Gerrit de Jong Jr. (28 March 1892,

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

– 26 September 1978, Provo, Utah) 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, sometimes referred to colloquially as The Y) is a private research university in Provo, Utah. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-d ...

(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 given country, and that native speakers from that country must usually acquire through conscious learning - be this through language lessons at school ...

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 Brazilian literature is the literature written in the Portuguese language by Brazilians or in Brazil, including works written prior to the country's independence in 1822. Throughout its early years, literature from Brazil followed the literary t ...

. The de Jong Concert Hall at BYU is named in his honor.

Personal life

de Jong is the son of Gerrit de Jong and Lida Marianna Kuiper. He 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 nontrinitarian Christian church that considers itself to be the restoration of the original church founded by Jesus Christ. The ch ...

(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 original denomination of the Dutch Royal Family and ...

(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 The Harold B. Lee Library (HBLL) is the main academic library of Brigham Young University (BYU) located in Provo, Utah. The library started as a small collection of books in the president's office in 1876 before moving in 1891. The Heber J. Gr ...

{{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