Camilla Kimball Dies at 92

Camilla Eyring Kimball, widow of the late President Spencer W. Kimball, twelfth President of the Church, died September 20 at her home in Salt Lake City. She was 92.

“The passing of Camilla Eyring Kimball marks the end of the earthly service of one of the great and noble women in the Church’s history,” said a statement issued by President Ezra Taft Benson and his Counselors in the First Presidency, President Gordon B. Hinckley and President Thomas S. Monson. “She was devoted to her God, church, and family. She was a teacher, a disciple of learning, and spent much of her lengthy life acquiring knowledge. In the Church, she served in many capacities, but perhaps her greatest contribution came as a faithful and ever-devoted companion to her dear husband, President Spencer W. Kimball, who spent so much of his long life in full-time service to the Church. She supported him in all of his endeavors and was at his side for those many years of arduous travel and leadership responsibilities. We extend to her family our love and appreciation. We are confident that her life and contributions leave pleasant memories in their hearts and in the hearts of all whose lives she touched.”

Sister Kimball was born 7 December 1894, in Colonia Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico, the eldest of Edward Christian Eyring and Caroline Cottam Romney Eyring’s nine children.

When she was seventeen, she went to Provo, Utah, to live with an uncle while she attended Brigham Young University. She also studied at the University of California at Berkeley and Utah State Agricultural College in Logan. She taught school at the Millard Academy in Hinckley, Utah, and at the Gila Academy in Thatcher, Arizona.

She married Spencer W. Kimball in Pima, Arizona, on 16 November 1917. Her husband was called to the Council of the Twelve in 1943 and became President of the Church in December 1973.

She earned Exemplary Womanhood awards from both Brigham Young University and Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho.

Sister Kimball is survived by four children, twenty-six grandchildren, and sixty-two great-grandchildren. Her funeral was held September 26 in the Assembly Hall on Temple Square.