40 years ago today - Jan 10, 1981

Fawn McKay Brodie, niece of David O. McKay and author of NO MAN KNOWS MY HISTORY (for which she was excommunicated) dies of cancer in Santa Monica, California at age 65. During her last months she refuses pain medication fearing that it will interfere with her final work - a biography of Richard Nixon. She does, however, ask for and receive a blessing from her active, LDS brother. This later leads to the false rumor that she returned to the Church at the end. At the time she states, "any exaggeration about my requests for a blessing meaning that I was asking to be taken back into the Church at that moment I strictly repudiate and would for all time." Her remains are cremated and the ashes scattered to the wind over the Pacific Palisades area she loved and protected.