Heber J. Grant: Born Heber Jeddy Grant to Apostle Jedediah M. Grant and Rachael Ridgeway Ivins in Salt Lake City. He was first cousin to Apostle Anthony W. Ivins, son-in-law of Brigham Young's Counselor Daniel H. Wells, and brother-in-law to Apostles Orson F. Whitney, Joseph Fielding Smith, and Reed Smoot.
Eight days after Heber's birth, his father died of pneumonia. As a student in Brigham Young's family school, his severe astigmatism and resulting headaches interfered with his early education. He overcame childhood taunts of "sissy" with determined efforts to play baseball: "I spent hours and hours throwing the ball at Bishop Edwin D. Woolley's barn, which caused him to refer to me as the laziest boy in the Thirteenth Ward. Often my arm would ache so that I could scarcely go to sleep at night. But I kept on practicing… and eventually played in the nine that won the championship of the territory."
[Van Wagoner, Richard and Walker, Steven C., A Book of Mormons, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
No comments:
Post a Comment