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Marion George Romney (September 19, 1897 - May 20, 1988) was a high-ranking official of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Born in Colonia Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico to parents who had come from the United States to spread the Church, he was the son of George S. Romney and a cousin of Michigan governor George W. Romney, who was born in nearby Colonia Dublan and is the father of 2008 Republican presidential candidate former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. Elder Romney's family left Mexico in 1912 as violence from the ongoing Mexican revolution spread to their region. He spent the remainder of his youth in California and Idaho. Marion G. Romney's 47 years as a General Authority of the Church began when he was the first person ever called to fill the position of an Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1941 (the position was abolished in 1976). In 1951 he was advanced to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles himself, and served on that body until he became Second Counselor in the First Presidency when Harold B. Lee, with whom he had worked on the Church Welfare program, became Church President in 1972. Lee's death the following year brought Spencer W. Kimball to the church presidency; who retained Romney and First Counselor Nathan Eldon Tanner in their positions. As Kimball, Tanner, and Romney all became octogenarians and developed health problems, it was decided to add Gordon B. Hinckley as an additional counselor in 1981. Upon Tanner's death in 1982 Romney was named First Counselor and Hinckley Second Counselor, but Romney was fairly inactive in this position. When Kimball died in 1985 press reports indicated Romney had not been seen in public for many months. Ezra Taft Benson, who had been President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, became the next church President and named Hinckley his First Counselor. Romney, as the next longest serving Apostle after Benson, succeeded as of right to the position of President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. However, in recognition of Romney's continuing ill health, Howard W. Hunter, who ranked next in seniority, was made Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve, and Romney was never formally set apart to his new position. [ citation needed ] On Romney's death at age 90, the Church Almanac remembered him as a "renowned Church Welfare pioneer and Book of Mormon scholar".
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