Kathleen Johnson Eyring, wife of apostle Henry B. Eyring, died “peacefully” Sunday, surrounded by her family in Bountiful, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced in a news release.
She was 82.
Kathleen was born in San Francisco on May 11, 1941. Those close to her say a love of sports and education — she captained her high school tennis team and served as student body president and valedictorian — along with a commitment to faith and her family shaped her life.
She studied at the University of California at Berkeley and was attending summer school in 1961 in Boston, where she met her husband, then a student at Harvard University. The two married in 1962 in the faith’s Logan Temple.
(Eyring family) Kathleen Johnson and Henry B. Eyring on their wedding day July 27, 1962. They were married in the Logan Temple.
Daughter Elizabeth Eyring Peters said she remembers praying with her mother every day before she left home when she was growing up.
“Daily prayer,” she said in the release, “was a clear evidence of her desire for us to be connected to heaven.”
Son Henry J. Eyring, who served as president of Brigham Young University-Idaho (his father led the Rexburg campus when it was called Ricks College), said his mother was “extraordinarily talented and ambitious.” Her main concern, he added in the release, was always to serve God and his children.
Later in life, the mother of six suffered from memory loss that began around the time Henry was called to the church’s governing First Presidency in 2007. Her husband took an active role in her care from then on, even bringing her with him to the office to read and recline while he was in meetings.
“Kathleen has always been a person,” Henry said, “that made me want to be the very best that I can be.”
In the fall 2018 General Conference, he paid an emotional tribute to his wife, by then enfeebled and robbed of many of her memories.
“Now she can speak only a few words a day,” Eyring explained. " … Every night and morning I sing hymns with her and we pray. I have to be voice in the prayers and in the songs. Sometimes I can see her mouthing the words of the hymns. She prefers children’s songs. The sentiment she seems to like best is summarized in the song ‘I’m Trying to Be like Jesus.’
“The other day, after singing the words of the chorus: ‘Love one another as Jesus loves you. Try to show kindness in all that you do,’ she said softly, but clearly, ‘Try, try, try.’ I think that she will find, when she sees him, that our Savior has put his name into her heart and that she has become like him. He is carrying her through her troubles now, as he will carry you through yours.”
On Tuesday, the church announced that a public viewing will take place Friday from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at Russon Brothers Mortuary, 295 N. Main, Bountiful. Kathleen Eyring’s funeral will be Saturday at 11 a.m. in the Mueller Park Fifth Ward meetinghouse, 1320 E. 1975 South, Bountiful.
Earlier this year, in July, Patricia Holland, wife of apostle Jeffrey R. Holland, died at 81.
