"Smile awhile, and while you smile another smiles. And soon there's miles and miles of smiles. And life's worthwhile because you smile." Thousands of students at the University of Utah and missionaries at the old Salt Lake mission home can attest to this tribute printed next to the senior class picture of Thomas J. Parmley in the 1915 Jordan High School yearbook. Through the years as a foremost educator at the University of Utah, Brother Parmley left a legacy of excellence and optimism, spawned by a widowed mother's desire to see him succeed and nurtured by his marriage to a future Primary general president.
"What's the longest word in the English language?" asked Parmley, 92, during a Church News interview. "The word is smiles. There's a mile between the two Ss."Parmley was born Nov. 2, 1897, in Scofield, Utah. His father was killed in a nearby mine disaster in 1900, leaving Parmley's mother, pregnant at the time, to support the family as a seamstress. Out of six children, four grew to maturity, he reflected.
"There were two important things in her [his mother'sT life," Parmley remembered. "One was the Church and, second, `Get a good education so you make someone of yourself.' "
When he was in the 5th grade, the family moved to a one-acre farm in Sandy, Utah, where he helped out financially by picking berries or unloading train cars full of ore from a nearby mine.
Following graduation from Jordan High School, Parmley entered the University of Utah. Although he took time off from school to work, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in physics in 1921.
While working as an instructor at the university, he married LaVern Watts of Murray, Utah, on June 28, 1923, in the Salt Lake Temple.
Parmley completed his doctorate in physics at Cornell University in 1927 and the couple settled in Salt Lake City. In 1942, Sister Parmley was called as a counselor in the Primary general presidency. In 1951 she was called as general Primary president and served until 1974. He served for about 13 years on the Deseret Sunday School Union Board.
Sister Parmley died in 1980. "She was one of the greatest women in the Church," Parmley said, his eyes brimming with tears.
He is especially proud of the bronze plaques at both entrances of the board room at the Primary Children's Medical Center bearing Sister Parmley's name.
The Parmleys had three children: Frances, an archaeologist and head of volunteer efforts for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra; Richard, a scientist at Lockheed near San Francisco; and William, chief of cardiology at the University of California at San Francisco.
Parmley's career as a professor and, ultimately, chairman of the University of Utah's department of physics spanned more than 50 years. He retired in 1967 at age 70, but continued teaching selective courses until he was 82.
Class demonstrations made his teaching notable among students. Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Council of the Twelve and Don Lind, an astronaut on the 1985 Challenger flight, were included among his students.
Parmley also addressed missionaries in the mission home in Salt Lake City for 16 years about science and religion. He said he was always comfortable having the two subjects in the same context.
"The gospel seems so very simple . . . , but it is so encompassing . . . ," he explained. "It can intrigue the most humble person and the most intellectual person."
He said many inventions complemented the restoration of the gospel. In 1831, one year after the Church was restored, Michael Faraday discovered a current could be created by putting a magnet near a loop of wire. This led to the telephone and worldwide communication.
Parmley's enthusiasm for life has not diminished. He now spends his days with neighborhood children who gather around his porch chair as he teaches them something about physics, or by compiling scrapbooks of treasured reminders of his life.
