President David O. McKay: 1873-1970: A Man of Love and Personal Concern

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I have had but few opportunities to come close to David O. McKay, but each time has proved to be personal, memorable, and cherished deeply. I have sensed that I have had a rare opportunity in communing with one of God’s chosen spirits. 

In 1916, when I went from my parents’ home in Palo Alto to teach in a Utah high school, I spent several weekends in Huntsville, the birthplace and boyhood home of President McKay. He had already been an apostle for ten years. I had grown up in California and he was the first of the authorities of the Church I had met; the charm and magnetism and spirituality of this young man of forty-three was apparent to me and the others at a simple ward party I visited. We all enjoyed his lively interest. They were all proud to claim him as their own. 

Sometime between 1931 and 1938 he came to Palo Alto Ward at times to visit his son Llewelyn, who was attending Stanford University. My husband, the bishop, called him to the stand, and we all enjoyed his messages to us, full of encouragement and enlightenment. He always showed much love and personal concern. 

In 1963, my husband and I embarked upon a new experience, and President McKay’s wiggly little signatures on two missionary calls to the Scottish Mission are still greatly cherished by us both. While at the Mission Home, we ate all of our meals in the basement of the Hotel Utah, near the barbershop which President McKay patronized each morning, and we had a number of encounters with him. Some of the young missionaries, hoping to serve him in some small personal way, got the idea to walk him back to his apartment, but later reported that they had to run to keep up with him. 

When we told him that we were on our way to his beloved Scotland, the land of his forefathers and his own earlier missionary labors, he just beamed, thrilled and happy to hear this news, and visited with us in his gracious manner. 

We love and honor President McKay among the great of our times and will try to live so that we will meet him again. He was truly a man of God. He drew many of the great of the world into his presence, by his wisdom and his dedication to his calling—men who recognized that he would enrich their lives and perhaps help them to understand their problems and possible solutions. 

Myra Thulin 
Palo Alto, California