russell m. nelson

During his ninety-five years
 of life, Francis M. Gibbons
(1921-2016) was a student, a newspaper carrier, a 
grocer, a bookkeeper, a certified court
reporter, a missionary, a
sailor, a laborer, a university 
and law student, a trial lawyer, a
 church leader, and a prolific
 writer of more than thirty
 books. A lifelong member of
 The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, he served as 
a bishop, stake president, 
stake patriarch, and as the secretary to the First Presidency under four Presidents of the Church. For more than thirty years until his death at the age of 95, he was also a General Authority or Emeritus General Authority of the Church. In the autumn of his life, from 1994 to 2010, he also served as patriarch at large to the Church. Brother Gibbons is also the acclaimed author of fifteen full-length biographies of every President of the Church from Joseph Smith through Gordon B. Hinckley. He was married for seventy years to Helen Bay Gibbons, who preceded him in death in 2015. They had four children and eighteen grandchildren.