Gerrit de Jong Jr. (28 March 1892,

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

– 26 September 1978,

Provo, Utah Provo ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Utah County, Utah, United States. It is south of Salt Lake City along the Wasatch Front, and lies between the cities of Orem, Utah, Orem to the north and Springville, Utah, Springville to the south ...

) was an American academic and the first dean of the

College of Fine Arts The School of Fine Arts or College of Fine Arts is the official name or part of the name of several schools of fine arts, often as an academic part of a larger university. These include: The Americas North America *Alabama School of Fin ...

Brigham Young University Brigham Young University (BYU) is a Private education, private research university in Provo, Utah, United States. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is the flagship university of the Church Educational System sponsore ...

(BYU). De Jong was skilled in music and wrote the words and music for the Latter-day Saint hymn, "Come Sing to the Lord," which is number 10 in the 1985 hymnal. Even though he was dean of the College of Fine Arts, de Jong spent most of his career teaching

foreign language A foreign language is a language that is not an official language of, nor typically spoken in, a specific country. Native speakers from that country usually need to acquire it through conscious learning, such as through language lessons at schoo ...

s. He was known as "Mr. Portuguese" because of his knowledge of

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

and Brazilian literature. The de Jong Concert Hall at BYU was named in his honor.

Personal life

De Jong converted to

the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Restorationism, restorationist Christianity, Christian Christian denomination, denomination and the ...

(LDS Church) from the

Dutch Reformed The Dutch Reformed Church (, , abbreviated NHK ) was the largest Christian denomination in the Netherlands from the onset of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century until 1930. It was the traditional denomination of the Dutch royal fami ...

(Protestant) tradition in his late teens.Margaret Harris Stover, ''The Descendants of Uldrich Winegar of Amenia, Dutchess County, New York'', 1998

References

External links

Archival materials relating to Gerrit De Jong
L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library,

{{DEFAULTSORT:De Jong, Gerrit 1892 births 1978 deaths Latter Day Saints from Utah Brigham Young University faculty Converts to Mormonism Jong, Gerrit de Jong, Gerrit de Jong, Gerrit de