Eldred G. Smith

Eldred Gee Smith (January 9, 1907 – April 4, 2013) was the patriarch emeritus of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and held the calling of Patriarch to the Church from 1947 to 1979. He was the oldest and longest-serving general authority of the church at his death, although he had not been active in that capacity for many years.

Early life and education

Smith's father was Hyrum G. Smith, the Presiding Patriarch of the LDS Church from 1912 to 1932. The younger Smith graduated from LDS High School in Salt Lake City and later the University of Utah. From 1926 to 1929, he served as a LDS Church missionary in the Swiss-German Mission. Smith later served in several church positions, including high councilor and bishop of the 20th North Ward in Salt Lake City. From 1944 to 1946, Smith lived in Oak Ridge, Tennessee while working on the Manhattan Project and served as president of the church's branch in Oak Ridge.

LDS Church service

At the time of Smith's birth, a new Presiding Patriarch was usually chosen based on the principle of patrilineal succession. The 25-year-old was unmarried and without a college degree when his father died in 1932, however. Believing that he was not ready, church president Heber J. Grant left the position vacant, and later appointed Eldred Smith's cousin, Joseph Fielding Smith, to be Presiding Patriarch in 1942. Joseph Fielding Smith's request to be released was granted by church president George Albert Smith in 1946.

Eldred Smith was selected as the next Presiding Patriarch in 1947. By then he had married, started a family, and worked at several professions including cleaning and painting the ceiling of the Salt Lake Tabernacle. Smith later said of his first days as patriarch: "There is no way to prepare for it, no instructions, no counsel. When I was first ordained, I went into my office, closed the door and didn’t come out for two weeks. Then a young man came to the door asking for a blessing and so I gave it to him." During his tenure as Presiding Patriarch, Smith's primary duty was to travel to areas of the world where there were no patriarchs in order to bestow patriarchal blessings upon worthy Latter-day Saints. For example, he gave 139 blessings in 16 days in Australia in 1966.

He regularly spoke in the church's general conferences, but was only rarely assigned to visit local stakes of the church.

In 1979 Smith was released from active duties and designated patriarch emeritus. The reason for the change was noted in general conference: "Because of the large increase in the number of stake patriarchs and the availability of patriarchal service throughout the world, we now designate Elder Eldred G. Smith as a Patriarch Emeritus, which means that he is honorably relieved of all duties and responsibilities pertaining to the office of Patriarch to the Church." After his release Smith often spoke at firesides, where he displayed artifacts from Joseph and Hyrum Smith's lives.

Smith was considered an emeritus general authority of the church after his release. He remained an ordained patriarch and was still permitted to give patriarchal blessings. Throughout his life, he gave almost 20,000 patriarchal blessings. However, he was no longer sustained by the church as a "prophet, seer, and revelator" as he was from 1947 to 1979.

On 9 January 2007, Smith celebrated his 100th birthday. He was the second general authority in the history of the church to reach the age of 100, the first being Joseph Anderson, who died in 1992 at the age of 102.

The LDS Church has not stated directly whether it will appoint a new Presiding Patriarch, but after Smith's death an official magazine of the church, Liahona, described him as "the last person to hold the position."

Personal

Smith was born in Lehi, Utah. He and his wife, Jeanne Ness, were the parents of five children. After his wife's death, Smith married the widow Hortense Hogan Child in 1977.

Smith died at his home in Salt Lake City, Utah, at 106. He was the oldest and longest-serving general authority, although not active as such for many years, and the oldest living man in Utah prior to his death.