When Flora Smith Amussen Benson died late Friday, she left behind a wealth of memories for her family and friends to enjoy.
Sister Benson, wife of President Ezra Taft Benson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was born July 1, 1901, in Logan to Carl Christian Amussen and Barbara McIsaac Smith Amussen. Her father, a Dane who became one of Utah's pioneer jewelers, died when she was a year old.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. She met Ezra Taft Benson in the fall of 1920.
"While my cousin and I were standing on the curb on Main Street, a girl drove by in a car and waved pleasantly to the boy at my side," said President Benson in published recollections. "A few minutes later she returned, repeating the greeting.
" `Who's that?' I asked.
" `That's Flora Amussen.'
" `Well,' I said with the cockiness of youth, `if I come down here this winter, I'm going to step her,' " a term popular at the time meaning he would attempt to get a date with her.
And he did.
Their six-year courtship endured long absences - young Ezra's 2 1/2-year mission to northern England and Flora's 1 1/2-year mission to Hawaii - which strengthened their relationship, President Benson says.
"In June 1926 I wrote Flora: . . . `Will you go with me (to graduate school in Iowa) as my wife?' " President Benson said. "And when she answered my letter, I knew I had won the only popularity contest that would ever really count."
The couple was married in the Salt Lake Temple on Sept. 10, 1926, and left for Ames, Iowa, the same day in a used Ford pickup.
Sister Benson was always the pivotal point of the family.
When her husband was asked by George Albert Smith, then LDS Church president, to go to Europe at the end of World War II to help members of the church in war-torn Europe, Sister Benson stayed home to take care of the family; however, on many other occasions when the children were older, she accompanied her husband on his travels.
Ezra Taft Benson served as U.S. secretary of agriculture for eight years under President Dwight Eisenhower, and Sister Benson became well-known as the gracious hostess who entertained Washington, D.C., society without serving liquor, tea or coffee.
Sister Benson is survived by her husband, sons and daughters: Reed A. Benson, Provo; Mark A. Benson, Salt Lake City; Barbara Walker, Calgary, Alberta, Canada; Beverly Parker, Salt Lake City; Bonnie Madsen, Littleton, Colo.; and Beth Burton, Frankfurt, Germany. The Bensons also have 34 grandchildren and 51 great-granchildren.