By LAUREN COMSTOC
An emeritus general authority will speak about the challenges of growing up in the Salt Lake Valley during the Great Depression today at 10:30 a.m. in the Conference Center auditorium.
Elder William Grant Bangerter will present the annual Caroline Hemenway Harman Lecture. His speech, titled 'Passing the Test,' will focus on the near-pioneer circumstances in which he grew up.
The annual address honors the Caroline Hemenway Harman Continuing Education Building.
Elder Bangerter and his family were neighbors to the Hemenway family during the Great Depression. Sister Harman served as Relief Society president in a ward that now covers a large portion of West Valley. The bishop was William Henry Bangerter, Elder Bangerter's father.
Harman led a simple kind of life with challenges characteristic of the time period. Elder Bangerter will talk about these challenges and about Harman's example being an inspiration to others.
Harman was widowed three times and raised 14 children, including those she adopted from her second marriage, said Duane Hiatt, director of editorial and media production for the Division of Continuing Education.
'Caroline united the families into one, and together they passed the grim test of life,' Elder Bangerter said.
Harman lived a life of service. Harman needed many things but always served others, he said.
'She was the kind of person we would hope we would be in the Continuing Education Department,' Hiatt said.
The Division of Continuing Education continues Harman's work and the annual lecture is a discourse prepared all year to honor her name, he said.
Elder Bangerter was born in Granger to William Henry Bangerter and Isabelle Bawden. He was sustained as an assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles April 4, 1975.
He became a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy in October 1976 and served in the presidency from September 1978 to April 1980. He was named an emeritus general authority Oct. 1, 1989, according to the Deseret News 1991-92 Church Almanac.