Wilford Booth

Joseph Wilford Booth was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who served his first mission to the Ottoman Empire in Turkey from 1898 to 1902. A year later he returned with his wife, Mary Reba. He then served as mission president there from 1904 to 1909, until the Turkish Mission had to be shut down because of political unrest. During his service, he attempted to start missionary work in Greece in 1905 when he dedicated Greece for the preaching of the gospel while visiting Mars Hill.

After a time as a school teacher in Utah, which he had been doing at the time of his first call, he returned to the area in 1921 as mission president again. The mission, now called the Armenian Mission, was headquartered in Syria, and his wife came to assist him in 1924. He died on December 5, 1928, in Aleppo, Syria, where he was buried. A monument stands in his honor in Aleppo and was dedicated in 1933 by John A. Widtsoe of the First Presidency.[1]

Booth was born on August 14, 1866, in Alpine, Utah. He graduated from Brigham Young Academy majoring in pedagogy. He is the author of Come Listen to a Prophet’s Voice.