Elder Earl C. Tingey is an avid gardener who has great respect for the law of the harvest. He knows a person reaps what he or she sows - both spiritually and in agriculture - and he is dedicated to sharing the fruits of seeds he has planted and nurtured.
That holds as true with pumpkin seeds as it does with seeds of faith and testimony.According to his wife, the former Joanne Wells, Elder Tingey harvests a plentiful pumpkin crop each fall near the couple's Bountiful, Utah, home.
"One of the first questions that he had come into his mind after we began to assimilate this call into our minds was, I wonder if I will be able to grow pumpkins again this fall?' " laughed Sister Tingey. "He grows pumpkins for all the neighborhood children, for the ward to decorate with and for his little nephew to sell. When he comes in with his load of pumpkins in the truck, every neighborhood kid comes running and screaming down the street,Brother Tingey has his pumpkins!' They all come to get their pumpkin and are so excited when he brings them in for them."
Elder Tingey, 56, an imposing figure at 6-foot-3, was called last month to the First Quorum of the Seventy while serving as a counselor in the Utah Ogden Mission presidency. He began his full-time service as a General Authority Jan. 1, retiring as an attorney for Kennecott Corp., in Salt Lake City.
The Tingeys have four children: Tricia, 29; William "Bill," 28; Julie, 26; and Alan, 24. All graduated from BYU and are married, with Julie being married Jan. 12 in the Salt Lake Temple.
"I have always felt that a person should live the type of life so he or she is able to accept whatever call might come," Elder Tingey reflected, "but the timing of the call caught us totally off guard. I was awe struck at the call. I did not anticipate it, and it was an extremely humbling experience. But the way the Brethren issued the call was very gentle, very comforting."
Elder Tingey, 56, grew up on the family farm in the Centerville, Utah, area, about 15 miles north of Salt Lake City. He was the oldest of 10 children, The family raised apricots, peaches, cherries, corn, tomatoes, cantaloupe and honeydew, and trucked the produce to markets in Salt Lake City.
"We had a basic policy that if you worked, you ate," Elder Tingey recalled. "We ate what we produced on the farm."
Produce was picked and then packed each evening before being trucked to market at 4:30 the next morning. "We would sell our produce starting at 6 a.m., and hopefully by 9 a.m. we were sold out," he explained. "My father also would take orders to the Hotel Utah, Welfare Square and other places, and we would go out and buy produce from other dealers from California and deliver it to those places, as well. I visited Welfare Square virtually every day of my life as a youth, until I went to college."
Elder Tingey's father, William W. Tingey, still delivers produce twice a week.
Both Tingeys are quick to credit their families for much of what they have accomplished.
Sister Tingey also grew up on a farm, only her family settled at Logandale in the Moapa Valley, about 50 miles north of Las Vegas. Her parents, Edwin and Amy Earl Wells, were descendants of the group of early pioneers that went to the Moapa Valley to try and "eke out a living in that dry desert," Elder Tingey noted. "With irrigation, they tamed the desert, literally, in that mostly Mormon community on the western shores of Lake Mead. It's a dry, desolate valley with a little river. We both grew up in homes where the dedication to the Lord and the Church was total."
Added Sister Tingey: "My father and mother held family home evenings long before the program was called that. I remember gathering together regularly to talk about the gospel and other things. It was a good place to grow up."
Though the Wells family worked hard to run a farm, Amy Wells also taught school, a vocation Sister Tingey pursued. She earned an education degree at BYU and taught fourth grade for four years before her marriage and for a year afterward.
She was teaching elementary school when she met Elder Tingey, who was then in law school at the University of Utah, in the summer of 1959. He had returned in 1957 from a mission to Australia, and had two years of schooling in agriculture at Utah State University before he left. After his mission he transferred to the University of Utah.
Elder and Sister Tingey were introduced to each other by a cousin of Sister Tingey who lived in Centerville. They were engaged in April 1960 and married that June in the St. George Temple.
Elder Tingey said his proposal was "pretty straightforward," no elaborate schemes or gimmicks, though he did pop the question on April Fools' Day. He took his girlfriend to dinner one evening and left a ring on the dashboard of the car.
Elder Tingey graduated from law school in 1961, and the couple moved to the East Coast the day after Christmas to fulfill a military commitment.
Elder Tingey's educational transition from agriculture into law was sparked by his admiration for several Church leaders - attorneys by profession - whom he grew to know and admire on his mission. One, Elder Hugh B. Brown, an Assistant to the Twelve, who later served in the Council of the Twelve and as a counselor in the First Presidency, stayed with Elder Tingey and his companion during a visit to the mission. The young missionary subsequently read about the lives of Elder Brown and others, and elected to pursue their same career paths. He has had no regrets.
"Once I got into the legal profession, I loved it and realized that's where I really wanted to be."
Elder Tingey's first legal work after graduation and passing the bar was in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps while he was fulfilling a three-year military commitment. He and Sister Tingey left Utah the day after Christmas 1961 for the East, anticipating they would return to Utah after completing military service that took them to Kentucky, Virginia and New York City.
They did eventually return, but it was 19 years and a bushel of changes and wonderful experiences later.
As Elder Tingey was completing his third year in the Army in 1964, he was called to be bishop of the Manhattan Ward in the heart of New York City. The Tingeys had their eyes on Utah, and the call came as a complete surprise. It also marked a turning point in their lives.
"It was a turning point in the sense that we had never envisioned living our lives on the East Coast," explained Elder Tingey. "We were from Utah, were comfortable living in the West, our families were here, and we had planned to return after the short tour of duty in the military. But both Joanne and I had been taught that when you received a call in the Church, you accepted the call. The thought never occurred to us not to accept the call as bishop, though it required major adjustments in our lives. I had to get employment, which meant taking the New York bar exam. We couldn't buy a home in Manhattan, so for the next seven years we lived in an apartment, which was not our style, on the seventh floor of a large complex."
Sister Tingey initially wept at the thought of putting her children in the New York public schools, but the couple learned to love the city during the seven years Elder Tingey served there as bishop. They made lifelong friends and had a tremendous Church experience.
And even in the heart of the city, the former farmer found a small patch of soil in which to garden, cultivating one of about 15 small plots available to military personnel on Governors Island.
During those early years, Elder Tingey worked as a lawyer on Wall Street, before entering corporate practice. He also earned an advanced legal degree in corporation law at New York University, all while serving as bishop.
Sister Tingey would regularly take the children to the park or to visit other city sites, along with maintaining her Church responsibilities and supporting her husband.
The Tingeys were in New York to catch the wave of missionary activity generated by the Church pavilion at the New York World's Fair in 1964-65. In fact, Elder Tingey was called as bishop the first Sunday the fair opened. The new Church film, "Man's Search for Happiness," proved a tremendous missionary tool.
"The first year of the fair, we had just under 100 converts in the Manhattan Ward alone, and the second year there were almost 200 convert baptisms in the ward," Elder Tingey recalled. "Most of those resulted from the work at the fair; it had a marvelous effect on the people."
After being released as bishop in 1970, the Tingeys moved into a home in Connecticut. While there, Elder Tingey served as a counselor in the Eastern States Mission, and from there the family went to Australia for three years, where he was president of the Australia Sydney Mission.
After the mission assignment, they returned to Connecticut until 1980, when Elder Tingey accepted employment in Salt Lake City with Kennecott Corp. He served as a regional representative three years in Connecticut and four additional years after returning to Utah.
The Tingeys love Utah, but will always be grateful for their time in the East. "We came to love New York City, and being there gave us an opportunity to serve," Elder Tingey said. "Through that service we made some long lasting, dear friends who are among our best friends in the world. Had we not accepted that early Church assignment, we would have returned here and I'm sure been very happy. But I can't imagine not having that experience."
Added Sister Tingey: "I learned the Lord can plan our lives better than we can. We go wherever He wants. This new assignment will work out fine, because it always has."
(ADDITIONAL INFORMATION)
Elder Earl C. Tingey
Family: Born June 11, 1934, in Bountiful, Utah, to William W. and Sylvia Carr Tingey. Married Joanne Wells June 17, 1960, in the St. George Temple; parents of four children; eight grandchildren.
Education/military: Graduated from the University of Utah Law School in 1961 with juris doctorate, and from New York University in 1966 with master of corporate law degree; three years with the Judge Advocate General Corps in the U.S. Army, rank of captain.
Employment: Corporation attorney for Kennecott Corp., Texasgulf Inc., Bunker-Ramo Corp., New Jersey Zinc, and Wall Street law firm.
Previous Church service: Regional representative; president of Australia Sydney Mission; counselor in the presidencies of the Eastern States, Utah North and Utah Ogden missions; high councilor; bishop; elders quorum president; Sunday School teacher.
Other service and hobbies: President of Great Salt Lake Council, Boy Scouts of America, and recipient of BSA Silver Beaver; member of the University of Utah Alumni Board; president of the university's New York Alumni chapter; member of National Advisory Board of the Utah Symphony; avid gardener and outdoorsman.
