50 years ago today - Jul 8, 1975-Wednesday

[Leonard Arrington]

Today in our executives meeting Elder [Joseph] Anderson told us some stories about Heber J. Grant. He said he had a reputation of being a kind of a spendthrift. Actually he spent very little on himself. Most of his spending was to help out friends and loved ones that he felt needed help. He paid off many widows' mortgages that Brother Anderson has knowledge of, he helped support children in school of dear friends, he supported some persons in business deals that were not good risks yet he wanted to help out the person out of friendship.

When President Grant was old, he needed to have a prostate operation. No doctor in Salt Lake City wanted to do it because those operations still involved a certain risk and nobody wanted to do it on the president of the Church, so he went to the Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago. The doctor there, a Jewish doctor, performed the operation and then sent him a bill for $2,500. That was a large sum of money in those days. President Grant directed Brother Anderson to write a letter for his signature saying that he supposed the doctor would presume him to be a wealthy man. There were lots of flowers sent by his business associates, he arrived in a fine chauffeured car, he was the director of Union Pacific Railroad and so on. Actually, however, he was not a wealthy person. He sent along his own personal accounts to show that he was not a wealthy person. The doctor considering this knocked $1,000 off the bill and charged him only $1,500. Later on during the depression of the
1930s, U and I Sugar stock got down to 13M-BM-" per share-not $13 but 13M-BM-" per share. President Grant was able to buy up considerable quantities of stock at that price. As time went on the stock went up and up and up. President Grant's normal procedure was to hold onto stock, but this time he decided to sell a quantity and Rio Grande Railroad entered bankruptcy in 1934, he was appointed a co-trustee to lead the company back into the black. of it and made a substantial profit. Having made the profit he then wrote to the doctor in Chicago saying that he had been a person of modest means, but now he was better able to pay and sent him back a check for $1,000. President Grant was an honest person in his business dealings and went out of his way to satisfy every person as fully as he could.

[Confessions of a Mormon historian : the diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997, Gary James Bergera, editor, Signature Books, 2018]