Heber John Sears was born in Huntingtonshire, England, September 13, 1861 to Sarah Ann Wagstaff and John Sears. The Sears family emigrated to the United States and settled in Utah territory in 1864, when Heber Sears was three years old. He attended public school and when 15 years old was employed by the ZCMI department store. By the time he was 25 years old, Sears was working as bookkeeper and cashier of the Ogden branch of the company. He then left the mercantile business to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in New Zealand. Returning from the mission, Sears and David Kay of Ogden established a grain and feed business in Salt Lake City. He later became head of the Farr and Sears Company of Ogden.
Sears moved to Chicago in 1894 to study medicine. For two years he studied at Rush Medical College and in 1902 organized the Crown Dental laboratory, which he owned and operated for 17 years. On June 5, 1906, Sears graduated from the college of physicians and surgeons of the University of Illinois and on July 2, 1906, passed the Utah state board of medical examiners. He began his medical practice in Chicago and in 1919 returned to Salt Lake City to join the faculty at the University of Utah. Sears was a director of the Utah Savings and Trust Company, a past president of the Holladay Civic Betterment League, director and president of the Heber J. Sears Investment Company, member of the Ensign Social Club, director of the Utah Public Health Association and a former member of the Utah state and Salt Lake county medical societies. In 1884 Sears married Belle Farr of Ogden. She died in 1936 and he married Flora Meyerhoffer. Heber John Sears died on February 24, 1942.
Source: S. L. Physician Succumbs to Heart Attack on Coast. (1942 February 25).
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Collection Name, Collection Number, Box Number, Folder Number. Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, The University of Utah.
Folders 1-7 donated anonymously in 2009. Folder 8 donated by Joyce Orlob Evans in 2010.
Processed by Special Collections staff.
See also the
The Heber J. Sears photograph collection consists of 1 box containing 27 photographs depicting Heber Sears and the Sears family, acquaintances, and locations in Salt Lake City, Utah. The collection includes a photograph of Wilford Woodruff by C.R. Savage; portraits of Phebe Carter Scholes Saville and her family; and photographs of the Lafayette School in Salt Lake County, including of the building exterior, staff, and classes of children.