Wells, Junius F.
See this page in the original 1992 publication.
Author: Smith, Paul Thomas
Junius Free Wells (1854-1930) was the organizer of the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association (YMMIA, in 1977 young men). Born June 1, 1854, in Salt Lake City, a son of Daniel H. and Hannah C. Free Wells, Junius attended school at the Union Academy and graduated from the university of Deseret at the age of seventeen. He was known as an exceptionally intelligent young man. As a youth, he managed his father's lumberyard and was a sales clerk for Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution (ZCMI).
He was called to serve a mission to Great Britain (1872-1874), and in 1874 he accompanied Elders George A. Smith, Lorenzo Snow, Relief Society President Eliza R. Snow, and others to Palestine, where, on the Mount of Olives, near Jerusalem, they dedicated the land for the restoration of the gospel. Immediately upon his return, Wells was asked by President Brigham Young to organize the first YMMIA in the Thirteenth ward in Salt Lake City, which he did on June 10, 1875. Wells married Helena Middleton Fobes on June 17, 1879. They were the parents of two children.
The YMMIA, counterpart to the previously organized association for young women, was charged to help boys develop intellectually and spiritually and to enjoy recreation under proper supervision. A central committee was formed on December 6, 1876, with Wells as president, to coordinate all associations organized throughout the Church. He served as president of the board for four years. In October 1879 he founded the Contributor, a monthly magazine that served both the young men and young women groups. Its motto was The Glory of God Is Intelligence (D&C 93:36). The publication featured articles written by young LDS men and women on a variety of literary and gospel themes. Wells served for thirteen years as its editor and publisher. In October 1899 the magazine was replaced by the Improvement Era.
Wells served a mission in the United States, laboring in the Midwest and New England. In 1919-1921, he served as associate editor of the Millennial Star, a Church magazine published in Liverpool, England, and accompanied the European mission president on visits to the Scandinavian, Swiss, and German missions.
Acting as agent for the Church, Junius purchased the Solomon Mack farm, the birthplace of the Prophet Joseph Smith. A Church-history enthusiast, Wells designed a hundred-ton granite monument, with a shaft 38.5 feet tall, commemorating the thirty-eight and a half years of the Prophet Joseph Smith's life. Erected near Sharon and South Royalton, Vermont, near the site of Joseph Smith's birthplace, the monument was dedicated by President Joseph F. Smith on December 23, 1905, the centennial of the Prophet's birth. In 1918 Wells made a smaller replica, which was erected in the Salt Lake Cemetery in honor of Hyrum Smith, the Prophet's brother.
Sustained as an assistant Church historian in 1921, Wells collected and preserved paintings and photographs of persons and scenes connected with the early History of the Church. In 1928 he was instrumental in purchasing thirty thousand dry-plate negatives of Church history scenes taken by LDS photographer George Edward Anderson.
He died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Salt Lake City on April 15, 1930. At his funeral on Easter Sunday, he was memorialized as a kind and thoughtful man of dignity who made friends easily, "a polished gentleman, a fearless servant of God" (Smith, p. 15).
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