Funeral services for President Howard William Hunter, beloved 87-year-old leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who died Friday morning, will be held Wednesday, March 8, at noon in Salt Lake City.
The services for President Hunter, who died at 8:35 a.m. in his downtown Salt Lake residence, will be held in the Salt Lake Tabernacle.A public viewing will be held Tuesday, March 7, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the Church Administration Building, 47 E. South Temple. No viewing will be held Wednesday morning. Burial will be in the Salt Lake City Cemetery.
President Hunter served for nearly nine months as the 14th president of the worldwide church of 9 million members and had served in the general leadership councils of the church since October 1959.
He had been ill with prostate cancer that had spread to his bones.
His physician said in mid-January that President Hunter's condition was "serious," and the church leader had not returned to work since that time.
With President Hunter at the time of his death were his wife, Inis, his nurse, and his personal secretary, Lowell Hardy.
President Hunter, who served as a bishop, a stake president and in many other leadership positions before being called as an apostle more than 35 years ago, had been hospitalized twice since mid-December. The first hospitalization was shortly after his return from Mexico, where he organized the church's 2,000th stake. The second was for treatment of exhaustion in mid-January, days after dedicatory services for the Bountiful Temple.
Shortly after the latter hospitalization, it was announced that President Hunter suffered from cancer of the prostate gland that had spread to his bones. The cancer was first diagnosed in 1980.
President Hunter enjoyed relatively good health until 1980 when he suffered a heart attack and had surgery to remove a benign tumor. He had quadruple bypass surgery in 1986 and surgeries for bleeding ulcers, and he had lower back trouble in 1987.
In December 1990 he was admitted to LDS Hospital for pneumonia. Two years later, he spent 13 days in the hospital for treatment of gastrointestinal bleeding.
In May 1993, complications from gall bladder surgery put him in a coma for three weeks. This illness was nearly fatal, but President Hunter was later able to recover enough to return to his church duties. In recent years he required the use of a wheelchair and a walker.
Known by his family, church associates and others as a gentle, kind and humble man, President Hunter will be remembered for his compassionate nature, which blended well with his thoughtful, orderly leadership style.
He consistently urged church members to "keep the commandments of God and receive the full measure of his blessings."
He invited them to "live with ever more attention to the life and example of the Lord Jesus Christ, especially the love and hope and compassion he displayed."
He encouraged those who were less active or who had left the church for any reason to return to full fellowship.
Church members will long recall his emphasis on temples, where faithful members receive spiritual instruction and make covenants to live Christ-centered lives.
President Hunter invited church members to "establish the temple of the Lord as the great symbol of their membership and the supernal setting for their most sacred covenants."
"Let us be a temple-attending and a temple-loving people. The temple is a place of beauty, it is a place of revelation, it is a place of peace. It is the house of the Lord. It is holy unto the Lord. It should be holy unto us."
Church officials said participation in sacred ordinances at the church's temples increased dramatically during the past year. The Bountiful Temple, which President Hunter dedicated on Jan. 8, 1995, became the 47th operating temple.
As church president, President Hunter also dedicated the Orlando (Florida) Temple, which was completed during his administration as church president. That temple was dedicated during a series of services Oct. 9-11, 1994.
An event in the Arizona Temple on President Hunter's 46th birthday had special significance.
He and members of his stake were in the Arizona Temple on a special excursion, and he was speaking to stake members when his parents walked into the chapel.
In his journal, President Hunter wrote that he had no idea his father was prepared for his temple blessings, although his mother had been anxious about it for some time.
"I was so overcome with emotion that I was unable to continue to speak. President (temple President Arwell L.) Pierce came to my side and explained the reason for the interruption. When my father and mother came to the temple that morning, they asked the president not to mention to me that they were there because they wanted it to be a birthday surprise.
"This was a birthday I have never forgotten because on that day they were endowed, and I had the privilege of witnessing their sealing, following which I was sealed to them."
When President Hunter dedicated the Orlando Temple in October 1994, he recounted his Arizona Temple experience and presided over seven dedicatory sessions.
In his remarks, President Hunter said, "We long to see the day when every priesthood bearer will love his wife and family enough to kneel together in the sacred temple and be sealed to an eternal family. After we receive this ordinance for ourselves, we should labor unceasingly to provide these same blessings for our ancestors who died without the privilege of receiving them."
In another dedicatory session, he encouraged young people to perform baptisms for the dead, then come to the temple for their own endowments and to be married when they are older.
President Hunter presided over six of the 28 sessions dedicating the Bountiful Temple. He spoke at four sessions.
In his opening address following his sustaining as prophet at the October 1994 conference, President Hunter thanked church members for their support. He told them of his tears shed and prayers offered "in a desire to be equal to this high and holy calling."
He walked slowly and carefully with the aid of a walker, but standing unassisted at the pulpit, he said, "My walk is slower now, but my mind is clear, and my spirit is young."
During the concluding conference session, he again stressed the importance of Christ-like behavior and pronounced a blessing on church members.
Last October he visited a stake conference in Pasadena, Calif., where he had served as a stake president. Two months later, on Dec. 11, 1994, President Hunter created the Mexico City Contreras Stake, the church's 2,000th. Counting the latter stake, President Hunter organized 120 stakes, beginning with his first assignment in 1960 to organize the Las Vegas North Stake from the Las Vegas Stake.
In November 1975, then-Elder Hunter and Elder J. Thomas Fyans, then an assistant to the Twelve and now a general authority emeritus, organized 15 Mexico City stakes out of five. As of Friday, March 3, the church had 2,029 stakes throughout the world.
In addition to traveling to Mexico City and Orlando, President Hunter visited Illinois, Switzerland, Arizona and Hawaii during his early months as church president.
An intensely private and soft-spoken leader, President Hunter broke several trends that had been prevalent among 20th-century LDS Church presidents. He didn't serve an LDS mission. His father was not a member of the church for most of his life. He never lived in Utah until he was called as an apostle. Also, President Hunter was the first church president born during this century. He was born Nov. 14, 1907, in Boise to John William and Nellie Marie Rasmussen Hunter.
President Hunter joined the church at age 12, although he had attended church services regularly with his mother before then. His mother was a church member, but his father was not a member at that time and wanted his son to be certain of his decision before joining the church.
He and his sister, Dorothy, were baptized in a public swimming pool and confirmed in a little frame chapel. His father later became a member of the church, and President Hunter was sealed to his parents in the Arizona Temple on his 46th birthday.
After graduating from high school, President Hunter studied at the University of Washington in Seattle for a brief time before moving to California to take a job in a Los Angeles bank.
He later earned a law degree while holding down a full-time job in the daytime and studying evenings at Southwestern University Law School in Los Angeles. He was admitted to the California State Bar, became a member of the Los Angeles Bar Association and enjoyed a successful career as a corporate attorney.
In Los Angeles, President Hunter met his future wife, Clara "Claire" Jeffs, at a church dance in Huntington Park, Calif. They were married June 10, 1931, in the Salt Lake Temple. They had three sons - Howard William Jr., who died at 7 months; John Jacob Hunter, of Ojai, Calif.; and Richard Allen Hunter, of San Jose, Calif.
President Hunter's wife, Claire, died Oct. 9, 1983, after a long illness. President Hunter has 18 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren.
President Hunter married Inis Bernice Egan on April 12, 1990, in the Salt Lake Temple only hours after telling his fellow apostles of his plans. He and Sister Egan had known each other from their California days.
In October 1959, President David O. McKay called President Hunter to fill a vacancy in the Council of the Twelve, created when President Henry D. Moyle became second counselor in the First Presidency following the death of President Stephen L Richards.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Knowles biography
The main source of information for this section was the biography "Howard W. Hunter," by Eleanor Knowles, retired vice president and executive editor of Deseret Book Co.
The book was released shortly before the death of President Ezra Taft Benson and his elevation to LDS Church president.
Biographers face a tricky challenge in making the subject appear human without dwelling on faults and yet seem extraordinary without dwelling on virtues. Here Sister Knowles succeeds very well, a Deseret News review said. Her account, drawn from President Hunter's personal records as well as other public records and sources, presents a straightforward, readable account of the church's 14th president.
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Church growth during President Hunter's lifetime
YEAR EVENT STAKES MISSIONS MEMBERSHIP
1907 Birth 55 22 357,913
1920 Baptism 79 24 525,978
1940 Bishop ordination 132 35 862,664
1950 Call as stake president 179 43 1,111,314
1959 Call to the Twelve 288 50 1,616,088
1985 Call as acting President of the Twelve 1570 188 5,919,481
1988 Call as President of the Twelve 1696 222 6,720,000
1994 LDS Church President 1980 295 8,700,000
1995 Death 2013 303 9,000,000
Sources: Church Almanacs, Deseret News files. Stake and mission totals are at the totals at the actual time the event occurred, membership totals, except for call as church president, are year-end totals.