On January 18, 1917, at the age of 37 with a growing family, Stephen L Richards was called and ordained an Apostle of the Lord, Jesus Christ. “Though his load was heavy and his health no too robust, Stephen L has been able to keep up his schedule because he knows how to relax. He bears no scars of this ‘age of ulcers’…Always carefully attired, you will find him of a summer day in soft wool shirt and trousers, both neatly pressed, but casual, walking where sunlight filters through tall Douglas fir or sitting before the snug fire that burns in the grate of a modest mountain cabin.” (Gordon B. Hinckley, Improvement Era, July 1951, 514)
Those mountain cabins began in Parley’s Canyon at Mount Air,then to a cabin near Mack’s Inn where the family played and fished in the Snake River.