Mildred Bennion Eyring
Mildred Bennion Eyring was the wife of prominent scientist Henry Eyring.
She was born on May 23, 1896, in Granger, Utah, to Marcus Bennion and Lucy Evelyn Smith Bennion. She graduated from the University of Utah and did graduate work at the University of Wisconsin. While a doctoral candidate, she was the acting chair of the women’s physical education department at the University of Utah.
She married Henry Eyring Sr. on August 25, 1928, in Chicago, Illinois. They were the parents of three sons, including Henry B. Eyring, Second Counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Son Harden Romney Eyring was an attorney and administrator and son Edward Marcus Eyring was a chemistry professor.
For 19 years, she was a member of the Relief Society general board.
She died on June 25, 1969, in Salt Lake City, Utah, at the age of 73. . In his general conference talks, son Henry B. Eyring often refers to his childhood. He remembers a home filled with ideas where there were black boards in the basement instead of ping pong tables. “We’d talk about spiritual things, we’d talk world affairs, we’d talk about history,” he recalls, “So the dinner table was the most interesting place you’ve ever been in your life. Here are these brilliant people talking, but not trying to be brilliant.”[1]
