness are the chief requirements, and personal energy, ambition and pride can supply these. The humblest cottage can be a lovely place, a haven of refuge and a constant delight, if it is but kept neat and tidy and clean [The Relief Society Magazine, January 1942, pp. 25-26).
In such a concept [of motherhood] duty comes first. Duty is always rigorous and exacting. It does not tolerate neglect, and it will not permit itself to be subordinated to pleasure and levity. It entails seeming sacrifice, but sacrifice is a word of many definitions and constructions. If we mean by it foregoing many of the quests and liberties for personal pleasure outside family and home then there are many sacrifices. If we include sleepless nights, physical exhaustion, and incessant toil, there is more sacrifice. But if our vision is raised, and we look ahead to the maturity and nobility of lives whom the mother has nurtured and developed, then we interpret all of the self-denial, all of the patient labor and exertion as opportunity for the fulfillment of the greatest mission that can ever come to woman—motherhood, which brings into the world and guides back to God the eternal souls of men.
What such an exalted concept of motherhood, if universally understood and accepted, would do for the homes of men and, through them, for the nations of the world, no one can estimate. It makes a home the mission of a lifetime; it deters divorce; it provides its own rewards; it makes for the safest sanctuary of all the virtues; and, in its higher aspects, it serves to create the prototype of the heavenly status—the eternal home which awaits the faithful of all of God's children (The Relief Society Magazine, May 1951, pp. 296-297).
AT this time when hearts are heavy over the loss of President Richards, it is encouraging to read his words of comfort and advice to those who lost dear ones in the war:
If a great grief comes to your home, you will need help. Nothing is more precious than one's own flesh and blood, and the loss of a manly son, a devoted husband, or father, or a life mate-to-be is not easily requited. Kinspeople, good friends, and neighbors may come to bring you sympathy, love and kindness. This will help, but it will not be enough. You will tell yourself that he died in a great cause—in the service of his country. You will convince yourself that it was a noble sacrifice. You will be proud of him, but your heart will still ache and you will have an irrepressible longing once more to see his face, to hear his voice, and have his arms around you and feel again the warmth and tenderness of his loving embrace. Surely you will need help. I know of one source only from which that help may be secured. It is from this selfsame Jesus who gave His life for others and, on the third day took it up again. Even with His help you will still weep, but you will not weep in vain. If you will let Him, He will take away all bitterness from your loss. He will touch your broken heart and it will mend, not all at once perhaps, but gradually and surely. If you will listen to the voice of His Spirit and His holy Word, He will convince you that your loved one is not lost but only separated from you for a time, and that you may confidently look forward to a happy companionship in the not-too-dis tant future where there will be no more war, no more cruelty, and no more sad partings from those we love (The Relief Society Magazine, April 1944, page 197).
SPEAKING of the love he bore President McKay, Richards wrote:
President I have tried but never been able to express the gratitude I feel for the high privilege of being admitted to the circle of his intimate friends. If I may be permitted to remain within that circle for the period of this life, and for the life to come, I shall feel that I have won a blessing of incomparable value (Relief Society Magazine, June 1951, page 368).
President Richards testified of the divine mission of the Prophet Joseph Smith, and in one discourse he spoke of his contributions to the world, closing with an earnest appeal to all men to investigate the truth:
One of the features of temple work should for emphasis be specially mentioned. It is the sealing of husband and wife in the eternal covenant of marriage. Joseph Smith taught that the family circle is the foundation of exaltation and that its projection into eternity is heaven itself. He sanctified the association of loved ones. He made the father a priest and the mother a priestess in the temple of the home. If his glorious interpretation of this divine institution could have general application, the ills of society would be cured and the brotherhood of mankind established. This contribution alone entitles him to a place on the very summit of distinction among the world's philosophers and benefactors. . . .
If any man has received in his heart the witness of the divine truth embraced in the contributions of the Prophet Joseph, I charge him to be true,—true to his testimony, true to the Prophet, the founder, true to the cause and its duly commissioned leaders, true to the covenants he has made in holy places, and true to the brotherhood of man in the service that he renders. If any man has not received this witness, I appeal for his thoughtful, prayerful, sympathetic consideration. I offer to him, out of the experiences of my life, a humble but certain assurance that if he will receive and apply the teachings of Joseph Smith he will be made happy. Doubt and uncertainty will leave him. Glorious purpose will come into life. Family ties will be sweeter. Friendships will be dearer. Service will be nobler, and the peace of Christ will be his portion. I so testify in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen {The Relief Society' Magazine, December 1936, pp. 740-741).
Happiness and joy will come to anyone who studies and follows the teachings of the gospel so eloquently set forth by President Richards.
In Memoriam President Stephen L Richards
(June 18, 1879—May 19, 1959)
PRESIDENT Stephen L Richards, First Counselor in the First Presidency, died suddenly on Tuesday morning, May 19, 1959. He would have turned eighty years old on June 18th. The news of his passing brought sorrow to the membership of the Church whom he had devotedly served for forty-two years—thirty-four years as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve and for the last eight years as First Counselor to his loved and esteemed friend. President David O. McKay. During his service in the First Presidency, President Richards has given special attention to the direction of the missionary program of the Church. To that work he gave unsparingly of his great powers and capabilities. The increased missionary work during his years of service bespeaks his influence and effectiveness.
President Richards lived those things which he taught. The sacredness of the home and its perpetuity in the hereafter were exemplified by his personal life. To him and his dearly beloved wife, Irene Smith Merrill Richards, there were born nine children, seven of whom survive him. Including those who became a part of President Richard's family through marriage, there were eighty-four members in the closely knit family circle at the time of President Richard's passing. President Richards and his wife, Irene, have bequeathed a great heritage to their children and to their families and set high standards of family life for the members of the Church as well as for the world.
Relief Society acknowledges with gratitude the interest which President Richards had in it. Preserved in the pages of The Relief Society Magazine for many years past are words of counsel and admonition from him. While his mortal span has passed, the influence of his teachings will continue to be felt. It seems fitting to include excerpts so that his own words may speak to us.
The visiting teachers of Relief Society and the work which he envisioned for them engaged his attention particularly:
I pay my tribute of respect, admiration, and love to the visiting teachers of the Relief Society of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In my humble judgment, and to the best of my knowledge, there has not existed in the last hundred years, and there does not now exist, any group of persons, male or female, who have given and now give more devoted, altruistic, unselfish influence and self-effacing service to the children of our Father than this group of Relief Society visiting teachers. They are the quiet, unobtrusive, faithful guardians of our homes. Throughout the years their kindly ministrations have been countless. They, with the bishops, have been the first to appear with offerings of help in times of sickness, death, or other distress. They have fed the hungry, they have clothed the naked, they have comforted the bereaved, and inspirited the hopeless. They have never taken nor received a cent of pay. I believe there is no other such social service of record on a purely volunteer basis {The Relief Society Magazine, December 1954, pp. 796-797).
IN many of his addresses, President Richards held up the lofty concept of motherhood, decrying present-day evils, and portraying in beautiful language the love and worth of hearth and home:
I believe that all people are by nature endowed with something of a love for the beautiful in their hearts, and it needs but cultivation and encouragement to develop it into one of the loveliest aspects of living. Almost all are sensitive to color, to form and symmetry, so that good architecture and good landscaping with trees, flowers, shrubs and lawns have a very appreciable effect, even though sometimes unconsciously, upon all persons.
The love of home is one of the great virtues of the race, and undoubtedly the beauty of home has done much to stimulate that love. It is very fortunate that it doesn't take much money to indulge aesthetic tastes, particularly in the care of the home. Cleanliness and neatness are the chief requirements, and personal energy, ambition and pride can supply these. The humblest cottage can be a lovely place, a haven of refuge and a constant delight, if it is but kept neat and tidy and clean [The Relief Society Magazine, January 1942, pp. 25-26).
In such a concept [of motherhood] duty comes first. Duty is always rigorous and exacting. It does not tolerate neglect, and it will not permit itself to be subordinated to pleasure and levity. It entails seeming sacrifice, but sacrifice is a word of many definitions and constructions. If we mean by it foregoing many of the quests and liberties for personal pleasure outside family and home then there are many sacrifices. If we include sleepless nights, physical exhaustion, and incessant toil, there is more sacrifice. But if our vision is raised, and we look ahead to the maturity and nobility of lives whom the mother has nurtured and developed, then we interpret all of the self-denial, all of the patient labor and exertion as opportunity for the fulfillment of the greatest mission that can ever come to woman—motherhood, which brings into the world and guides back to God the eternal souls of men.
What such an exalted concept of motherhood, if universally understood and accepted, would do for the homes of men and, through them, for the nations of the world, no one can estimate. It makes a home the mission of a lifetime; it deters divorce; it provides its own rewards; it makes for the safest sanctuary of all the virtues; and, in its higher aspects, it serves to create the prototype of the heavenly status—the eternal home which awaits the faithful of all of God's children (The Relief Society Magazine, May 1951, pp. 296-297).
AT this time when hearts are heavy over the loss of President Richards, it is encouraging to read his words of comfort and advice to those who lost dear ones in the war:
If a great grief comes to your home, you will need help. Nothing is more precious than one's own flesh and blood, and the loss of a manly son, a devoted husband, or father, or a life mate-to-be is not easily requited. Kinspeople, good friends, and neighbors may come to bring you sympathy, love and kindness. This will help, but it will not be enough. You will tell yourself that he died in a great cause—in the service of his country. You will convince yourself that it was a noble sacrifice. You will be proud of him, but your heart will still ache and you will have an irrepressible longing once more to see his face, to hear his voice, and have his arms around you and feel again the warmth and tenderness of his loving embrace. Surely you will need help. I know of one source only from which that help may be secured. It is from this selfsame Jesus who gave His life for others and, on the third day took it up again. Even with His help you will still weep, but you will not weep in vain. If you will let Him, He will take away all bitterness from your loss. He will touch your broken heart and it will mend, not all at once perhaps, but gradually and surely. If you will listen to the voice of His Spirit and His holy Word, He will convince you that your loved one is not lost but only separated from you for a time, and that you may confidently look forward to a happy companionship in the not-too-dis tant future where there will be no more war, no more cruelty, and no more sad partings from those we love (The Relief Society Magazine, April 1944, page 197).
SPEAKING of the love he bore President McKay, Richards wrote:
President I have tried but never been able to express the gratitude I feel for the high privilege of being admitted to the circle of his intimate friends. If I may be permitted to remain within that circle for the period of this life, and for the life to come, I shall feel that I have won a blessing of incomparable value (Relief Society Magazine, June 1951, page 368).
President Richards testified of the divine mission of the Prophet Joseph Smith, and in one discourse he spoke of his contributions to the world, closing with an earnest appeal to all men to investigate the truth:
One of the features of temple work should for emphasis be specially mentioned. It is the sealing of husband and wife in the eternal covenant of marriage. Joseph Smith taught that the family circle is the foundation of exaltation and that its projection into eternity is heaven itself. He sanctified the association of loved ones. He made the father a priest and the mother a priestess in the temple of the home. If his glorious interpretation of this divine institution could have general application, the ills of society would be cured and the brotherhood of mankind established. This contribution alone entitles him to a place on the very summit of distinction among the world's philosophers and benefactors. . . .
If any man has received in his heart the witness of the divine truth embraced in the contributions of the Prophet Joseph, I charge him to be true,—true to his testimony, true to the Prophet, the founder, true to the cause and its duly commissioned leaders, true to the covenants he has made in holy places, and true to the brotherhood of man in the service that he renders. If any man has not received this witness, I appeal for his thoughtful, prayerful, sympathetic consideration. I offer to him, out of the experiences of my life, a humble but certain assurance that if he will receive and apply the teachings of Joseph Smith he will be made happy. Doubt and uncertainty will leave him. Glorious purpose will come into life. Family ties will be sweeter. Friendships will be dearer. Service will be nobler, and the peace of Christ will be his portion. I so testify in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen {The Relief Society' Magazine, December 1936, pp. 740-741).
Happiness and joy will come to anyone who studies and follows the teachings of the gospel so eloquently set forth by President Richards.