Avenues Historic District

Page 237

1084 3rd Avenue-1895 JAN 1 4 1380 Idaho, and Wyoming, he was consulting engineer on three of what the American Society on Civil Engineers called the "Seven Civil Engineering Wonders of the U.S.": The Sanitary District of Chicago, The Grand Coulee Dam, and the Columbia Basin Project. As a member of the Utah State Road Commission from 1909 to 1918, Lyman developed the "Lyman System" of street numbering, which made it possible, he said, "for anyone to find any street address in any city without help." Given his prominence in local church and professional circles, Lyman easily became involved in business affairs. He was president of the Burtner Real Estate and Investment Co., the Ensign Amusement Co., and the Grant Racer Co., one of the original directors of the Intermountain Life Insurance Co., and a member of the Board of Directors of half a dozen other insurance companies. Active in the Mormon Church throughout his life, Lyman was called to be an Apostle in 1918. He served in that capacity until 1945, when he was excommunicated from the Church for what Mormon President Heber J. Grant called "breaking the law of chastity." Lyman's wife, Amy Brown Lyman, was nearly as prominent in Mormon Church affairs as he was, as prominent as it was possible for a woman to be. She was born in Pleasant Grove, Utah, February 7, 1872. Her father, Bishop John Brown, was a member of the original company of Mromon pioneers that entered the Salt Lake Valley. In 1890 she graduated from Brigham Young Academy at Provo and taught for several years in the Salt Lake City schools. She gave up the teaching profession to become the wife of Richard R. Lyman, September 9, 1896. Long active in the Mormon Church's Relief Society, she organized its social welfare department and directed it for sixteen years, from 1940 to 1945 she was the Relief Society President. In addition to Church activity, she was actively associated with various social welfare agencies in Utah, serving as vice-chairman of the Community Clinic, and vice-chairman of the State Welfare Commission. She served on the advisory staff of the Salt Lake County Hospital and on the boards of the Family Service Society, the Traveler's Aid Society, the Legal Aid Society, and the Utah State Women's Commission on Unemployment. The Lymans occupied the house until their death, hers in 1959, his in 1964.