Harold Bingham Lee

1899 - 1973  (74 years)

• Name	Harold Bingham Lee
  Birth	28 Mar 1899	Clifton, Oneida, Idaho   [1]
  Gender	Male
  Death	26 Dec 1973	Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah   [1]
  Person ID	I14228	Scudder
  Last Modified	22 Dec 2014

  
  

  Father	Samuel Marion Lee,   b. 22 Nov 1875, Panaca, Lincoln, Nevada d. 9 May 1947, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah (Age 71 years)
  Mother	Louisa Emeline Bingham,   b. 1 Jan 1879, Clifton, Oneida, Idaho d. 27 Jul 1959, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah (Age 80 years)
  Marriage	13 May 1896	Logan, Cache, Utah   [1]
  Family ID	F4844	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family 1	Fern Lucinda Tanner,   b. 14 Nov 1895, Granger, Salt Lake, Utah d. 24 Sep 1962, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah (Age 66 years)
  Marriage	14 Nov 1923	Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah   [1]
  Children	1. Maurine Lee,   b. 1 Sep 1924, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah d. 27 Aug 1965, Provo, Utah, Utah (Age 40 years)   2. Helen Lee
  Family ID	F4854	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	3 Mar 2024

  
  

  Family 2	Freda Johanna Jensen,   b. 2 Jul 1897, Provo, Utah, Utah d. 1 Jul 1981 (Age 83 years)
  Marriage	17 Jun 1963	Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah   [1]
  Family ID	F4845	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	3 Mar 2024

  
  

• Notes

  Harold became the eleventh President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on July 7, 1972, and served until his death on December 26, 1973. His 538-day tenure was the shortest service by a Church President in history, despite the fact that at age seventy-three President Lee was the youngest person to hold the office initially in nearly forty years. One of his greatest contributions to the Church, the organization of the correlation program, was made when he was still a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Harold grew up in impoverished, rural conditions, and from childhood he advanced faster than his peers. He started school a year earlier than was the practice in his farming community because he could already write his name and knew the alphabet. As a young boy, he was large for his age, and when his friends were ordained to the priesthood, he became a deacon also, although he was technically not quite old enough for the honor. In keeping with this pattern, Harold began his career in education at a young age. He earned a teaching certificate at Albion State Normal School in Idaho, and at seventeen was appointed to be principal of the one-room Silver Star School at Weston, Idaho, teaching twenty to twenty-five pupils, ranging from first to eighth grade. One year later, he was appointed principal of the larger grade school at Oxford, Idaho, where he served for three winters. These responsibilities prepared Harold for his call in 1920 to the Western States Mission, headquartered in Denver, Colorado. After nine months he became conference president, presiding over both missionaries and local Church members in Denver. During his two year missionary service, he baptized forty-five converts to the Church. President Lee was one of the youngest stake presidents in the Church when at thirty-one, he was set apart as president of Pioneer Stake in Salt Lake City. Within a few years, he was faced with the suffering among stake members brought on by the Great Depression. With his counselors, he struggled to save his people from hunger and financial ruin. His ingenuity in helping them obtain basic necessities led to his appointment by the First Presidency in 1935 to organize a Welfare program for the entire Church. In 1932 President Lee was appointed to fill a vacancy in the Salt Lake City Commission and was assigned to direct the Department of Streets and Public Improvements. A year later, he was elected to the same position. For years Utah citizens urged him to run for the governorship or for the U.S. Senate. Elder Lee was called as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on April 6, 1941. As he looked around the council room in the Salt Lake Temple where the quorum held its meetings, Elder Lee, then forty-two, discovered that every man there was at least twenty years his senior. He thought of himself as a seedling among giant redwoods, causing his tutor and friend J. Reuben Clark, Jr., a counselor in the First Presidency, to refer affectionately to him as the "Kid." Early in his apostleship, Elder Lee served on a committee to simplify Church organization and functions. For two decades, he studied the subject and prepared proposals. Finally when the time for implementing them came in the 1960s, the correlation program was introduced, with Lee serving as chairman of the Correlation Committee. Correlation emphasized the family and the home, the connection of auxiliary organizations with the priesthood, simplification of the curriculum, the teaching of the scriptures, and restructuring the Church magazines to serve children, youth, and adults better. In January 1970, Elder Lee was called to serve as a counselor in the First Presidency while concurrently presiding over the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He was called to be president of the church after President Joseph Fielding Smith died on July 2, 1972.

  
  

• Sources

  [S127] Ancestral File (R).