Barbara B. Ballard

Barbara Bowen Ballard was the wife of M. Russell Ballard, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Sister Ballard was born on January 5, 1932, in Salt Lake City, Utah. She graduated from South High School where she was a student body officer for two years and valedictorian of her class. She then attended the University of Utah and studied English.

She met President Ballard at the University of Utah. They were married on August 28, 1951, in the Salt Lake Temple. The Ballards had seven children. President Ballard often lovingly acknowledged Barbara's support in their family's success. "I married the right daughter of God", he said. "Without the help and direction of Barbara, our family relationships would not have been as happy and fulfilling as they were. Barbara is a treasure for our family forever. We honor her for her constant love, good judgment, and counsel.”[1]

Barbara worked and served alongside President Ballard throughout his career in business and his lifetime of Church service as a bishop, mission president (Canada Toronto Mission from 1974-1977), member of the Seventy, and Apostle (called in 1985).

Barbara served faithfully in many Church callings and volunteer responsibilities throughout her life. She taught classes and served in presidencies of Primary, Young Women, and Relief Society organizations.

In 2002, Brigham Young University-Idaho honored Barbara as the Exemplary Woman of the Year for her dedication to family and her unselfish work in the Church and her community.

Sister Ballard passed away on October 1, 2018, after combating health issues, including Alzheimer’s. President Ballard spoke of her briefly six days later at general conference in his address, “The Vision of the Redemption of the Dead”:

“How grateful I am to know where my precious Barbara is and that we will be together again, with our family, for all eternity.[2]

A year later, he spoke of her again.

My dear brothers and sisters, as October general conference approached last year, I prepared my conference talk to highlight the 100th anniversary of the vision of the spirit world given to President Joseph F. Smith on October 3, 1918.

A few days after I had submitted my talk for translation, my beloved eternal companion, Barbara, completed her mortal probation and passed into the spirit world.

As the days have turned into weeks, then months, and now a year since Barbara’s passing, I find myself more fully appreciating this scripture: “Thou shalt live together in love, insomuch that thou shalt weep for the loss of them that die.” Barbara and I were blessed to “live together in love” for 67 years. But I have learned in a very real way what it means to “weep for the loss” of those we love. Oh, how I love and miss her!

I suppose most of us fail to fully appreciate what others do for us until they are gone. I knew Barbara was always busy, but I did not fully understand the constant family, Church, and community demands upon her time. There were daily consecrated efforts repeated thousands of times through the years that kept our family functioning. And through it all, no one in our family ever heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word.

Floods of memories have washed over me this past year. I have thought about the physically demanding choice she made to be the mother of seven children. Being a homemaker was the only career she ever wanted, and she was in every aspect a consummate professional.

Often I have wondered how she kept track of our children and me. Meal preparation alone was a truly daunting task, not to mention activities such as doing the mountains of laundry our family generated every week and keeping shoes and appropriately sized clothing on the children. We all turned to her on a myriad of other issues that were important to us. And because they were important to us, they were also important to her. She was, in a word, magnificent—as a wife, as a mother, as a friend, as a neighbor, and as a daughter of God.

Now that she has moved on, I am happy that I chose to sit next to her when I came home from the office during the last few months of her life, to hold her hand as we watched the endings of some of her favorite musicals—over and over again because Alzheimer’s would not allow her to remember that she had seen them just the afternoon before. Memories of those special hand-holding sessions are now very, very precious to me.[3]