Eldred Smith, a great-great-grandson of Hyrum Smith, was patriarch from 1947 until 1979, when LDS leaders determined the church no longer needed a presiding patriarch because, they said, every stake (a group of congregations similar to a diocese) had its own.
So authorities made Eldred Smith an emeritus general authority, but allowed him to continue to provide some blessings, each one a personalized spiritual road map. He traveled around showing several church artifacts including the clothing his ancestor Hyrum Smith was wearing when he was killed with
From earliest childhood, Eldred Smith believed the position of patriarch was his spiritual destiny. He was the eldest son of Hyrum G. Smith, who was training to be a dentist in California when he got the call that John Smith, his grandfather, had died and the church needed him to return to Utah for
It was 1932, the depths of the Depression, and Eldred Smith had his mother and seven siblings to care for. Within a year, he married Jeanne Ness and they soon began a family. Thus he was forced to take any job he could find. He carried 200-pound blocks of ice on his back for Hygeia Ice Co. to houses