Heber J. Grant had a difficult childhood after his father died when he was only nine days old, leaving his widowed mother in poverty. Through faith and hard work, his mother supported them by taking in sewing and boarders. Heber learned determination from his mother's example. Though they faced hardship, he later succeeded in building her a comfortable home.

1. When Heber J. Grant was only nine days old, his father, Jedediah M. Grant (a member of the First Presidency), died, leaving the frail infant and widowed mother in what after a short time was almost poverty. Many felt the delicate baby would not survive—and he would not have survived, had he not received the best of care from his mother.

3. When Jedediah Grant’s widows could not meet expenses, the lovely home and property on Main Street in Salt Lake City was sold and the money she purchased a little house and helped sudivided among the Grant heirs. Heber’s mother received five hundred dollars. With this money pport herself and Heber by sewing for others.

5. Heber learned from his mother that the Lord would bless them if they had faith, worked hard, and kept the commandments. As a boy he knew times of scarcity. “There were blustery nights with no fire and a meager diet that allowed only several pounds of butter and sugar for an entire year. One Christmas Rachel Grant wept because she lacked a dime to buy a stick of candy for [Heber’s] holiday”

7. Once during a heavy rain, at least a half dozen buckets were on the floor to catch the water that came through the leaky roof of the poor little home. Bishop Edwin D. Woolley (President Spencer W. Kimball’s grandfather) came over and offered to take money from the fast offerings and put a new roof on the house. Widow Grant refused, saying she would get along until her son grew into manhood and built her a new house.

9. The faith of this mother and son, during these trying times, embedded determination into their character. Heber’s mother took in boarders to help provide the necessities for her and her son. Heber learned to work hard and never used the circumstances at hand as an excuse to complain. Later Heber did succeed in building his mother a nice comfortable home, and he invited Bishop Woolley to dedicate it when it was finished. This experience enabled a great sense of gratitude and accomplishment to soar within the young Heber J. Grant.

11. Heber said, “‘When I joined the baseball club … I could not throw the ball from one base to another… I lacked the strength to run or bat the ball. When I picked up the ball, the boys would generally shout, “Throw it here, sissy!” So much fun was engendered on my account by my youthful companions that I solemnly vowed that I would play baseball in the team that would win the championship in Utah. … I shined … boots until I saved a dollar which I invested in a baseball and spent hours and hours throwing the ball at Bishop Edwin D. Woolley’s barn, which caused him to refer to me as the laziest boy in the Thirteenth Ward. Often my arm would ache so that I could scarcely go to sleep at night, but I kept on practicing and eventually played in the team that won the championship in California, Colorado, and Wyoming, and thus made good my promise to myself and retired from the baseball arena’”

13. “‘My mother,’” Heber said, “‘tried to teach me to sing when I was a small child, but failed because of my inability to carry a tune. I joined a singing class… and finally he gave up in despair. The teacher said that I could never, in this world, learn to sing … Then a friend told me that any person could learn to sing who had a reasonably good voice, and who possessed perseverance, and who was willing to do plenty of practicing.’” President Grant finally did learn to sing in tune because he kept practicing. Later, he said, while visiting the stakes in Arizona with Elders Rudger Clawson and J. Golden Kimball, “I asked them if they had any objection to my singing one hundred hymns that day. They took it as a joke and assured me that they would be delighted. We were on the way back from Holbrook to St. Johns, a distance of about sixty miles. After I had sung about forty times, they assured me that if I sang the remaining sixty they would have a nervous breakdown. I paid no attention whatever to their appeal but held them to their bargain and sang the full one hundred songs” Heber J. Grant’s interest in music extended beyond himself. He helped musicians and encouraged the Sunday broadcasts of the Tabernacle Choir. He personally sponsored the choir “in several trips to California and Chicago and authorized the formation of the Church Music Committee”

15. As a boy, Heber wanted to become a bookkeeper for the Wells Fargo and Company’s bank because he had learned it would pay much more than polishing shoes. He knew that he needed to improve his writing, however, to have such a job. “At the beginning his penmanship was so poor that when two of his chums were looking at it one said to the other, ‘That writing looks like hen tracks.’ ‘No,’ said the other, ‘it looks as if lightning had struck an ink bottle.’ He decided he would practice until he could write better than his two friends. He later said that he used carloads of paper practicing writing. Eventually, because of his developed talent, he was called on to write “greeting cards, wedding cards, insurance policies, stock certificates, and legal documents” In his day these things were written by hand and not printed. He was even offered a high salary to go to San Francisco as a penman, but declined. “He later taught penmanship and bookkeeping at the University of Deseret [University of Utah]”

17. Doctrine & Covenants 6:8 “Verily, verily, I say unto you, even as you desire of me so it shall be unto you; and if you desire, you shall be the means of doing much good.” How are you, as youth, using desire and determination as tools to bring about great works?

18. 1st Nephi 7:12 “Yea, and how is it that ye have forgotten that the Lord is able to do all things according to his will, for the children of men, if it so be that they exercise faith in him? Wherefore, let us be faithful to him.” How does having faith strengthen our character?