David M. Kennedy, former secretary of the Treasury in the Nixon administration, successful Chicago banker and LDS Church official, died at his Salt Lake home May 1. He was 90.
Kennedy, a native of Randolph in Rich County, died about 11:50 p.m. with his four daughters and their families around him. His wife, Lenora Bingham Kennedy, preceded him in death last August.Barbara Law, a daughter, said the family was happy their parents were together again.
"He kept telling us all winter that he was going to be leaving us in the spring," Law said Thursday. "And it was such a beautiful day yesterday."
Law said her father's greatest accomplishment wasn't the governmental positions or banking appointments he's held, but service to his church and his family.
"Service was his motto," Law said. "His father told him when he was very young that, `Your purpose in life is to serve God and your fellow man.' And that's what he did."
A 1928 graduate of Weber College in Ogden, Kennedy found a job in Washington, D.C., in 1930 with the Federal Reserve System and received a law degree from George Washington University in 1937. In Washington, he also worked for the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration as a Treasury key debt manager.
In 1946, he joined the bond department of the Continental Illinois Bank and Trust Co. in Chicago and ultimately worked his way up to become president and chairman of the board in 1959.
In 1968, President-elect Richard M. Nixon asked Kennedy to join his cabinet as Treasury secretary, and he became the world's leading financial officer. He later served as the U.S. ambassador-at-large and as the U.S. ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Later in life, Kennedy went to work for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as an ambassador for the First Presidency - his most important job, he said in an interview with the Church News last year.
Kennedy received four honorary doctoral degrees and is the namesake of the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies at Brigham Young University.
Funeral arrangements are pending.