Lester Glade Funeral, Part 5

Remarks By - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Pres. Bryant S. Hin[c]kley

My Brethren and Sisters: I come to this task with a sincere desire to say the right thing and I hope you will endorse me with your faith and prayers.

These people who are the chief mourners on this occasion are my kins-people. [1] I know them very well. I've been in their home. I knew Brother Glade very well, intimately. His wife has asked me to say a word here. Naturally my feelings are very close to the service. I owe a debt of gratitude to Sister Glade for the services which she has rendered in my behalf. A debt that I shall never discharge and never forget and always cherish.

Lucille [sic] is no ordinary woman. She is a woman with a great and tender heart, and rarely gifted with some of the precious characteristics that make up a great woman. She has walked by Lester Glade's side for nearly thirty years, and I am safe in saying that no crisis ever arose in his life where she didn't sustain him and make a contribution that no one else could do. I know her and she can do it. God bless her.

These children are fine children. They were in a good home. Lester Glade was born of good parents, goodly parents. He had a fine inheritance and he has proven true to these inheritances, and made a wonderful record. If I could only speak to you for a moment or two, but I'd like if I could to get over this thought, that somehow in the common everyday virtues, this man was great. He never did a spectacular thing, I suppose, in his life. He was not distinguished perhaps because of something really heroic. He never followed the flag in battle, he never wrote a book or built a skyscraper, I do not suppose, my Brethren and Sisters, but where would you find his superior when you measure him against the plain virtues that make life worth living.

When he died he was a High Priest, an honorable High Priest in the Church, with a magnificent record of church service behind him, all the way from his childhood on. He never faltered or escaped any responsibility that confronted him. He was a kindly, modest man who made friends and helped you. A home loving man, a man whose pride in his family was supreme. I hardly ever met him that he didn't tell me what a magnificent wife he had and how much he thought of his children and brothers and sisters.

All the day long he preached his religion, he was a missionary whereever [sic] he went, no matter, he preached the gospel. So he majored as a husband, a father, a friend, an honest man, the noblest work of God. Brave and strong, it was always sort of pathetic to see the courage with which he faced the inevitable. He could gradually see that he was losing the fight but still he was cheerful. God bless his memory, God bless this woman. I know she will rise to the situation, to take care of herself and her children and do her part nobley [sic] and indeed heroically.

One other word and I'm through. Is this the end of Lester Glade? Fifty-eight years of fine living, never left a debt unpaid or an obligation unmet. Did every day as plain duty and did it splendidly and supurbly [sic], and now he's finished, the story is told. Where has he gone? What lief beyond the grave? What is the reward for fine living? Is death a step into eternal darkness when his heart beats for the last time? Was that an everlasting farewell to this good woman and these children and his kins-people[?] Oh no, that wasn't what he believed, he believed and this belief sustained him as it will sustain all who entertain it. Death is but a pulsation point in the great process of life. We go from this world to tread the paths of a higher and better world. What do the Prophets say: "It hath been made known to me by an angel from Heaven that the spirits of all men as soon as they depart from this mortal body are taken home to that God who gave them life."

Isn't it a glorious thought that death on the otherside [sic] is a homecoming. Let me tell that there are no joys, no earthly joys quite comparable to the joys that come through homecoming. God bless his memory, his children, his wife, forever, I pray in the name of Jesus . . . . Amen[.]



[1] After his second wife, Ada Bitner, died in 1930, Bryant Hinckley married Lucile Green Glade's aunt, May Green, in 1932. May Green Hinckley served as the third general president of the Primary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1940 until her unexpected death from pneumonia in 1943.