The oldest of 11 children on the 40-acre family farm, he learned to drive a wagon team at age 4 and was given increasingly heavy responsibilities as he grew older. At age 14, he took major responsibility for the farm's pasture land and dairy herd while his father served a two-year mission for the LDS Church.
His parents, though farm people, enjoyed recreation, too, and invited people from near and far to the home when the first phonograph came to town.He later wrote: "There were so many who came that I remember thinking they'd wear out our priceless records and mother's handmade carpet underlaid with soft, clean oat straw, which we carried in from the straw stack as the steam thrashing machine pulled away from our farm."
Ezra's perseverance came to the fore when, at 16, he single-handedly thinned an acre of a neighboring farmer's sugar beets in one day with a short-handled hoe-- a feat grown men had trouble with.
The astonished farmer paid him two $5 gold pieces and two silver dollars for the work. "Never before, nor since, have I felt quite so wealthy," he later wrote, "nor quite so sure that I was the physical equal of any living man."
After graduating from Oneida Stake Academy in 1918, he joined the Army and enrolled in a training camp on Utah State Agricultural College campus.
Prior to enrolling at Utah State Agricultural College in 1919, he had met and become interested in Flora Smith Amussen, a popular and well-to-do girl on the campus. After he gathered the courage to ask her for their first date, the couple continued to meet, but nothing formal would come of the relationship for several years.
He was ordained an elder at age 21 and called on a mission to the British Isles, where Mormons were held in low esteem by many in the area. During a Sunday night street meeting some tough miners and workers gathered around the two young elders. Soon, the pubs closed, and a rough element poured onto the streets, looking for excitement. The crowd began pushing, separating the elders. One burly man in the crowd got next to Elder Benson and told others that he believed the missionaries. Police arrived and sent the shaken elder home, still looking for his companion, who had suffered a blow to his head but later recovered.
Near the end of his mission, he decided to ask Flora to marry him. He did, but she said she wanted to fill a mission first. Meanwhile, he finished school and found himself with a scholarship to graduate school in Iowa. He wrote Flora just before she was to return to Utah, listing his accomplishments and asking if she would go to Iowa with him as his wife. She agreed and they were married in the Salt Lake Temple Sept. 10, 1926.
In January 1946, he was called as president of the European Mission in the aftermath of World War II.
Strict food rationing throughout Europe had 100 million people eating 1,500 calories or less per day. Germany was nearly flattened with more than 5 million of its people killed and its major cities reduced to piles of rubble. Thousands were starving to death when the first food supplies Elder Benson was able to obtain for the German saints-- sugar and canned milk --arrived.
"I have never been able to describe to anyone what it meant to them," he said later. "How do you describe what food means to a starving person? And they were starving, some of them; not just hungry, but literally close to the last stages of starvation.
Mrs. 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 Eisenhower's cabinet, and she stayed behind with the children to prepare for the move to Washington, D.C.
It was also during his first year that Secretary Benson visited several drought-stricken areas, including Texas, where he suggested that the governmor proclaim a day of fasting and prayer for rain. Less than 24 hours later, San Antonio received two inches of rain - the first such storm in months.
His travels as secretary of agriculture took him to many countries in the world. One experience that particularly moved him was a visit to the Moscow Baptist Church on a cobblestone side street not far from Red Square. As Elder Benson, his wife and daughters entered, they found the tiny church packed with people of all ages and from all walks of life, some standing in the hall and entry. Row after row, the people extended their hands, grasping for a small bit of attention from the obviously American visitors. After the Bensons were escorted to a place near the pulpit, the minister spoke a few words, then the organist played a hymn and 1,500 voices joined in song.
It was a scene Elder Benson would etch in his memory forever as he thought of the courage displayed by such people, who dared take a stand against atheism and were openly worshiping together.
After the hymn the minister asked Elder Benson, through an interpreter, to speak to the congregation.
As the sentences were translated, women in the congregation took their handkerchiefs and began to wave them, their heads nodding as the words flowed from the pulpit.
President Benson and his counselors were formally sustained by members of the church during a solemn assembly held the afternoon of April 6, 1986, in the Tabernacle on Temple Square. The sustaining was done during the concluding session of the church's 156th annual General Conference, and marks only 11 times such a solemn assembly has been called in the history of the church.
In early 1986, only a short time after becoming president of the church, President Benson made his first trip outside Utah after becoming church president. Among other activities, he paid courtesy calls on President Ronald Reagan and then-Vice President George Bush in their White House offices and other Washington dignitaries. He was accompanied by his wife, Flora. He reported on contributions by church members to fight hunger around the world.
President Benson was a Scouter for almost 72 years. He received the three highest Scouting awards, and he was an example for young Scouts everywhere.
He told lively anecdotes of his Scouting experiences, but this was one of his favorites:
"We began planning our hike, and during the meeting one little 12-year-old raised his hand and very formally said, 'Mr. Scoutmaster, I would like to make a motion.' That was a new thing in Scouting, or it was for me.
"I said, 'All right. What is it?'
"He said, 'I'd like to make a motion, so we will not be bothered with combs and brushes on this trip, that we clip all our hair off.'
"I noticed three or four of the older boys starting to squirm in their seats. They had reached that very critical stage in life when they were beginning to take notice of the girls, and a clipped head, they knew, would be no asset to them with the women...We put the question and it carried, with these three or four older boys dissenting.
"Then, true to form, never forgetting anything if it was to their advantage, one of the older Scouts said, 'How about the Scoutmasters?'
"It was our turn to squirm. But the following Saturday at the county seat, two Scoutmasters took their places in the barber's chair while the barber very gleefully went over each head with the clippers."