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Had it not been for Kathleen Eyring, there's a good chance her husband, Henry B., would be relishing the latter days of tenured professorship at Stanford University. Instead, the first counselor in the LDS Church First Presidency walked away from a plum teaching position, and the idyllic estate where he lived, to set out for a lifetime of church service.
"She was the actuator," said Henry Johnson Eyring, 44, the oldest of the couple's six children. "She was the one who changed the course of our lives."
Kathleen Eyring, who as the wife of a member of the First Presidency has potential to influence LDS women across the globe, will celebrate her 67th birthday on Mother's Day.
Two of her children, the oldest and the youngest, recently spoke about their mom, a woman lauded for her wit, warmth, athleticism, writing abilities and devotion to family and faith.
Born Kathleen Johnson, the middle child of a successful builder was raised in northern California. She attended a Palo Alto all-girls prep school where she giggled in the back of biology class with Grace "Gracie" Wing, who went on to become the psychedelic rock icon Grace Slick. She was captain of her school's tennis team. At University of California, Berkeley, she studied political science.
At the behest of a friend, she spent the summer before her senior year studying at Harvard University. There, a certain someone, working on his doctorate in business administration, noticed her and became smitten.
"They courted on the court," the oldest son said of his parents, who played a lot of tennis together. They sailed on the cape, enjoyed the summer months together; it was all "very romantic."
The two married the following summer in the Logan Temple, where Spencer W. Kimball - Henry B. Eyring's uncle and, later, the 12th president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - performed the ceremony. Soon after, the business school teaching offers poured in for Eyring's husband: Harvard, UCLA and, the no-brainer for her, Stanford.
They settled in the guesthouse of her parents' sprawling hilltop estate. Fast-forward some years: The business school teacher had just been granted tenure when his wife looked at him and said, "Hal, are you sure you're doing what you should be with your life?", their oldest son said.
Henry B. Eyring had written some pieces about the LDS Church and education. Kathleen suggested her husband should consider doing more of that.
"In short order," the younger Henry said, his parents left California for Rexburg, Idaho, where his dad became president of Ricks College, then the "size of a high school." It was a job he held until he became the church's commissioner of education.
The first four children were all boys and a handful, said the oldest, who broke plenty of his mother's tennis trophies. She never raised her voice in anger, he said, but she had a "look of disappointment" and a "goodness to her" that helped keep them in line. When those things failed, she turned to song.
In the middle of their all-out brawls, she'd start singing hymns. The tactic made the boys roll their eyes, but it also took the fight out of them. With the two girls, her approach was different.
Mary Eyring Carter, 24, who's working on a doctorate in literature in San Diego, said she and her sister, the two youngest, would go at it in the back seat of the car. Eyring would simply pull over, lean her head back and close her eyes. "She would bring peace just by being peaceful herself," Mary said.
Their mother put her passions aside to focus on family. Her love of words benefited others. Her son recalled the letters she sent, while he was serving his mission in Japan, as "so funny and witty. . . . It was like my own private version of Erma Bombeck." Henry B. Eyring was sustained in the Quorum of Twelve Apostles when Mary was in fifth grade, and her mother - before jetting off on church trips - would leave behind Nancy Drew books and comedy show tapes. Once, she surprised the girl, who inherited her mother's sweet tooth, with a dresser drawer full of Skittles.
Eyring was playful; she rode shopping carts down grocery store aisles. Even though the household didn't have a television or other teenage lures, Mary said her friends loved to hang out there.
As the wife of one of the church's leading authorities, Eyring has embraced her role, allowing her husband to "take the stage, . . . lifting him up publicly but allowing him to unwind privately," their oldest son said.
Her humor and warmth have always brightened the lives of those around her.
"She'd wake up early to open all the shades, which is a great metaphor," Mary said. "She was the first one in the morning to let the light in our house."