Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, oldest apostle, 91, dies at home

"I was in a fast and testimony meeting when a humble brother bore his testimony. He spoke with such fervency that it electrified me to the point that I partook of his great spirit as to the truthfulness of the gospel."

He recalled his childhood fondly. "We had many rabbits and chickens in our backyard. It was my job to help care for them."

And he was always doing odd jobs in his father's business. "In my early teens, I was a janitor. In high school, I got up early to deliver to accounts that required early service."

Doing his chores at home, working in his father's business, participating in athletics and attending school left him little idle time.

When dating his future wife, Elisa Rogers, he would go to work in the morning before school started, attend classes from 8 a.m. to noon, and go back to work.

"When we had dates, it would be 9 or 10 p.m. before he could even come over," Sister Wirthlin once recalled.

He didn't even have time to pick out a romantic setting to propose to her.

"We became engaged at the pump, the center of everything at the university campus. That's where we would meet after his classes and before he left for work."

His father served as presiding bishop of the church, and Elder Wirthlin's dream as a young man was to be a missionary in Germany, just as his father had been. That dream came true when he served in the German-Austrian and the Swiss-Austrian missions from 1937-39.

An accomplished athlete, he played football for the University of Utah, from which he graduated with a degree in business administration. He also received an honorary doctorate from Brigham Young University in 2001. He and his wife were married May 26, 1941, in the Salt Lake Temple and are the parents of eight children.

He believed in a daily plan of each day's activities. "I make a schedule of what I am going to do and stick to it. I have learned that half an hour of planning will save several hours during the day."

His daughter, Jane, recalled waking "at 5 in the morning and hearing him at the typewriter," typing his schedule for the day. And Elder Wirthlin used time wisely even when eating meals with his family.

"He wasn't around much before or after dinner," his daughter Elisabeth said. "But we always had gospel discussions at the dinner table. I felt like he really tutored us in the church."

Elder Wirthlin loved the scriptures and would make time to read them. Elisabeth said, "Many times I would wake up and go downstairs and see him studying the scriptures at 4:30 in the morning."

Before his call to full-time church service, he was a prominent business leader in Salt Lake City. He was also president of a trade association in Utah.