Health Challenges
In 1948, Kimball suffered a heart attack. Several years later he battled recurring throat cancer. This led to one and a half vocal cords being removed in 1957; as a result, he was thereafter barely able to speak above a hoarse whisper. After his heart condition resurfaced, in 1972 a successful open-heart surgery replaced an obstructed artery and failing valve. Because presidential succession in the church is traditionally based on seniority in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, he was not expected to become church president. However, the younger Harold B. Lee, who ranked above him in seniority in the Quorum, died suddenly in December 1973. Kimball then became the 12th president of the church.
Read more about this topic: Spencer W. Kimball
Famous quotes containing the words health and/or challenges:
“Even though I had let them choose their own socks since babyhood, I was only beginning to learn to trust their adult judgment.. . . I had a sensation very much like the moment in an airplane when you realize that even if you stop holding the plane up by gripping the arms of your seat until your knuckles show white, the plane will stay up by itself. . . . To detach myself from my children . . . I had to achieve a condition which might be called loving objectivity.”
—Anonymous Parent of Adult Children. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 5 (1978)
“A powerful idea communicates some of its strength to him who challenges it.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)