Wallace F. Bennett

Wallace Foster Bennett (November 13, 1898 – December 19, 1993) was an American businessman and politician. A member of the Republican Party, he served as a U.S. senator from Utah from 1951 to 1974. He was the father of Bob Bennett, who later held his father's seat in the Senate.

Wallace Bennett was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, to John Foster and Rosetta Elizabeth (née Wallace) Bennett. His grandparents were English immigrants who came to the United States in 1868. He received his early education at local public schools and graduated from LDS High School in 1916. He then enrolled at the University of Utah, where he majored in English and won a varsity letter in debate.

Bennett, a member of the university's Reserve Officers' Training Corps, interrupted his college education to serve in the US Army during World War I. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant of the Infantry in September 1918 and was assigned as an instructor in the Student Army Training Corps at Colorado College. He later returned to the University of Utah and earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1919. For a year after his graduation, he served as principal of San Luis Stake Academy in Manassa, Colorado.

In 1922, Bennett married Frances Marion Grant, the youngest daughter of Heber J. Grant (who served as President of the LDS Church from 1918 to 1945). The couple had three sons, Wallace, David, and Robert; and two daughters, Rosemary and Frances.

Frances served for a time as a member of the Primary General Board of the LDS Church.

In 1920, Bennett returned to Salt Lake City and became an office clerk at Bennett's Paint and Glass Company, which his father had established. He was later advanced to cashier, production manager, and sales manager. He became secretary-treasurer of the company in 1929 and, after his father's death in 1938, became president and general manager. He served in that position until 1950, when he became chairman of the board. In 1938, the company completed what Bennett described as the most modern paint manufacturing plant in the West.

In addition to his work in his family's business, Bennett organized a Ford dealership, the Bennett Motor Company, and served as its president from 1939 to 1950. He also served as president of the Cardon Jewelry Company and of the National Glass Distributors Association; vice-president of Glayton Investment Company and of the National Paint, Varnish and Lacquer Association; and director of Zion's Savings Bank and Trust Company, the Utah Oil Refining Company, and the Utah Home Fire Insurance Company. In 1949, he was elected president of the National Association of Manufacturers. He spent his year-long tenure as president traveling the country and preached "the partnership of the men who put up the money, the men who do the work, and the men who tie the whole thing together."

He hosted a daily one-hour program, The Observatory Hour, on KSL (1932–1933), and was president of the Salt Lake Civic Opera Company (1938–1941) and the Salt Lake Community Chest (1944–1945). In 1935, he became treasurer of the Latter-day Saints Sunday School General Board. He directed the chorus of student nurses of LDS Hospital (1942–1948) and wrote the words to God of Power, God of Right, which is Hymn #20 in the 1985 Latter-day Saints Hymnal. He authored Faith and Freedom (1950) and Why I am a Mormon (1958).