A Beloved Apostle | Lucile C. Tate, LeGrand Richards, Beloved Apostle

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This triumphant biography is very much what we would expect the official story of a beloved General Authority to be. It is the story of the good boy who grew better and better, of the apostle as super-salesman. Conflicts are introduced only to be overcome. LeGrand Richards moves into every challenging and discouraging situation and turns it around. 

Lucile C. Tate’s praise for the leader is unstinting. Elder Richards was, at sixty six, “seasoned, tried, and virtuous; virtuous in the larger, knightly sense of the word, which adds to chastity all the qualities of moral excellence—faith in the cause; valor; courtesy; compassion; justice; and loyalty” (p. 243). But the book is saved from being too much of a good thing by the subject’s freshness and practicality. When he at tended the Salt Lake Temple dedication he noted, “And I looked around for angels, but I didn’t see any.” (p. 11) While playing the peacemaker on the Board of Trustees of what is now Utah State, he said, “Better united on a poor policy than di vided on a good one” (p. 248). 

Organized around the ever-ascending Church positions that Brother Richards has filled, the book tells of many practices which have changed. Young LeGrand, for instance, was called to the Southern States Mission. His bishop wanted him called to Europe and suggested a change which was cheerfully granted; Richards went to Hol land. Later in 1925 when President Heber J. Grant called for one thousand men of “mature years and sound judgment” to serve short-term missions, the then Bishop Richards virtually called himself to the Eastern States. Mission President B. H. Roberts told him “not to get in the way of the members or full-time missionaries, but just show them how to convert.” (p. 125) Grimly frosty New Bedford, Massachusetts, discouraged even Bishop Richards before he, with superhuman effort, managed to convert the little band of Saints who built the first Mormon chapel in New England. 

Another interesting detail is that Stake President Richards of Hollywood (California) Stake called a Sister Kathrine Higginbotham as stake clerk with President Grant’s approval. And still another is that when Brother Richards was called as Pre siding Bishop, President Grant planned to inform the new counselors Marvin O. Ash ton and Joseph L. Wirthlin of their callings from the pulpit when they were sustained. Bowing to Bishop Richard’s request, President Grant called them in advance, allowing about an hour’s notice. 

Love and mutual respect among the brethren is amply illustrated here. This male bonding makes the relationship of the men to their wives especially interesting. Brother Richards’s father, the saintly George F. Richards, as devoted and pre ocious a Church leader as his son, is shown in his official capacities while his wife, Alice Almira Robinson, is shown keeping house in their primitive adobe home in Plymouth, Utah. LeGrand remembers helping her do the washing for her family of fifteen children. “She would sometimes stand and rub the clothes on a washboard with big tears rolling down her cheeks from weariness or discomfort when a new baby was on the way” (p. 9). 

LeGrand told his own wife, when he proposed to her, that “There will always be one that will come ahead of you” (p. 56). Ina Jane Ashton, that “little bundle of sweetness,” consented to accept the second place he offered, behind his commitment to the Church. Their life together was very satisfying to both of them. As her husband went from triumph to triumph, Ina Jane contented herself with her home and family—and got sick. Frail and easily tired, she watched and supported her ebulliant husband with pride. One of the last things she said was, “I never stood in Daddy’s way, did I?” (p. 289) 

This book is one of the better examples of Mormon hagiography or biographies of the sainted. It is written clearly and re searched thoroughly. The author had the benefit of extensive interviews with Elder Richards and access to his files and journals. The pictures are numerous and well produced. The book includes a bibliography and an index which many in this category do not. One small complaint is that the references are printed in parentheses in the text rather than in notes. As some of the references are fairly long, I find them distracting. 

Reading this book has caused me to wonder about the future of this genre. As the Church grows and the General Authorities proliferate, the personalities they project grow less distinct. In our small and distant ward, where many are converts, where general conference is limited to an occasional hour or two, where subscriptions to Church publications are few, and where General Authorities appear only once a year at great distance to give standard talks, the intense preoccupation with Church personalities and politics, so common in Salt Lake, is scarcely known. President Kimball is a figure to my ward’s members. Others are not. It will be interesting to note the future of these biographies of Church leaders as our distant situation grows increasingly typical. 

For now, President Richards’s good spirits, his refusal to speak from a prepared text, his years of devoted and effective service, and his alert old age put him in a unique position. Will he be remembered? 

Lucile C. Tate, LeGrand Richards, Be loved Apostle. Salt Lake City, Utah: Book craft, 1982, 326 pp., $7.95.