Flora Smith Amussen Benson, wife of President Ezra Taft Benson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, passed away Friday, Aug. 14, 1992. She was 91.
An LDS Church spokesman said Sister Benson passed away peacefully about 11:30 p.m. at her home of causes incident to age. He said her condition had begun to weaken the past couple of days.Sister Benson was born July 1, 1901, in Logan to Carl Christian Amussen and Barbara McIsaac Smith Amussen. Her father, born in Denmark, immigrated to Utah and became a prominent jeweler, watchmaker and businessman. Her mother was born in Tooele of Scottish pioneer parents.
She attended elementary schools in Salt Lake City, Logan and California before graduating from Brigham Young College in Logan and doing post-graduate work at Utah State Agricultural College. In college she was involved in drama and was student body vice president.
While growing up in the church, she served in a variety of positions; as an adult she served in a Relief Society presidency and was a ward president and stake board member of what is now known as the Young Women's organization and a teacher in the Primary and Sunday School.
In 1955 she was named Homemaker of the Year by the Washington, D.C., chapter of the National Home Fashion Magazine. She received the Distinguished Achievement award from Ricks College in 1969 and in the mid-1980s was named Lambda Delta Sigma Woman of the Year for her love of family and church.
The first time President Benson saw her was in 1920 when she was attending Utah State Agricultural College, now Utah State University. They later began dating and continued their courtship and schooling until President Benson left for a 2 1/2-year mission to northern England. In the meantime, she went on to become the girls singles tennis champion and a prize-winning Shakespearean actress at the university. She was president of the girls athletic club and vice president of the college student board.
But when President Benson returned home with thoughts of marriage, Sister Benson had other plans.
"Flora loved me . . . and was perfectly willing to be a farmer's wife," President Benson said. "But she had a deep devotion to the church and wanted to give part of her life to a mission." She was called to the Hawaiian Mission where she spent the next 20 months of her life.
A few months before Sister Amussen's mission was completed, President Benson proposed to her in one of his letters and she accepted.
President and Sister Benson were married Sept. 10, 1926, in the Salt Lake Temple. They are parents of two sons and four daughters: Reed A. Benson, Provo; Mark A. Benson and Beverly (Mrs. James M.) Parker, both of Salt Lake City; and Beth (Mrs. David A.) Burton, Frankfurt, Germany, where her husband is serving as president of the Germany Frankfurt Mission; Barbara (Mrs. Robert H.) Walker, Calgary, Alberta, Canada; and Bonnie (Mrs. Lowell L.) Madsen, Littleton, Colo. They also have 34 grandchildren and 51 great-grandchildren.
On their marriage day, President and Sister Benson climbed into a second-hand Ford pickup and headed for Ames, Iowa. After a year in Iowa, they moved to the family farm that President Benson and his brother, Orval, had purchased.
Sister Benson's desire to be supportive to her husband and family were constant - from the years as a farm wife to the years when her husband was U.S. secretary of agriculture (1953-1961); member of the Council of the Twelve (1943-73); president of the Council of the Twelve (1973-1985) and president of the church (1985 to present). Whether appearing with her family on the Edward R. Murrow "Person to Person" television show (in the 1950s) or holding a luncheon for a U.S. president's wife in Washington, D.C., Sister Benson placed gospel standards first.
She maintained her own schedule of meetings and luncheons in Washington. When she hosted a luncheon for Mrs. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mrs. Richard M. Nixon and other Cabinet wives, she planned, prepared and presented the entire event without using a caterer or other outside help.
An article in Newsweek on Feb. 18, 1957, stated, "Secretary Benson rarely appears in public without his wife, a former Mormon missionary in Hawaii who wears no makeup. She attends his press conferences ("He often says when he looks down on me it gives him strength"), and she never fails to witness what all Cabinet wives consider purgatory: a grilling of her husband before an unfriendly congressional committee.
"I pray for him to remember what he should and give the answers he should," said Sister Benson. "I go through all the emotions with him. When I come home, I'm pretty worn out."
Although Sister Benson was extremely retiring in public, at home she played a pivotal role.
Her children described her as being devoted to her career as wife, mother and homemaker. She was always home when they returned from school or a day's activities. She taught them to have faith in the Lord by encouraging them to fast and pray for each other when faced with challenges. She played tennis and badminton, rode bikes and even joined in basketball games with them.
President Benson has said that his wife played, sang, cried and studied with their children, considering faithfully their every need.
"When problems arose, she always went to the Lord in prayer. She instilled in all her children a strong testimony of the gospel, and to me she has always been a constant inspiration."
On Mother's Day in 1986, the Benson children honored their mother by saying that she was representative of the best of mothers everywhere.
Daughter Beth said that she used to roll with laughter when her mother, in her 50s and a grandmother, tried to master a Hula-Hoop. "She was still young in her attitude and would do anything to help me have fun."
Although she made home a fun place to be, she could also be strict.
Son Reed remarked that "Mother could discipline with a sharp word in its season. . . . But she always followed up with encouragement. She always told us she loved us."
Mark Benson commented on his mother's keen sense of humor, saying, "She is one of the happiest persons I've ever known."
Reminiscing over the years he and Sister Benson spent together, President Benson once said, "She has been the perfect lady . . . her congeniality, fine sense of humor and interest in my work have made her a pleasing companion, and her unbounded patience and intelligent insight into children have made her a most devoted mother.
"These and other virtues, combined with a loyalty and self-sacrificing devotion to her husband, impel me to crown her the sweetest, most helpful, most inspiring sweetheart that ever inspired a man to noble endeavors."