Pioneering eye doctor Merrill Oaks, a younger brother of Latter-day Saint apostle Dallin H. Oaks and who himself rose to a high-level leadership position in Utah’s predominant faith, has died from complications related to cancer.
He was 88.
A 1954 graduate of Brigham Young High School, the younger Oaks worked as an ophthalmologist for nearly 30 years. During that time, according to the family’s obituary, he helped perform the first cataract surgeries in Utah involving the implantation of an artificial lens.
While attending church-owned Brigham Young University, he met and married Josephine Ann Christensen. He received his bachelor’s degree from BYU and a medical degree from the University of Rochester in New York.
The father of nine retired from his practice in 1996 to serve as the president of the Washington Seattle Mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Two years later, he became a general authority Seventy, a church position he held until 2004. His assignments, the obituary stated, included serving as a counselor in the U.S. Southwest and Utah North area presidencies and as an area president in the Philippines.
Later, he and his wife oversaw the church’s Winter Quarters Temple in Nebraska.
His physician father, Lloyd, died when Merrill was 4. So Merrill, Dallin and sister Evelyn were reared by their mother, Stella.
In Merrill’s final years, the obituary reported, he devoted his time and resources to the Stella H. Oaks Foundation, a charity dedicated to raising funds to help single mothers gain educational and job training.
Speaking to the worldwide church in a 1998 General Conference sermon, Merrill Oaks addressed those “who become disturbed by any changes” in church policies.
“Some literally hunt for situations,” he said, “where earlier church leaders or members made statements which are not in complete harmony with our understanding and practices today.”
To these Latter-day Saints, he counseled privileging instruction from current leaders over past ones.
“Our protection from erroneous doctrine,” he explained, “lies in an overriding belief in continuing revelation to the current prophet.”
His funeral is scheduled for the Foxhill Ward, 200 S. Eagle Ridge Drive, North Salt Lake, on Saturday at 11 a.m. Interment will be in the Provo City Cemetery.
