By Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and William W. Slaughter
It was a winter’s day in 1863 when six-year-old Heber decided to catch a free ride home on a passing sleigh. “I ran out and took hold of the back of the sleigh, intending to ride a block,” he later recalled. To his surprise, however, the horses drawing the sleigh increased their speed, forcing Heber to hold on for dear life. “I dared not let go,” he remembered. The sleigh continued flying beyond the city into the countryside before finally slowing down enough that Heber could make an attempt to escape undetected. As he did, he heard the sleigh’s owner yell, “Stop, Brother Isaac, stop!” Instead of being angry upon finding a stowaway, the man said to his driver, “The little boy is nearly frozen. Put him under the buffalo robe and get him warm.” Heber sat right next to the kind gentleman and was just settling in when the man asked, “What’s your name?” Heber replied, “Heber Jeddy Grant.” The old man was delighted and began to tell the young boy stories about his parents. Heber began to feel a warm glow inside, especially as the conversation turned to Heber’s father, Jedediah M. Grant-a father he had never known, as Jedediah died just days after his son’s birth in 1856
When Heber was finally delivered safely to his home in Salt Lake City, the sleigh’s owner asked him to inform his mother that she should send young Heber to his office for a visit in the near future. At the appropriate time, Heber did as requested and went to the man’s office on South Temple. When he arrived, he informed the clerk in the office that he had been requested to visit. Heber fondly recalled some fifty-four years later, “From that time . . . until the day of his death I was intimately acquainted with President Young.” Thus began Heber J. Grant’s walk among prophets and apostles that eventually led him to be ordained the seventh president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The invitation to visit Brother Brigham and the close association that followed thereafter was not a surprise turn of events for Rachel Grant, Heber’s mother. She had known for some time that the Lord was watching over her son and preparing him for service in the kingdom of God, as the Lord had revealed that Heber would “become a great man in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and one of the Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ” on several occasions while he was an infant and a toddler.
The widow Grant poured love and affection upon her only child, and she never missed an opportunity to remind Heber that he had been promised great blessings if he lived worthily of them. Frustrated by her constant insistence on the role he would someday play in the Church, he finally told her, “Mother get it out of your head. I do not want to be an Apostle; I do not want to be a bishop; I do not want to be anything but a businessman. Just get it out of your head.”
Despite his own wishes, the Lord had other plans for Heber J. Grant. One month before his twenty-sixth birthday, he was called to a meeting in Salt Lake City where he heard the secretary of the First Presidency, George Reynolds, read aloud a revelation given to John Taylor a few days earlier: “Thus saith the Lord to the Twelve and to the Priesthood and people of my church: Let my servants George Teasdale and Heber J. Grant be appointed to fill the vacancies in the Twelve.” On that day, Elder Heber J. Grant began a ministry that lasted sixty-three years as an Apostle, during which time, as the senior Apostle on earth, he was called to preside over the Church.
Heber’s work ethic and personality did not change following his call to serve as a General Authority. He plunged into the work despite initial concerns about his own worthiness. Once he knew that it was the Lord’s will for him to serve in the Quorum of the Twelve, he redoubled his efforts to fulfill his responsibilities by keeping a busy and hectic schedule traveling, speaking, writing letters, and serving the interests of the Church in a variety of ways. During Heber’s long service as a member of the Twelve, the Lord continued to prepare him for even greater responsibilities.
There was apparently one more important lesson for Heber to learn before assuming the role of Church president, and his mentor, Joseph F. Smith, was the one prepared to teach him. Heber recalled the lesson many years later: “Pres. Joseph F. Smith played golf, far more than I thought he should,” he said. Heber, as the president of the Twelve, often had important papers that needed the signature of the Church president. On several occasions when he went to Joseph F. Smith, he learned that President Smith was golfing. On such an occasion, Heber felt that the business at hand could not wait until Joseph F. Smith returned to the office, so Heber decided to track the president down at the golf course. When Heber arrived, President Smith sensed that he was upset. “Heber, you are tense and overworked,” he said. “You should learn to play this game.” Heber was stunned by the suggestion-there was simply too much work and not enough time to complete it. President Smith continued, “Many times I, myself, get overworked, weary and so tense I can accomplish but little. So I drop everything and come and play golf.” He tried to reassure Heber that in the end he was more productive: “There is something about this game that relaxes me and causes me to forget my anxieties. When I get back to the office I can accomplish more in a few hours then I could in days when I am so tense.”
Heber stood firm, unwilling to consider that it was possible to get more done by taking a break from his busy schedule. “You will never catch me wasting my time playing that silly game,” he said. “Now sign these papers and let me get back to work.” Joseph F. Smith decided it was now time to teach Heber this important lesson. “No, Heber,” he said. “I will not sign a thing until you take my partner’s club and finish out this round with me.”
Heber refused the offer: “Not on your life-I’ve got too much to do to fool away my time here.” To get Heber to try the medicine he was prescribing, Joseph F. Smith spoke with presidential authority: “Heber, I command you to take that club and play out this round with me.”
“Well,” Heber replied, “if you are going to use your Priesthood on me I guess I’ll have to.” After a brief lesson, Heber stood poised to take his first swing. “I swung at it-I was very mad. I swung and knocked the ball a quarter of a mile down the fairway. Never since, in all my golf playing have I knocked a ball so far, and I have tried so hard and so many times to do it.”
He then related, “I took to playing golf and learned that Pres. Smith was right. Nothing I can do . . . relaxes me half as much as two hours on the golf course. I can return to the office and unravel problems that seemed unsolvable when I was tired and tense.”
Obviously, Joseph F. Smith had achieved a sense of balance in his own ministry, allowing him to be more productive as he fulfilled his duties as the Lord’s prophet. Such a life-changing lesson was one way in which Heber was being prepared for the future responsibilities when the tremendous weight of the Church would rest squarely upon his shoulders.
From 1918 until his death in 1945, Heber J. Grant served the Lord faithfully as prophet, seer, and revelator. During his ministry, he implemented important policies and practices that continue to influence the Church today. Three of these seem especially significant. First, he, more than any other person, made the Word of Wisdom the standard of orthodoxy we know today. Second, he instituted the Church welfare system that continues to bless the lives of the Saints. Finally, he called to Church leadership J. Reuben Clark Jr., Harold B. Lee, Spencer W. Kimball, and Ezra Taft Benson, all of whom have had a profound impact on Church history.
2004 Meridian Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
