Elder Sterling W. Sill Dies at 91

Elder Sterling W. Sill, an emeritus General Authority, died 25 May 1994 at his Salt Lake City home of natural causes. He was ninety-one years old.

Elder Sill served from April 1954 to October 1976 as an Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and from 1976 to 1978 as a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy, where he served until he was given emeritus status in 1978.

His voice became familiar to many during his seventeen years on the weekly radio program Sunday Evening from Temple Square, broadcast over KSL Radio from 1960 to 1977. He was also recognized as one of the Church’s prolific authors, writing well over thirty books.

Sterling W. Sill was born 31 March 1903 in Layton, Utah, to Joseph Albert and Marietta Welling Sill. On 4 September 1929, he married Doris Mary Thornley in the Salt Lake Temple. She survives her husband, as do one daughter and one of their two sons.

After serving a mission in the southern United States from 1924 to 1926, Elder Sill entered the insurance business, where he served in many corporate positions over the years.

Elder Sill was also a member of the board of regents at the University of Utah from 1940 to 1951. The school awarded him an honorary law degree in 1953 and named the Family Life Center building after him a year later. In 1960 he received the Carnegie Hero Medal for saving a drowning thirteen-year-old boy.

Funeral services for Elder Sill were held 31 May 1994.