David O. McKay

David Oman McKay was an American religious leader and educator whose life stretched from the Utah Territory of the nineteenth century into the worldwide LDS Church of the mid-twentieth. Born on September 8, 1873, on his father’s farm in Huntsville, about ten miles east of Ogden, Utah, he was the third child of David McKay and Jennette Eveline Evans McKay. His mother was a Welsh immigrant from Merthyr Tydfil, and his father was a Scottish immigrant from Caithness. McKay later served as the ninth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1951 until his death on January 18, 1970.

His early life was marked by responsibility, loss, and education. In 1880, after the deaths of his two older sisters, Margaret and Ellena, his father was called as a missionary to Scotland for two years. Seven-year-old David helped his mother with added family duties. A bequest of $5,000 from his grandmother, directed to be used for the children’s education, made it possible for McKay and his siblings to attend the University of Utah. He graduated in 1897 as valedictorian and class president. Immediately afterward, he was called on a mission to Great Britain, where he presided over the Scottish district of the church. In Stirling, he saw the motto, “What E’er Thou Art, Act Well Thy Part,” a phrase that became a lifelong source of inspiration.

After returning from Scotland in late 1899, McKay taught religion and literature at LDS Weber Stake Academy, the predecessor of Weber State University. He married Emma Ray Riggs in the Salt Lake Temple on January 2, 1901, and they had seven children, one of whom died as a young child. In 1902 he became principal of Weber. He organized a school paper, oversaw the start of men’s and women’s basketball teams, and remained connected to the school through building projects and board service. Though he was called as an apostle in 1906 at age 32, he stayed active in education for many years, including service on the University of Utah’s board of regents.

McKay’s church service was unusually long. Ordained an apostle and member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1906, he was an active general authority for nearly 64 years, longer than anyone else in LDS Church history. He became an assistant in the Deseret Sunday School Union in 1906 and served as Sunday School superintendent after Joseph F. Smith’s death in 1918. In 1920, he and Hugh J. Cannon made a worldwide tour of LDS missions, traveling some 61,646 miles, opening a new mission to China, visiting Hawaii, Samoa, Tonga, New Zealand, Palestine, and other places. From 1923 to 1925 he presided over the church’s European Mission in London, where he used the slogan “every member a missionary.”

As a leader, McKay is especially remembered for linking faith with education. From 1918 to 1934, he helped build seminaries near public high schools in Utah so students could take Latter-day Saint religious courses alongside secular studies. In the 1920s he transferred Snow College, Weber State University, and Dixie College to the state of Utah, and he helped guide Brigham Young University into a full four-year university. He served in the First Presidency from 1934 under Heber J. Grant, continued under George Albert Smith, and became president of the LDS Church in 1951. His well-known line, “No amount of success can compensate for failure at home,” still fits the shape of his life: public duty, personal discipline, and a steady belief that character begins in daily responsibilities.