"Flora Smith Amussen was one of the most popular girls on campus at the Utah State Agricultural College (now Utah State University) in 1920," President Benson recalled. "The first time I saw Flora was early in the fall quarter of 1920. I was visiting a cousin, a neighbor, who was registered at the college in Logan.
"At the time I was planning to come down to Logan for the winter term. . . . My brother Orval and I alternated college terms so that one of us would always be available on the farm."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. 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.
"My cousin scoffed, `Like heck you will. She's too popular for you.'
"Makes it all the more interesting.' "
And that interest continued to grow as the two dated for the first time later that year. Though he didn't know it when he first saw Flora, the Whitney, Idaho, farm boy had set his eye on one of the most well-to-do girls in town.
Flora Smith Amussen was born July 1, 1901, in Logan, the youngest of six children born to early Utah jeweler Carl C. Amussen and his wife, Barbara Smith Amussen. Carl Amussen had been a prominent Danish jeweler and watchmaker during the 1848 gold rush in Australia. He later joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, crossed the Plains in 1865, established his business and married Barbara, a Tooele native born of Scottish pioneer parents.
Flora's father died when she was a year old, leaving her mother to rear six children. As a result, Flora and her mother developed an especially close relationship.
It was during the early winter of 1920 that Flora Amussen and Ezra Benson had their first date.
"She lived with her widowed mother in a large, three-story house, a home of culture and refinement. The contrast between us was extreme. She owned her own car and was actually the most popular girl in town; I was a farm boy in the traditional blue serge Sunday suit, typically shiny in the back. She had, and never lost, a rare graciousness that put me immediately at ease."
President Benson would relate in later years that one thing he was most impressed with was the way Flora treated her mother. "She always kissed her mother goodbye when we left on a date. The first time I saw that, I knew I was out with a lovely girl."
The first date must have gone well because the couple continued their courtship and their schooling until young Ezra left for a 2 1/2-year mission to northern England. In the meantime, Flora went on to become the girls singles tennis champion and a prize-winning Shakespearean actress at the university.
When Ezra Taft Benson returned, he wanted to marry Flora, but she had other plans, at least temporarily.
"Flora loved me, I felt sure, and was perfectly willing to be a farmer's wife, but she had a deep devotion to the church and wanted to give part of her life to a mission, as I had done. Moreover, she felt I should finish my education, and she probably foresaw how difficult this would be if we married immediately.
"So instead of marrying, she went to Hawaii and lived there for 20 months as a missionary. We both knew this would really put our love to the test. . . . But this was one case in which absence and infrequent letters did strengthen a love.
"Just to make sure, in June 1926 I wrote Flora: . . . `Will you' I wrote, `go with me as my wife?' And when she answered my letter, I knew I had won the only popularity contest that would ever really count."
They were married in the Salt Lake Temple on Sept. 10, 1926, and left for Ames, Iowa, the same day in a secondhand Ford pickup. Though Flora had substantial stocks and dividends left to her by her father, she turned it all over to her aging mother, who had seen financial reverses and needed the money.
The two lived on a $70-per-month fellowship that Ezra Benson had been granted as part of his scholarship to attend school in Iowa. "We had a room in the Lincoln Apartments. Down the hall was a cement shower we shared with three other couples. But we were gratefully happy."
After a year in Iowa, the couple moved to the family farm that Ezra and his brother Orval had purchased, and they worked hard and budgeted to meet the heavy debt.
In 1937, the family, which by then included three children with a fourth on the way, moved to California for a year while young Ezra did graduate work at Berkeley. In 1939 came another move - to Washington, D.C., where Ezra Benson took a position as secretary to the National Council of Farmers Cooperatives.
After a few years in Washington, the family returned west to Salt Lake City as Ezra Taft Benson was called to the Council of the Twelve in 1943. In January 1946, he was called as president of the European Mission. He served there for 10 months while his wife remained home to care for their six children.
Flora Benson took on the major responsibility for raising the children as then-Elder Benson's church responsibilities grew. Her responsibilities again increased when her husband accepted the appointment as secretary of agriculture in President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Cabinet, and she stayed behind to prepare for the move to Washington, D.C.
But before arrangements for the move were finalized, she and her daughter Barbara were involved in a car accident.
"My wife and daughter, driving to the University of Utah, had had a collision that completely demolished our car," President Benson said later.
Barbara received a broken shoulder, lacerations and bruises. Flora Benson was unconscious for several hours and awoke in a state of shock, unable to recall the accident, although she had no broken bones. Mother and daughter recuperated at home before making the trip to Washington.
Upon returning from one distant trip, Elder Benson found "my faithful and ever-courageous wife directing our sons with boxing gloves on their hands, sparring with each other. One son had challenged the high school bully, who had teen teasing and trying to make fun of younger classmates. The coach had set a time for the fight. Preparations were on - training, diet and prayer were all a part of making ready."
Flora Benson also maintained her own schedule of meetings and luncheons in Washington and hosted one such event in her home for Mrs. Eisenhower, Mrs. (Richard M.) Nixon and other Cabinet wives. Because of her pride in home and family, Flora Benson was determined to plan, prepare and present the entire event without using a caterer or other outside help.
"One day," President Benson recalled, "when I remarked on how painstakingly she was going about it, she paused and said: `This isn't just a luncheon to me. It's something more than that. I want to show that it's possible to uphold the standards of the church and have a wonderful time, too.'
"On the day of the luncheon, as the distinguished guests arrived, Flora greeted them warmly. `You'll find things a bit different in our home,' she said. `We don't serve cocktails or play cards; there is no smoking and no tea or coffee - but we'll try to make it up to you in our own way, and we hope you enjoy our home.'
"All the guests seemed deeply impressed by Flora's managerial ability, the cooperative spirit of the children and the atmosphere of our home. The children put on a program of music, poetry and ballet. Beverly, Bonnie and Beth helped serve the meal and dis some of the entertaining: dancing, playing the piano and singing."
Much media attention was directed at the family while the Bensons were in Washington, with a focus on Flora Benson's devotion to home and family. Her success as a homemaker was officially recognized when she was named Homemaker of the Year by the Washington Chapter of the National Home Fashion League in 1955.
In writing about the honor, one reporter quoted various magazine and news articles that had been written about Flora Benson.
"Although Flora Benson is extremely retiring in public, in private she is considered the pivot on which her family moves. This is easily understood as soon as you see and talk with her. Her eyes twinkle with humor, but they can, on occasion, be stern. Friends of the family agree that she acts as the leavening influence on her husband."
Still, Elder Benson began to feel the strain of spending so much time away from his family.
"I felt a real need to get closer to the family. The rush of duties kept us from being with one another as much as I wanted to be. As I saw how rapidly the children were growing up, a wave of uneasiness sometimes came over me. These days of parent-child relationship once escaped could never be recaptured. We had to seize them while they were at hand: Seize them or lose them.
"I realized that almost before Flora and I perceived it, our children would be fully mature and away from us. Flora seemed to sense this more than I did, and she prompted and encouraged me to spend time with them whenever I could."
Of his service in Washington and his life since, President Benson has said, "No man could be blessed with a more devoted, loyal and united wife and children. They share heavily in anything that I have been able to accomplish.
Flora Benson died Aug. 14, 1992.