Lorenzo Snow

Lorenzo Snow (April 3, 1814 – October 10, 1901) was an American religious leader who served as the fifth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1898 to his death. Snow was the last president of the LDS Church in the nineteenth century and the first in the twentieth.

Family

Snow was the fifth child and first son of Oliver Snow (September 18, 1775, Massachusetts – October 17, 1845, Illinois) and Rosetta L. Pettibone (October 22, 1778, Connecticut – October 12, 1846, Illinois), residents of Mantua Township, Ohio, who had left New England to settle on a new and fertile farm in the Connecticut Western Reserve. Lorenzo had siblings Leonora Abigail Snow (1801–1872), Eliza R. Snow (1804–1887), Percy Amanda Snow (1808–1848), Melissa Snow (1810–1835), Lucius Augustus Snow (born 1819), and Samuel Pearce Snow (born 1821).

Despite the labor required on the farm, the Snow family valued learning and saw that each child had educational opportunities. Snow received his final year of education at Oberlin College, which was originally founded by two Presbyterian ministers. Snow later made his living as a school teacher when not engaged in church service.