Truth Seeker: The Life of Joseph F. Merrill, Scientist, Educator, and Apostle

Abstract

I thoroughly enjoyed Casey Paul Griffiths’ excellent and well-penned biography of Joseph F. Merrill. I think partly because I am a religious educator, but also because of the fact that “having a cause to fight for brought new life. . . . Now that he was in the midst of controversy . . . he reveled in it” (215). Truly, this sums up the life of one of the most important men in church history from my vantage point. Being a retired church educator, serving thirty-eight years in the midst of change, controversy, and relative peace—at least compared to the years Merrill was at the helm—I thoroughly enjoyed reading a history that, heretofore, I embarrassingly had not known. In fact, the name Joseph F. Merrill was one that I was only vaguely familiar with. I had read about him in President Gordon B. Hinckley's biography, yet somehow, I missed reading or even knowing about his struggles and willingness to fight for the Church Education System, of which I am a little bit prouder to be a member.This book is an excellent biography of a man who deserves to be celebrated and whose life somehow became lost in the pile of biographies about other early church leaders. What begins with the story of his father's dedication to the cause and service as an apostle, takes a surprising turn as it chronicles his early years in college working valiantly, and mostly alone, to become the first Latter-day Saint with a PhD (73)—a testament of his life: he was ready and willing to do all that was necessary to make whatever he was responsible for happen. While a postgraduate student for almost ten years (28, 73), he postponed his marriage to the love and sweetheart of his life. Then, in his nearly thirty-year career as a college professor at the University of Utah (77), he was involved in everything from starting and promoting the athletics program to establishing and maintaining the mining industry in Utah. And just when a normal man would have considered retirement, he was called as the head of the church school system. A calling, which at a late age, he said gave him something to fight for (154).Even the most excellent biography has a few shortcomings. First, the section chronicling the letters to and from his first wife (32–72) went on so long I began to wonder—and I am already a hopeless romantic. And then, after his mission, the book talked about how he and his second wife were finally able to get along (280), but there was no evidence provided for that. It seems strange to spend so much time talking about his first wife (32–72), followed by his employment as the church commissioner of education (164–234), while spending only a very few pages talking about his second wife, to whom he was married longer than his first wife (twenty-three as opposed to nineteen).Second, the section chronicling the fight for seminaries and institutes (164–234) was also too long even for me, a retired seminary and institute teacher. Of course, one must realize that the author can only tell us the stories that have been chronicled.There was also a problem with the footnotes. For example, he mentions that “Newspaper accounts frequently mention Merrill as a party insider who smoothed over quarrels and worked out compromises to bring a united front to bear on the Republicans” (111–12). However, the footnote for this only lists one reference (128n16).Continuing with the biography, he was called as an apostle at the twilight of his life, and then as a mission president in Europe. It is there that he works closely with Gordon B. Hinckley. It also mentions that his marriage to his second wife finally improved to the point that it was an additional testimony of his vibrancy and willingness to learn and improve in life (280).However, having mentioned what I felt were a few glitches in an otherwise excellent biography, it is important to note that after all that was fought for, and all that was won, it is incredible that this man—who in my opinion, is more than a man—is not better known among Latter-day Saints. His biography mentions several times how he was addicted to hard work, which is another definition of his life. Hopefully, with the publication of this biography, the problem of not knowing the work and life of this important man in church history will be resolved, and we will all collectively have one more hero on whom we can count and trust.