Early Life
Born in Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, Smith was one of nineteen children of Mormon apostle John Henry Smith and one of his plural wives, Sarah Farr. His grandfather, for whom he was named, was also an LDS Church apostle as well as a cousin of Church founder Joseph Smith, Jr. John Henry Smith and George Albert Smith are the only father and son pair to have been members of the Quorum of the Twelve at the same time, having served in the Quorum together between 1903 and 1910.
Smith attended high school at Brigham Young Academy, graduating in 1884. He next graduated from the University of Deseret (later the University of Utah) in 1888. In 1896, he had joined the Republican Party and campaigned for William McKinley, who became President of the United States. He also favored Theodore Roosevelt, McKinley's successor.
While surveying for a railroad as a young man, Smith's eyesight was permanently impaired by glare from the sun. After 1903, Smith found his frequent travels debilitating, and began to show prominent symptoms of physical weakness. He was eventually diagnosed with lupus erythematosus, a chronic debilitating autoimmune disease.
Smith was known for his patriotism, joining various American patriotic groups and was an ardent supporter of the Boy Scouts. In 1934, the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America awarded him the prestigious Silver Buffalo Award. Smith was an avid genealogist and family historian and was named National Vice President of the Sons of the American Revolution in 1922.
Read more about this topic: George Albert Smith
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“We have good reason to believe that memories of early childhood do not persist in consciousness because of the absence or fragmentary character of language covering this period. Words serve as fixatives for mental images. . . . Even at the end of the second year of life when word tags exist for a number of objects in the child’s life, these words are discrete and do not yet bind together the parts of an experience or organize them in a way that can produce a coherent memory.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)
“You want to prepare your child to think as he gets older. You want him to be critical in his judgments. Teaching a child, by your example, that there’s never any room for negotiating or making choices in life may suggest that you expect blind obedience—but it won’t help him in the long run to be discriminating in choices and thinking.”
—Lawrence Balter (20th century)