Background
Jeffs, born in Salt Lake City on December 6, 1909, was the son of first generation fundamentalist David William Ward Jeffs and his plural wife Nettie Lenora Timpson.
Jeffs, born in Salt Lake City on December 6, 1909, was the son of first generation fundamentalist David William Ward Jeffs and his plural wife Nettie Lenora Timpson.
Jeffs was responsible for incorporating the organization, formerly known as the "Priesthood Work", on February 6, 1991. The elder Jeffs lived his polygamous lifestyle in secret, and Rulon spent the first ten years of his life under the pseudonym Rulon Jennings. Rulon embraced the fundamentalist message after meeting Musser and John Y. Barlow.
In the spring of 1945, Jeffs, who had been working in northern Idaho since 1943, returned to Salt Lake City, where he was ordained a High Priest Apostle by John Y. Barlow on April 19.
Jeffs was a protege of both Barlow and later Priesthood Council senior Leroy South. Johnson, who compared their relationship to that of Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball. Jeffs assumed the leadership of the group after Johnson"s death in 1986.