Emil Julius Huber

Emil Julius Huber, of Swiss ancestry, was born in Paris, France, on March 7, 1885. His parents, Emil Kaspar Huber and Maris Moor moved the family to Zurich, Switzerland, where at age sixteen, Huber joined the LDS Church on September 27, 1901. Four years later he emigrated to Utah and with a degree from a technical school in Winterthur, Switzerland, found work in Salt Lake City in the city’s engineer office. Not long after arriving he met and became engaged to Martha Gunther, a native of Leipzig, Germany. On July 23, 1907, Huber, age twenty-two, was set apart to serve as a missionary in the Turkish Mission. On his way to the Middle East, he passed through LDS Church headquarters in Liverpool and stopped to visit his family in Zurich before proceeding to Alexandria, Egypt, where he arrived in September. He spent the winter months with two other missionaries, Elders Shepherd and Thorup. Together they worked among the Egyptians and the international community, passing out religious tracts, studying Turkish and Arabic, and associating with a small group of Mormon converts (including the Kezerians and Khojaguzians) who had moved there from Zara, Turkey. Early in March 1908 the two missionaries left Egypt and traveled to Syria, arriving at the mission headquarters in Aleppo on March 14. On March 26, Elder Shepherd and Elder Phelps left the mission home to work in Aintab, about sixty miles to the north, while Elder Huber remained in Aleppo to assist President and Sister Booth. He worked closely with Booth, visiting and instructing Church members, calling on government officials and other dignitaries, and speaking to audiences about Mormonism. Booth recorded the words uttered by Huber on one such occasion: “During the last Sunday services which he attended, Elder Huber arose, and with a voice trembling under the power of the Holy Spirit, bore his last testimony, and among other things, he said: ‘I know the Gospel is true, and you cannot deny it, having heard it preached by a humble servant of the Lord. At least once he had the opportunity to perform the ordinance of confirmation after the baptism of four new members in the river north of Aleppo. When Booth departed on April 14 to visit the members and missionaries in Aintab, he felt confident enough in Huber’s abilities and integrity to leave him in charge of providing financial assistance to Armenian Church members suffering from poverty. On May 9, after an absence of almost a month, Booth returned to Aleppo to find Huber extremely ill from typhus, and his wife, Reba, exhausted from her vigil of caring for him. For the next week Joseph and Reba took turns around the clock ministering to Huber at his bedside. Local Church members also held special prayers and fasts in his behalf. The Booths were guardedly optimistic when Huber showed signs of improvement, but his strength gradually dissipated, and there was little that the doctors or the distraught mission president and his wife could do to help. President Booth’s journal entries portray the poignancy of the events surrounding Huber’s final hours. SOURCE: Mormon Historical Studies| Toronto: The Deaths of Emil J. Huber and Joseph W. Booth in Aleppo, Syria. URL: https://ensignpeakfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/LDS-Missionary-Work-in-the-Middle-East.pdf